Lahn Valley Railway

Lahn Valley Railway
Overview
Native name	Lahntalbahn
Locale	Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, Germany
Termini	Koblenz Wetzlar
Line number	3030 (Oberlahnstein–Hohenrhein) 3710 (Koblenz–Wetzlar)
Technical
Line length	104 km (65 mi)
Number of tracks	2: Koblenz–Niederlahnstein 2: Hohenrhein–Dausenau 2: Nassau (Lahn)–Wetzlar
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ^1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	15 kV/16.7 Hz AC overhead catenary (Limburg–Eschhofen:)
Route number	625
Route map Legend Left Rhine line from Cologne Moselle line from Trier 103.7 Koblenz Hbf Left Rhine line to Mainz Horchheim rail bridge (Rhine) Right Rhine line from Cologne 101.2 Koblenz Horchheim Bridge junction 99.2 Niederlahnstein Right Rhine line from Wiesbaden 99.0 Oberlahnstein (original route, closed 30 May 1983) Lahn 96.7 Hohenrhein junction 93.9 Friedrichssegen (former connection to narrow gauge cog railway) 90.1 Nievern 88.2 Bad Ems West 86.4 Bad Ems 82.8 Dausenau(Hp+Abzw) 79.4 Lahn 78.6 Nassau (Lahn) 76.4 Hollerich Tunnel (319 m) 75.2 Langenau Tunnel (232 m) 74.6 Obernhof Tunnel (450 m) 74.4 Lahn 74.2 Obernhof (Lahn) 72.5 Kalkofen Tunnel (592 m) 67.9 Laurenburg Tunnel (225 m) 67.3 Laurenburg (Lahn) 61.1 Cramberg Tunnel (732 m) 61.4 Balduinstein 60.6 Lahn 60.5 Daubach Tunnel (193 m) 60.0 Kehrberg Tunnel (262 m) 58.2 Lahn 58.0 Fachingen (Lahn) 57.7 Faching Tunnel (425 m) 55.5 Diez Tunnel (105 m) 55.0 Diez former Aar Valley Railway to Wiesbaden Ost 55.2 Freiendiez Tunnel (65 m) Upper Westerwald line from Au (Sieg) and Lower Westerwald line from Siershahn 52.2 Limburg (Lahn) A 3 50.3 Cologne–Frankfurt HSL 48.9 Eschhofen Main-Lahn line to Frankfurt 47.4 Ennerich Tunnel (494 m) 46.8 Lahn Kerkerbach Railway from Dehrn (generally metre, this section originally mixed, now standard gauge) 46.6 Kerkerbach former Kerkerbach Railway to Mengerskirchen 44.6 Runkel 41.7 Villmar 40.9 Villmarer Tunnel (228 m) 38.1 Arfurt (Lahn) Lahn 35.0 Aumenau 31.2 Fürfurt 29.5 Gräveneck Tunnel (127 m) 28.7 Gräveneck 27.6 Schmidtskopf Tunnel (223 m) 27.1 Michelsberg Tunnel (433 m) 25.5 Kirschhofen Tunnel (495 m) 24.9 Guntersau former Weil Valley Railway from Grävenwiesbach 23.8 Gensberg junction 23.5 Weilburger Tunnel (302 m) Lahn 23.0 Weilburg 20.2 Löhnberg former Ulmbach Valley Railway from Beilstein 14.3 Stockhausen (Lahn) Lahn B 49 former Ernst Railway from Philippstein (narrow gauge) 10.7 Leun/Braunfels(former Lahn station) 7.5 Solms former Solmsbach Valley Railway from Grävenwiesbach 5.5 Albshausen 2.6 Bundeswehrverladeanlage junction Lahn former connecting curve to Dill line Dill B 49 Dill line from Siegen 0.0 Wetzlar Dill line to Gießen Source: German railway atlas[1]

The Lahn Valley Railway is a railway line between Niederlahnstein in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate to Wetzlar in Hesse. Its western terminus was originally in Oberlahnstein. Trains now mostly operate between Koblenz and Gießen. The line was opened by the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company and the Nassau State Railway between 1858 and 1863 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.

Route

Weilburg Tunnel

The line is listed by Deutsche Bahn as timetable route number 625 and track route number 3710.

The route is mostly not electrified, the exception is the short Eschhofen–Limburg an der Lahn section, which is part of the electrified Frankfurt Hbf–Limburg line, and the section between Wetzlar and Giessen, which is now part of the Dill Railway. The railway follows the largely winding course of the Lahn valley. It is only a few metres above the river’s surface and is characterised by numerous bridges and tunnels. It is therefore extremely scenic.

As the line has never been fundamentally modernised, its numerous engineering structures, semaphore signals and accompanying telegraph lines have been preserved. The Hessian section of the line is a listed monument under the Hessian Heritage Act.

The winding line is not suitable for higher speeds. The Lahn Valley line is one of few major lines in Germany, which is not electrified. Electrification would be very expensive since many of its 18 tunnels and bridges have low clearances, which would also prevent the use of double deck carriages.

History

Lower Lahn valley 1906

After the Taunus Railway (Taunus-Eisenbahn) reached Wiesbaden from Frankfurt in 1840, a private company was founded to continue the line along the Rhine. This was originally called the Wiesbaden Railway Company (Wiesbadener Eisenbahngesellschaft). In 1853 it was renamed the Nassau Rhine Railway Company (Nassauische Rhein Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) when it received a concession to build and operate the Nassau Rhine Valley Railway between Wiesbaden and Niederlahnstein. The Nassau government initially opposed the construction of a line in the Lahn valley because it had invested massively since1844 in the development of the Lahn as a waterway. In 1855 the company received a provisional concession for the Lahn Valley Railway and it was renamed the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company (Nassauische Rhein- und Lahn Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft).The permanent concession for the Lahn valley line was issued on 31 March 1857. The first plan for the line was prepared by the Belgian railway engineer, Frans Splingard from 1849 to 1851.

A first section of the line from Oberlahnstein to Bad Ems was opened on 1 July 1858, but shortly afterwards it was buried by a landslide. Since the Nassau Rhine and Lahn Railway Company lacked the will and the necessary capital for the speedy construction of the lines, the Duchy of Nassau in 1857 withdrew its concessions, nationalised the company, and built and operated the lines as the Nassau State Railway (Nassauische Staatsbahn). The Lahn Valley Railway, as it exists today was essentially conceived by the railway engineer, Moritz Hilf in 1860. It was opened in three sections and completed on 10 January 1863. The extension of the line had more than six kilometres of tunnels. The architect and royal railway and operations supervisor, Heinrich Velde was responsible for the buildings, particularly the railway stations, the station master’s houses and the tunnel portals.

With the end of the Duchy as an independent state as a result of the Austro-Prussian War, the Nassau State Railway was absorbed by the Prussian State Railways. Subsequently a direct connection was opened to Niederlahnstein on the main line on 15 May 1879.

Following the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, the Lahn Valley Railway from Koblenz to Wetzlar was extended to Berlin as the Berlin–Wetzlar railway, part of the so-called Cannons Railway (Kanonenbahn), a strategic military railway from Berlin to Metz via Wetzlar, Koblenz and Trier. As a result, the Lahn valley line was upgraded with a second track, laid between 1875 and 1880. While the whole line was duplicated at that time, several sections between Koblenz and Limburg were rebuilt with single track after the Second World War, between Niederlahnstein and Hohenrhein, between Dausenau and Nassau and between Fachingen and Balduinstein.

Operations

216 221 with RB 6944 Weilburg–Koblenz in Nassau (Lahn), 1998.

218 398 with RB 22341 Koblenz–Gießen in Runkel, 2003.

vectus Verkehrsgesellschaft DMU in Limburg station

During the planning for the Cologne–Frankfurt high-speed rail line consideration was given to relocating the Lahn Valley Railway between the stations of Limburg and Eschhofen so that a common interchange station could be built near Limburg. It was determined that this would have incurred significant additional costs. Instead it was decided to relocate the Lower Westerwald Railway from Limburg to Siershahn, moving Montabaur station to the new ICE station.

Passengers

Until the late 1970s, there were long-distance trains on the Lahn Valley Railway, including a pair of express trains to and from Trier to Westerland. Some timetables had an express train on the Paris–Trier–Koblenz route, continuing on the Lahn valley line to Gießen.

Services on the Lahn valley line were for many years shared between locomotive-hauled trains and diesel multiple units (DMUs). Express trains were usually formed with class V 200 locomotives and "standard carriages" (UIC-X-Wagen). At the end of the 1980s, the picture changed with the arrival of brand-new class 628 DMUs, which eventually displaced many DMUs and locomotive-hauled trains. The latter services continued until December 2004, initially for many years with class 212 and 216 locomotives, which were from 1998 onwards replaced by class 215s, which were in turn replaced in December 2002 with class 218s. The trains initially consisted of standard carriages, and later were formed increasingly from Silberling carriages. Except for commuter and school services, passenger trains were almost entirely provided by DMUs.

Since the timetable change in December 2008, Regional-Express services have been provided by class 612 DMUs with active tilting technology, which allowed travel times between Limburg and Gießen to be shortened by about eleven minutes.^[2] Since the end of October 2009, two incidents in relation to the tilting system has led to it being switched off, delaying trains by about 10 to 15 minutes.^[3]

Between Limburg and Gießen Regionalbahn trains operate usually hourly Monday to Friday, and half-hourly in peak periods. On weekends they operate every two hours. The regional train services are operated by DB Regio with class 628 DMUs. Since the timetable change in 2006, some regional services are provided by Vogelsbergbahn and run continuously between Limburg and Fulda.

On the Rhineland-Palatinate section between Limburg and Koblenz, Regionalbahn services are now mainly operated by the private operator vectus Verkehrsgesellschaft, using LINT 27 and LINT 41 railcars, usually every hour.

The following is a summary of the current passenger service on the Lahn Valley Railway (DB Timetable 2010):^[4]

Type		Line	Comments	Train class	Company
Regional-Express		Koblenz Hbf–Limburg (Lahn)-Gießen	120 minute frequency	DB BR 612	DB Regio AG
Regionalbahn		Koblenz Hbf–Nassau–Bad Ems–Limburg (Lahn)	60 minute frequency plus extras in peak	Coradia Lint 27 / 41	vectus Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH
Regionalbahn		Limburg (Lahn)-Weilburg-Wetzlar-Gießen	60 minute frequency extras in peak / partly by connection with Alsfeld (Oberhessen), Fulda	DB BR 628	DB Regio AG

Freight

216 102 with the weekly tanker train in Balduinstein, 2003.

Since the decline of mining in the Lahn valley there has been little freight on the line. Up to the 1990s regular freight traffic gradually came to a standstill. The Löhnberg–Wetzlar section for many years had no freight. Many goods yards and the extensive system of track that existed before the turn of the century were largely eliminated.

The situation has changed since the 1980s as all trains for the transport of clay mined in the Westerwald and bound for Italy have since the closure of the Brexbach Valley Railway between Engers and Siershahn travelled via Limburg. Loaded clay wagons from the Westerwald are assembled into unit trains in Limburg. These trains then run over the Main-Lahn line to Frankfurt, Mannheim and Basel, mainly continuing to Domodossola in northern Italy. Therefore, Limburg station still has an extensive goods yard. Clay is transported by truck from the mines in the adjacent Westerwald to Löhnberg station, where it is loaded on the Lahn Valley Railway. Thus, Limburg and Löhnberg are the only stations on the Lahn valley line that still handle freight.

Notes

1. Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland (German railway atlas). Schweers + Wall. 2009. ISBN 978-3-89494-139-0.
2. Vorankündigung durch die Nassauische Neue Presse (2008): Mit Neigetechnik durchs Lahntal, Article of 8 January 2008, Limburg an der Lahn
3. "DB Bahn for Hesse" (Press release). Deutsche Bahn.
4. DB Bahn timetable 2010

References

• Kandler, Udo (2007). Dieselbetrieb im Lahntal - Von den achtziger Jahren bis heute (in German). Freiburg: Eisenbahn-Bildarchiv, EK-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-88255-368-0.
• Seyferth, Joachim (2006). Die Lahntalbahn (in German). Wiesbaden: Schiene Verlag. ISBN 3-926669-07-1.
• Hager, Bernhard (2006). "Im gesegnetesten Theil des reizendschönen Landes". Eisenbahn-Geschichte (in German) (17): 24–37. ISSN 1611-6283.
• Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen, ed. (2005). Eisenbahn in Hessen. Eisenbahnenbauten- und strecken 1839–1939 (in German) 2.1. Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart. pp. 276ff (line 017). ISBN 3-8062-1917-6.
• Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland (German railway atlas) (2007/2008 ed.). Schweers + Wall. 2007. ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9.

External links

• ""Lahntalbahn" Koblenz – Wetzlar" (in German). westerwaelder-bahnen.net. Retrieved 14 December 2010.
• "Photographs of tunnel portals" (in German). Tunnelportale. Retrieved 14 December 2010.