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111-719: The first station in Ludwigshafen was a terminus in Rheinschanze, now central Ludwigshafen, opened on 11 June 1847 on the Palatine Ludwig Railway to the coal pits of Bexbach, now Saarland . The station was located immediately next to the port of Winterhafen, which opened in 1845, so a direct access to the Rhine was possible. The station building was a two-storey building with a clock tower and single-storey wings on its south side. The original station building

222-434: A cheaper way of improving the city’s transport links. Some Regional-Express trains that now stop at Ludwigshafen-Mitte do not stop at Ludwigshafen Hauptbahnhof. In December 2008, Rhine-Neckar Transport ( Rhein-Neckar-Verkehr ) closed two of the four tram tracks leading to the station, including the lines running through the tram tunnel. In the end this had only been used in peak hours, by about 1,000 passengers each day. In

333-642: A day starting in Germersheim , ran on the Rohrbach–Saarbrücken section. Scheduled passenger services had to be temporarily withdrawn, especially in the Saarbrücken area. Passenger services only recommenced after the operation of military trains had declined. The further course of the war affected the line and some of its structures. After Germany had lost the war and the French military had invaded

444-490: A direct link from Homburg via Limbach and Kirkel to Rohrbach. This line opened on 1 January 1904; at the same time a second track was built between Scheidt and Rohrbach. The line was initially designated as part of the Glan Valley Railway ( Glantalbahn ), which was opened on 1 May of the same year and was also built as a strategic railway. A connecting curve in the Saarbrücken district of Halberg from

555-722: A framework agreement was signed between the Saarland and DB for new local services, including a CityBahn service on the Saarbrücken–Kaiserslautern route with reduced stops and a Citybahn service on the Saarbrücken–Homburg route with stops at all stations. From 1991 onwards the IR ;27 InterRegio service ran on the Saarbrücken–Stuttgart route, continuing to Lindau and Bregenz at two-hour intervals. At

666-548: A new location. DB took it into operation in May 1969 and it was officially opened on 1 June. Its predecessor was then demolished along with the associated railway tracks. With the dissolution of the railway division of Mainz on 1 June 1971, the Ludwigshafen–Frankenstein section was transferred to the responsibility of the railway division of Karlsruhe. From 1 August of that year, the railway division of Saarbrücken

777-664: A rail link across the Rhine would connect the Ludwig Railway with Bavarian Lower Franconia without crossing Württemberg . Added to this was the fact that the upgrading of the Mainz pontoon bridge and the extension of the Appenweier–Kehl railway to Strasbourg in 1861 threatened to reduce the competitiveness of the Ludwig Railway. In a treaty concluded at the beginning of 1862, the two countries agreed that Baden would take over

888-588: A result Neustadt and Homburg has fewer stops by long-distance trains. The route was temporarily the only one within the Palatinate with long-distance services. The ICE trains run on the Frankfurt–Saarbrücken–Paris route; some ICE and IC services run to Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich. In the first decades, the Ludwig Railway primarily served as an export route for coal from the Saar basin. Afterwards,

999-671: A second two-track Rhine bridge between Mannheim and Ludwigshafen began in 1997. In 2006, the S-Bahn reached Homburg, which since then has formed the western terminus of the VRN. The introduction of the S-Bahn operation resulted in the modernisation of the stations along the line; The platforms have since been raised to a height of 76 centimetres to enable level access to the trains. The platforms between Ludwigshafen and Kaiserslautern are on average 210 metres-long, from Kaiserslautern they are 140 metres-long. Ludwigshafen (Rhein) Mitte station

1110-473: A shorter connection between Homburg and Saarbrücken than the previous route via Bexbach and Neunkirchen. The Hasseler Tunnel on the Würzbach Railway east of St. Ingbert became increasingly an operational problem due to its geological instability. The first option was a new lining for the existing tunnel, the second a new tunnel and the third a completely new route to Rohrbach that would not need

1221-743: A shorter connection to Saarbrücken, which was used by services on the Ludwigshafen–Saarbrücken route. Nevertheless, there were connections to Neunkirchen over the old Ludwig Railway. Most of the express trains were limited to the Mainz–Ludwigshafen–Homburg–Neunkirchen route. In later years, long-distance trains running on the Munich–Oostende route using the Landau–Rohrbach railway , opened in 1875, ran between Saarbrücken and St. Ingbert. In 1884, local services on

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1332-647: A tunnel. Due to the strategic importance of the line, the Imperial Government intervened in the matter and chose the third option. Since the Palatinate Railway was not able to finance it fully, the Imperial Government subsidised the project. An approximately 5.7 kilometre long loop was built between Würzbach and St. Ingbert through Rohrbach and put in operation on 7 September 1895. The closing and dismantling of

1443-456: A widely spaced site. The western platforms serve the tracks between Mannheim and Neustadt; the eastern platforms serve the tracks between Neustadt and Mainz and the commuter trains from the Palatinate to the BASF factory. A cable-stayed bridge was also built above the station for Federal Highway B 37 and a tram tunnel and a tunnel for pedestrians and cyclists was built under it. The station building

1554-515: Is partly built below the high-level platforms. The station forecourt is divided into three parts. Taxi stands and a parking area are located in the western part. The bus station is to the east under the main street. In the middle a four-track tunnel of the tram station was built under a pedestrian area; this is also used by the trains of the Rhine-Haardt Railway ( Rhein-Haardtbahn ). Under the 1962 agreement concluded with Ludwigshafen,

1665-557: Is responsible for the Homburg–Saarbrücken section. Starting from mid-2010, the section between Ludwigshafen and Limburgerhof received a third track, which went into operation at the end of 2014. The freight track that have existed since 1900 were rebuilt. The equipping of lines with ETCS Level 2 has been reserved for the German Unity Transport Project No. 8 ( Verkehrsprojekt Deutsche Einheit Nr. 8 ,

1776-544: Is the most important railway line that runs through the Palatinate . It serves both passenger and freight transport and carries international traffic. The route was largely opened from 1847 to 1849 as the Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn (Palatine Ludwig Railway) between Ludwigshafen and Bexbach . The line is identical with the Ludwig Railway between Ludwigshafen and Homburg and it therefore often referred to as

1887-644: The Deutsche Reichsbahn period, the steam depots of the old Palatine Railway continued to be used. Locomotives of classes 01 , 03 , 44 and 64 were added. In addition, locomotives of classes 58.0 , 75.0 and 75.4 were operated. These steam locomotives operated between Mannheim and Saarbrücken after the Second World War. In the 1950s, class 01 locomotives hauled fast trains from Trier and class 03 locomotives hauled fast trains from Ludwigshafen and Kaiserslautern. Operations of local traffic

1998-659: The Frankensteiner Steige ( Frankenstein climb) would have had too steep. This route would have required stationary steam engines and rope haulage to overcome the differences in altitude. For this reason it was decided to proceed with a route along the valley through Neustadt. On 30 March 1838, some businessmen founded the "Bavarian railway company of the Palatine-Rheinschanze-Bexbach Railway" ( Bayerische Eisenbahngesellschaft der Pfalz-Rheinschanz-Bexbacher Bahn ) to develop

2109-783: The Homburg–Zweibrücken railway . Its main purpose was to provide a connection for coal trains from the Saarbrücken area to the South Palatinate Railway ( Südpfalzstrecke ; Landau – Zweibrücken ), which opened in 1875, to avoid the detour via Neunkirchen and Bexbach and a reversal in Homburg station . In this way the route used for transport of coal was shortened and the costs were reduced. The same thing applied to products from industrial towns such as Dillingen and Saarlouis , as well as from neighbouring Lorraine (then German Lothringen ). In addition, this resulted in

2220-582: The ICE and TGV services between Paris , Kaiserslautern, Mannheim and Frankfurt . The Mannheim–Homburg section was integrated in the network of the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn in two stages in 2003 and 2006. Historically, the trunk line from Mannheim to Saarbrücken is a combination of different lines, due to the former Bavarian - Prussian national border and the interests of the towns along the Blies and

2331-464: The Mainz–Ludwigshafen railway . In the planning of mid-1971, the project for a new railway, which was to be built by 1985, was assigned the second highest priority. The Federal Transport Plan ( Bundesverkehrswegeplan ) of 1973 also contained plans for a new line between Kaiserslautern and Ludwigshafen. It was never built. In 1985 and 1986, a Franco-German working group developed six options for

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2442-547: The Maschinenfabrik Emil Keßler and Maffei were acquired, respectively numbered Palatine No. 1 to 8 and 21 and Palatine No. 9 to 20. They bore names like Haardt, Vogesus, Denis and Alwens. Crampton locomotives with the numbers Palatine No. 26 to 63 were acquired in the 1850s. Locomotives of classes Palatine G 1.I and Palatine G 2.II, among others, were acquired for freight operations. Palatine T 1 locomotives were used for local and freight operations. At

2553-656: The Nahe Valley Railway in 1860. After that the trains of the Ludwig Railway ended in Neunkirchen. Long-distance services on the east–west route were not possible in the following years since fast trains on the Ludwigshafen–Neunkirchen route stopped at almost all the stations on the line. Express trains ran between Ludwigshafen and Neustadt on the Basel – Cologne route for the first time in 1860. At

2664-584: The Neustadt–Wissembourg railway and then used the Landau–Rohrbach railway to Hinterweidenthal . Between Ludwigshafen and Neustadt, it stopped at all stations. This service ran until 1976. From the end of the 1950s, DB operated an express train service to Paris over the Alsenz Valley Railway east of Kaiserslautern. At the same time, through cars ran through to Rome. A fast train also ran from Heidelberg to Saarbrücken. At first, there

2775-808: The Opel plant), Homburg (Saar) and at the terminus in Saarbrücken. In the meantime, all freight sheds have been closed. Along the Ludwigshafen–Schifferstadt section, additional freight trains run from BASF to Speyer or Germersheim . Between Weidenthal and Neidenfels, there is a siding called Glatz II , which supplies the Neidenfels paper factory of the same name. To the east of Neidenfels, there used to be another siding called Glatz I . The Homburg–Saarbrücken section has little freight traffic. Goods exchange trains run to St. Ingbert, which has freight facilities. Isolated freight traffic also run over

2886-522: The Palatinate Forest with several tunnels; it would have reduced travel time by another seven minutes at an estimated additional cost of 865 million D-Marks. A third option with a new line between Saarbrücken and Hochspeyer largely parallel to Bundesautobahn 6 with an estimated cost of 1.8 billion D-Marks would have provided a travel time reduction of 18 minutes. These plans were not implemented. The Mannheim–Weidenthal section of

2997-512: The Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn . The remaining sections went into operation between 1867 and 1904. The line was electrified from 1960 to 1964. In its present form, the line has existed since 1969, when Deutsche Bundesbahn moved the Ludwigshafen Hauptbahnhof to its current location. Deutsche Bahn operates the route under timetable number 670. Some sections of the line are cleared for speeds of 200 kilometres per hour for

3108-548: The Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn . Between Mannheim and Kaiserslautern this results in services every half hour. Hourly Regional-Express services run between Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken and hourly Regionalbahn services run between Homburg and Saarbrücken and over the Saar Railway to Merzig and Trier . Regionalbahn services from Kusel to Kaiserslautern are added in Landstuhl. In the peak hour, two pairs of RE services run on

3219-474: The Würzbach in the shortest possible connection between Homburg and Saarbrücken. The Rhine , which formed the land border between Baden and Bavaria, had to be crossed between Ludwigshafen and Mannheim. For these reasons the line was completed in its present form only in 1904, with the exception of the relocation of the Ludwigshafen Hauptbahnhof in 1969. This is reflected in the chainage . The initial line

3330-641: The 2017 timetable, the daily EC 217 service to Graz is the only long-distance service at the station. In addition, the station is a stop for S-Bahn lines S1 to S4 and various regional routes. Palatine Ludwig Railway The Mannheim–Saarbrücken railway ( German : Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn ) is a railway in the German states of Baden-Württemberg , Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland that runs through Ludwigshafen am Rhein , Neustadt an der Weinstraße , Kaiserslautern , Homburg and St. Ingbert It

3441-597: The Bavarian and Prussian governments were approached by committees with related plans. Due to financial stringencies, Bavaria rejected direct intervention, but the Saarbrücken Committee agreed to take over the costs on condition that the line was linked to the Saarbrücken–Sarreguemines railway . The Franco-Prussian War , however, prevented the conclusion of a treaty. After the end of the war,

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3552-568: The Bruchmühlbach-Miesau–Frankenstein section became part of the newly founded Westpfalz-Verkehrsverbund (Western Palatinate transport association, WVV). This became part of the VRN in 2006. The connecting curve at Kirkel to Geistkircher Hof had been closed by 2002. In December 2003, the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn went into operation and the Mannheim–Kaiserslautern section of the line was integrated into it. Construction of

3663-671: The First World War. At the beginning of the 1950s, a so-called Städteschnellzug ("city express", a supplement-free express train) ran on the Kusel–Heidelberg route between Landstuhl and Mannheim. In 1954, it was downgraded to a semi-fast train ( Eilzug ). It was discontinued in 1979. The Bundenthaler , which had started in Neustadt before the Second World War, was reactivated in 1951 and now departed from Ludwigshafen and ran to Neustadt, where it reversed and ran to Landau over

3774-576: The Kaiserslautern–Homburg and St. Ingbert–Saarbrücken sections at this time. The Ludwigshafen–St. Ingbert section of line, together with the other railways within the Palatinate, were absorbed into the Royal Bavarian State Railways ( Königlich Bayerische Staatseisenbahnen ) on 1 January 1909. In 1914, there were plans to upgrade the whole main line. The outbreak of the First World War prevented this. At

3885-752: The Mannheim–Saarbrücken railway. Subsequently, there was a limited upgrade. In the middle of 1993, an expert report was commissioned by the State of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Federal Ministry of Transport, which presented four different options for new and upgraded lines on the Hochspeyer–Neustadt section. The travel time improvements to be achieved were estimated to be between 1.43 minutes for selective improvements with an estimated cost of 10 million D-Marks and up to eight minutes with

3996-583: The Mannheim–Saarbrücken route, which stop at the IC stations and in Landstuhl and St. Ingbert. As of November 2000, the Intercity-Express services were operated with tilting trains. At the timetable change in May 2001, the hourly service was thinned out by DB and only operated hourly in the main traffic direction during the peak (in the morning to Mannheim, in the evening to Saarbrücken). Some IR services were replaced by RE services. IC services replaced

4107-694: The Neunkirchen–Worms route ran between Homburg and Ludwigshafen. After completion of the shortest possible route from Homburg to Saarbrücken via Limbach and Kirkel, the new route was used by through traffic. The number of passenger trains rose significantly. Trains from Neunkirchen only ran as far as Kaiserslautern. Fast trains on the Saarbrücken–St. Ingbert–Rohrbach section ran to Landau and beyond. The railway to Wörth , which branched off in Schifferstadt, including its extension to Strasbourg ,

4218-662: The Neustadt–Hochspeyer section of the line and over the Alsenz Valley Railway , which had been completed the year before. In 1875, an express train operated on the Ludwigshafe–Neustadt–Metz–Paris route. Since the Ludwigshafen–Mannheim section opened in 1867, primarily for freight traffic, there were only shuttle services between the two stations. The opening of the line from St. Ingbert to Saarbrücken via Schwarzenacker and Bierbach in 1879, created

4329-473: The Palatinate, the section of the line west of Hauptstuhl was closed to passenger traffic on 1 December 1918; three days later, however, it was reopened to passenger traffic. Rail operations across the Rhine to Mannheim was blockaded from 6 December. Freight traffic to Baden was permitted again from May of the following year and passenger trains ran again between Mannheim and Ludwigshafen from 10 August. The Homburg–Saarbrücken section became part of

4440-630: The Palatine Northern Railway. In 1996, VRN tickets could be used as far as Kaiserslautern. From 1993 to 1999, the number of passengers on the Weidenthal–Neustadt section rose from 1500 to 3270 per day. Neidenfels station went into operation between Lambrecht and Weidenthal in 1998. In May of the same year, the Federal Government and Deutsche Bahn signed a financing agreement worth 351.4 million DM to upgrade

4551-562: The Reichsbahn assigned the timetable number of 279d. With the renewed separation of the area now called Saarland, in which the Eichelscheid–Saarbrücken section is found, only a few trains crossed over the border between Bruchmühlbach and Eichelscheid. They served only the workers employed in the Saarland. Regional services between Homburg and Saarbrücken ran both via Limbach and Kirkel and via Schwarzenacker and Bierbach, as in

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4662-549: The Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn commenced operations. A workshop was built in the station for the maintenance of the S-Bahn trains at a cost of €16 million. The line across the bridge over the Rhine to Mannheim was widened to four tracks, and the new station of Ludwigshafen (Rhein) Mitte was built on it closer to the centre of Ludwigshafen. As early as 1973 the Deutsche Bundesbahn had presented this concept as

4773-616: The Scheidt direction towards Brebach on the line to Saargemünd (the official name of Sarreguemines at the time) was commissioned on 29 July 1905. A flying junction was opened in 1907 on the Schifferstadt ;– Ludwigshafen section of the line between the stations of Mutterstadt and Schifferstadt , which had been rebuilt with four tracks, starting in 1899. This avoided the delays that trains had previously experienced in Schifferstadt. Railway telephones were installed on

4884-514: The Sulzbach valley. A suggestion that the railway line run via Zweibrücken and from there along the Schwarzbach via Rodalben , Annweiler and Langenkandel on the Rhine, did not proceed. The eastern terminus was disputed between Speyer , the capital of the Palatinate and the emerging port and trading centre of Rheinschanze. A memorandum supporting the interests of Speyer argued that it

4995-502: The beginning of the 20th century, locomotives of classes P 2.I, P 2.II , P 3 , P 4 and P 5 were used to haul long-distance trains, some of them also local trains. Local traffic was especially hauled by locomotives of P 1.I, P 1.II, P 1.III and T 1 classes. Freight traffic was hauled by G 2.I, G 2.II, G 4.I, G 4.II and G 5 class locomotives. Class T 3 locomotives hauled traffic between Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. In

5106-400: The beginning of the war, numerous military trains ran over the line from 9 to 16 August. 40 trains ran from Mannheim on a daily basis, 20 of them continued to Saarbrücken and the rest ran onto the Maximilian Railway in Neustadt. Between Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken, 20 trains per day came from Worms . Some trains also reached Saarbrücken from the Glan Valley. 40 trains

5217-447: The bridge over the Rhine to slow the Allied advance. After the Western Front reached the Palatinate in March 1945, the US Army resumed operations on the section of the line to the west of the Rhine to procure supplies. The first trains reached Ludwigshafen from Pirmasens via Landau and Neustadt on 25 March. From the end of March onwards, a single-track pile bridge was built for railway traffic between Mannheim and Ludwigshafen and

5328-461: The city had committed to the new central station connected to the road and tram networks, so that it was easily reached from all parts of the city. The underground tram station was built in anticipation of the planned removal of trams from all the inner city streets. An essential prerequisite for the transformation of the Ludwigshafen railway facilities was the removal of the freight and marshalling yards, which were moved to Mannheim. The new station

5439-406: The city hall. The western part of the former railway land was still largely derelict land in 2008. In the timetable of the summer of 2000, 16 InterRegio trains stopped calling in Ludwigshafen. In 2002, the Ludwigshafen-based urban planner Lars Piske described the station as sinking into uselessness and suggested that it had led to the loss of sales from Ludwigshafen to Mannheim. In December 2003,

5550-412: The construction of a main railway from Bruchsal via Germersheim , Landau and Zweibrücken to St. Ingbert was planned, which was finally built in the period from 1872 to 1877. The Palatinate Railway ( Pfälzische Eisenbahnen ), which the Palatine Ludwig Railway Company had been part of since 1870, benefitted from the adoption of an interest rate guarantee law on 28 April 1872. Nevertheless,

5661-411: The construction of a new line at a cost of 1.39 billion D-Marks. During the German rail reform, the line became the property of Deutsche Bahn on 1 January 1994. From 1995 onwards, Neustadt (Weinstr) Böbig halt, which is located in the eastern area of Neustadt Hauptbahnhof , could be served by trains on the Ludwigshafen–Neustadt line, although previously it had only been served by trains on

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5772-399: The construction of the pylons and abutments. Bavaria was given responsibility for the superstructure including tracks and flooring. In July of that year, Baden and Bavarian representatives reached an agreement on the location of the bridge. This required the closure of the original Mannheim station, which was opened in 1840 at the current Tattersall tram stop north of the current Hauptbahnhof as

5883-449: The development of the infrastructure of the Paris – Saarbrücken – Ludwigshafen corridor (later extended to Frankfurt) with ERTMS and ETCS. Clearing for speeds above 160 km/h required train protection with ETCS Level 2 and should have been implemented by the end of 2008, but was later postponed. The then plans proposed the remote control of the route from the Deutsche Bahn operations centre in Karlsruhe. The contract for equipping

5994-412: The direct connection from Würzbach to St. Ingbert followed and all trains ran on the new line between Hassel and Rohrbach. Already during the planning of the Würzbach Railway both Homburg and St. Ingbert had originally promoted a connection by the shortest route, which was, however, opposed by the communities along the Blies and the Würzbach. For strategic reasons, the decision was made to build

6105-567: The east–west direction. The outbreak of the Second World War initially had no effect on passenger services. In 1941, an express train ran from Berlin via Paris to Madrid. In 1944, there were services for soldiers on leave using the main line from Mannheim to Saarbrücken on the Stuttgart–Saarbrücken, Frankfurt–Paris, Stuttgart–Calais and Vienna–Metz routes. In the Second World War, with few exceptions, there were no direct local services from Ludwigshafen to Saarbrücken. Shuttle services operated between Kaiserslautern Hauptbahnhof and Einsiedlerhof, to which

6216-420: The former Prussian Eisenbahndirektion ( railway division ) of Saarbrücken. In this context, the Homburg (Saar) West customs station ( Zollbahnhof Homburg (Saar) West ), which handled freight traffic, was built. Customs controls for passenger traffic were handled in the stations of Homburg and Eichelscheid. The newly founded Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) managed the remaining part of the line and integrated it into

6327-448: The heavier locomotives. For this reason, a new railway bridge was built immediately adjacent to the 1867 bridge; it was opened in 1932. From 1933, the Communist resistance to Nazism used the Homburg (Saar) West customs station in particular for their purposes. With the reabsorption of the Saar area into the German Reich in 1935, the Reichsbahn was responsible for the whole route and the customs controls were removed. The Saareisenbahn

6438-441: The last IR services from 14 December 2002 and long-distance services were further reduced. An upgrade of the route took place from June 2007 with ICE trains running on the Frankfurt am Main  – Paris route. The stops in Neustadt and Homburg dropped. Due to the low traveling speed (only about 100 km/h between Mannheim and Saarbrücken), it is not certain that these high-speed trains will continue to run over this route in

6549-471: The late 1950s it was decided to build a new station at its current location as part of a comprehensive transport plan for Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. The new passenger station was built with a triangular shape on two levels. On the upper level there are two platform tracks and two through tracks without platforms on the Mannheim–Worms–Mainz line, which was a development of the connection opened in 1959. The lower level triangular station has eight platform tracks on

6660-420: The line became a major route for freight traffic between France and Germany. The line from Mannheim to Saarbrücken is one of the busiest freight traffic routes in Germany. Trains carrying combined transport within the European Union are dominated by containers , swap bodies , semi-trailers and other goods at high freight rates. Freight trains run between Mannheim and Homburg, continuing to Neunkirchen or along

6771-468: The line between Mannheim and Saarbrücken. This work was expected to be completed by 2004. The first stage saw an upgrade for tilting trains with a top speed of 160 km/h. The tracks on the St. Ingbert – Kirkel and Neustadt an der Weinstraße – Ludwigshafen sections are now ready for a line speed of 200 kilometres per hour. A bypass was built, which has allowed long-distance passenger and freight trains to bypass Schifferstadt since 2003. In 2000

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6882-440: The line to the Kaiserslautern Military Community . The respective railway administrators always operated powerful locomotives on this line. In the early days, the workshops, later locomotive depots ( Bahnbetriebswerke ), were located in Kaiserslautern , Ludwigshafen and Neustadt . Others were located in Homburg , Mannheim and Saarbrücken . In the first years after the opening of the former Ludwig Railway, locomotives of

6993-402: The line was again used by numerous military transports; as early as 1938 deportations to Dachau had taken place in Kaiserslautern and Ludwigshafen. From 1943 onwards the line was regularly exposed to bombardment, initially the railway lines in Saarbrücken and Ludwigshafen were affected. This was followed by the bombing of Kaiserslautern and Homburg in 1944 and St. Ingbert towards the end of

7104-432: The line was integrated in the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar (Rhien-Neckar transport association, VRN), founded in 1989. From 12 to 18 September 1990, the Operation Steel Box took place between Hauptstuhl and Ludwigshafen. The transport ministers of Germany and France agreed on 22 May 1992 to build the Paris–Ostfrankreich–Süddeutschland (Paris–East France–South Germany, POS) high-speed railway, including

7215-407: The line with ETCS was awarded to Ansaldo in December 2007. Around €50 million was spent on the upgrade in 2007. The route through the Palatinate Forest with its numerous tunnels between Neustadt an der Weinstraße and Kaiserslautern remained structurally unchanged contrary to the original plans. The Saarländischer Verkehrsverbund (Saarländ Transport Association, SaarVV) was founded in 2005; it

7326-572: The long term. A route via Strasbourg and Karlsruhe will be considered as soon as the TGV line between Metz and Strasbourg is completed. Currently ICE and Intercity services run on the route from Saarbrücken to Frankfurt , Dresden , Stuttgart and Salzburg , stopping at Homburg, Landstuhl, Kaiserslautern and Neustadt (not all IC and ICE services stop at all the mentioned stations). Since 9 December 2007, ICE 3 services have alternated with TGV services from Frankfurt to Paris , which stop between Mannheim and Saarbrücken only in Kaiserslautern; as

7437-414: The newly created Territory of the Saar Basin ( Saarbeckengebiet ) on 10 March 1920, which was founded at the initiative of the victorious powers under the Treaty of Versailles with a duration of 15 years under League of Nations control. During this period it was within the French customs territory. Consequently, the Sarr Railway ( Saareisenbahn ) was administered by the Territory, which consisted of

7548-468: The newly founded Reichsbahn division ( Reichsbahndirektion ) of Ludwigshafen two years later. As early as 1920, DR put into operation the Einsiedlerhof marshalling yard , which replaced Kaiserslautern yard. The two main railway tracks immediately west of Kaiserslautern were rerouted directly north of the marshalling yard because of the limited space available. On 7 March 1923, the so-called Regiebetrieb (military operation) commenced, which meant that

7659-414: The old terminus was cleared and a second highway was built to Mannheim, with Federal Highway B 44 running from the northern end of the new station to Kurt Schumacher Bridge over the Rhine to Mannheim. In September 1976, trams began running through the new underground tramway. In 1979 the Rathaus-Center opened on the site of the former terminus; this is a high-rise building consisting of a shopping centre and

7770-418: The older Schwarzenacker– Bierbach route. In 1920, some trains running between Saarbrücken and Homburg continued over the Glan Valley Railway to Bad Münster am Stein or Kusel . The annexation of the Saar area by Germany in 1935 caused an upsurge in local traffic, since the train trips no longer had to be broken in Homburg. From the 1930s onwards, trains once again ran on the Berlin–Neunkirchen route in

7881-557: The operations. Until the early 1990s, the stations between Ludwigshafen and Neustadt, as well as between Landstuhl and Bruchmühlbach-Miesau, were of great importance for the transport of turnips. In 1990, the decline in freight traffic led to the dismantling of the Einsiedlerhof marshalling yard. Other marshalling yards, which were the starting point for Nahgüterzug ("local goods train") traffic, were located in Saarbrücken, Homburg, Neustadt and Ludwigshafen. There are large freight yards in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Kaiserslautern (mainly for

7992-556: The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War , train traffic came to a standstill on 23 July 1870. On 19 August, services on the Palatine railways resumed with restrictions; express trains were allowed to run only if no military trains occupied the line. Local services had to operate at intervals that allowed military services to run freely. From mid-1872 onwards, some express trains between Cologne and Basel ran over

8103-464: The prevailing priorities. For example, there was no continuous passenger train from Ludwigshafen to Saarbrücken. Local services were largely restricted to the Homburg–Kaiserslautern and Kaiserslautern–Neustadt sections, with some continuing to Ludwigshafen. Between Homburg and Saarbrücken, regional trains operated both via the route through Limbach and Kirkel that had existed since 1904 and over

8214-648: The project. In May 1844, the company was renamed the Palatine Ludwig Railway Company ( Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn-Gesellschaft ). From March 1845, construction began under the leadership of Paul Denis . Coal from the Bexbach area would reach the industrial centres in the south of Germany and Switzerland via Rheinschanze. The line was named after the Bavarian King Ludwig ;I and the town of Ludwigshafen am Rhein, which

8325-413: The rail corridor between Berlin and Nuremberg ) and freight corridor A ( Duisburg – Basel ). The planning is being revised (as of 2014). Some upgrading work is ongoing on the line and more sections of the line are being upgraded in order to have their maximum speed increased from 100 km/h or 160 km/h to 200 km/h. The forecasted completion date is end of 2019. Since the Ludwig Railway

8436-544: The railway was operated by the French military until the beginning of 1924. In this context, operations were blockaded from 30 May to 7 June. In 1926, a two-track freight railway was established between Kaiserslautern and the Einsiedlerhof marshalling yard. It included several halts, which were predominantly used for operational purposes. It was clear that the Rhine Bridge was no longer able to cope with

8547-456: The route of the LGV Est and the connecting routes from Germany. It examined various options for new and upgraded lines between Saarbrücken and Ludwigshafen. The only option involving an upgrade of the existing line, estimated to cost 415 million Deutsche Marks , would have enabled a travel time reduction of 21 minutes. A second option provided an additional section of new line through

8658-682: The same time, there were the first IC services on the Saarbrücken–Dresden route and EuroCity services between Paris and Frankfurt. Both long-haul routes also operated at two-hour intervals. One year later, IC trains replaced all D-Züg services. The Mannheim–Homburg section has been used since the beginning by part of lines S1 ( Homburg  – Kaiserslautern  – Neustadt  – Schifferstadt  – Ludwigshafen  – Mannheim  – Heidelberg  – Neckargemünd  – Eberbach  – Mosbach  – Osterburken ) and S2 (same route, but only from Kaiserslautern and only to Mosbach) of

8769-565: The southern side of the bridge and the road along the northern side. Mannheim received a new station with the new line in 1876. As early as the end of the 1860s, local committees were involved in the establishment of a connection from St. Ingbert to Saarbrücken. St. Ingbert had been connected to the railway network since 1867 by the Würzbach Railway ( Würzbachbahn ) which began in Schwarzenacker . In 1869, both

8880-414: The talks with Saarbrücken were difficult as the approach to the very busy St. Johann-Saarbrücken station and the allocation of railway operations caused problems. In 1877, a treaty that guaranteed the construction of the line was concluded. This meant that St. Ingbert station had to be completely rebuilt. It received a new entrance building and its tracks were raised one metre higher. Land was acquired in

8991-626: The territory of Saarland , the rail network of which had its own administration from 1947, initially called the Saarländische Eisenbahnen (Saarland railways, SEB) and, from 1951, the Eisenbahnen des Saarlandes (Railways of the Saarland, EdS). Homburg became a customs station again. From 1949, Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) administered the section east of Homburg and integrated it into the Bundesbahn division of Mainz, which

9102-515: The then new Silberling coaches. Express trains were mostly hauled by locomotives of class E 10/110 . The two-system prototypes of class E 310/181.0 were based in the Saarbrücken locomotive depot from 1966, mostly for hauling express trains to France. Class 103 locomotives were used from 1971 onwards. InterRegio Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include

9213-448: The war on the French side for the Saarland section, in order to link it more closely to France. Electric locomotives could operate over the Saarbrücken–Homburg section from 8 March 1960 and on the Homburg–Kaiserslautern section from 18 May 1961. The electrification of the remaining section had been delayed mainly because of the numerous tunnels between Kaiserslautern and Neustadt that had to be enlarged. For this reason, this section

9324-530: The western terminus of the Baden main line . There was no consensus on this approach, so that further planning could only proceed at the beginning of 1864. The Ludwigshafen–Mannheim train ferry provided a provisional service from 1863. The ferry service quickly reached its limits, so there was strong support in both cities for a bridge. Construction began in February 1865 and the work went well. The masonry material

9435-400: The whole route of the historic Ludwig Railway. While trains used to transport coal from the Saar basin to the Rhine, the freight flow is now in the opposite direction. There are more than 120 freight trains every day on the line. The regional freight traffic along the line declined after the Second World War. Already in the 1980s, Übergabegüterzug ("goods exchange train") traffic dominated

9546-461: The winter of that year and the construction began in March of the following year. The connection was 12.568 kilometres long. The tracks were built partly over rocks, but major earth moving was necessary. The connection was opened on 15 October 1879. It amounted to an extension of the Würzbach Railway (Schwarzenacker–St. Ingbert), which had been completed in 1866 and 1867 and branched off

9657-461: The year. As a result, railway installations were considerably affected. The entrance building of Kaiserslautern Hauptbahnhof was, for example, almost completely destroyed on 28 September and 18 December. The same was true for Hauptbahnhof Homburg . Lambrecht (Pfalz) station was destroyed by fire in March 1945 during combat operations. On 20 March 1945, the Wehrmacht destroyed

9768-401: Was also built on the line to Neustadt, with connecting curves to the lines to Mannheim and Worms. During World War II , the railway facilities in Ludwigshafen were partially destroyed. The station was rebuilt in a simplified form in 1954. There were various proposals to replace the terminal station with a through station. One of these was prevented from going forward by World War II and another

9879-544: Was an old trading town, whereas Rheinschanze was just a military base that would merely serve the transfer of goods. These endeavours were unsuccessful, as the part of the up-and-coming Rhine-Neckar Region to the east of the Rhine, especially Mannheim , was the focus of attention and the export of coal to the area beyond the Rhine was considered more important. Proposals for a line along the Dürkheim Valley also failed, since its side valleys were too low and, above all,

9990-565: Was assigned all railway lines within the newly created state of Rhineland-Palatinate . At the turn of the year in 1954/1955, the DB restored the Rhine crossing to its condition in 1932. With the integration of Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany , it became responsible for the whole line; the Bundesbahn division of Saarbrücken replaced the EdS. The Germersheim Rhine Bridge , which

10101-467: Was built between the stations of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen Hauptbahnhof to overcome the great distance of the Hauptbahnhof from the city centre as a result of its relocation of in 1969. Weidenthal station was rebuilt with two new platforms about 800 metres closer to Frankenstein. On 14 May 2004, DB and the then French infrastructure operator RFF signed a declaration of intent on

10212-470: Was completed to Neunkirchen in 1850 and two years later to Saarbrücken . Because of the rapid increase in traffic on both sides of the Rhine, there were calls for the construction of a line between Ludwigshafen and Mannheim in Baden from the end of the 1850s. In addition, there were plans for a Baden Odenwald Railway between Heidelberg and Würzburg , which was completed in 1866. In combination with this,

10323-411: Was demolished with the electrification. The tracks between Limburgerhof and Ludwigshafen that had been used exclusively for through freight traffic since 1899 had already been abandoned and were used for the storage of freight wagons. Ludwigshafener Hauptbahnhof was an operational obstacle because of its construction as a terminus. In the early 1960s, construction work for a through station started at

10434-519: Was dominated by locomotives of classes 23 , 38 , 71 and 78 and the operations of goods traffic were hauled by class 44 and 50 locomotives. Among others, classes 93.5-12 and 94.5 were used for shunting. Following the electrification of the line, which resulted in the closure of the locomotive depots in Neustadt and Homburg, DB's new locomotive classes were used. For decades, freight operations, were dominated by class E 40 locomotives, local traffic by electric locomotives of class E 41 hauling

10545-519: Was double-track from 1906. Most of the express trains to Strasbourg, which previously ran to Neustadt and, after a reversal, continued over the Maximilian Railway to Alsace, now ran from Schifferstadt via Speyer, Germersheim, Wörth and Lauterburg . Passenger trains on the line to Kusel , which branched from Landstuhl, usually operated from/to Kaiserslautern. During the First World War, the passenger services were significantly reduced due to

10656-499: Was gradually opened from 1847 to 1849 as the Palatine Ludwig Railway ( Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn ) between Ludwigshafen and Bexbach. With the exception of the western Homburg–Bexbach section, it is now part of the Mannheim–Saarbrücken main line. The initial planning of a railway line in the north–south direction within the Palatinate , which had belonged to Bavaria since 1816, was set aside for an east–west line, which

10767-424: Was mainly promoted by Palatine entrepreneurs as facilitating the transport of Saar coal to the Rhine. The planners revised their initial considerations of St. Ingbert as the western terminus, under pressure from Prussia, which wanted to have the long-term connection to Saarbrücken passing as far as possible over its own territory. That is why the planners considered Bexbach, with an extension via Neunkirchen and

10878-470: Was not opened continually from east to west, stage coaches , were used to take over the traffic between the two parts of the line. From 1850, the trains operated in the west to Neunkirchen and two years later to Saarbrücken. After the completion of the Mainz–Ludwigshafen railway in 1853, three passenger trains per day travelled between Homburg and Ludwigshafen on the Mainz– Paris route until Prussia opened

10989-429: Was opened carrying Ludwigsstraße over the railway in 1890. It later carried the tram tracks to Friesenheim and further on to Oppau. Until the late 1960s this bridge was the only North-South-trunk road in Ludwigshafen, so it became with the increase of car traffic a bottleneck. The bridge was in service for tram traffic until January 1974. At the end of the 19th century the passenger station was extended. A marshalling yard

11100-476: Was opened in 1905 to the east of Saarbrücken, was closed and then dismantled. In August 1945, the route was released for passenger traffic. The section of the line to the west of the Rhine came to under the control of the Vereinigung der Südwestdeutschen Eisenbahnen (Union of south-west German railways) from 1947 to 1949 during the French occupation. The Homburg–Saarbrücken section once again became part of

11211-494: Was opened in May 1969 station and was described as one of Deutsche Bundesbahn ‘s most interesting and attractive buildings. It was said that the removal of the terminal station would provide Ludwigshafen with urban development opportunities that the devastation of the war had not. The new timetables after the relocation of the station was not much changed: long-distance and Trans Europ Express continued to run to Mannheim without stopping in Ludwigshafen. The railway land around

11322-483: Was put into operation by the Seventh United States Army at the end of April. From June, the bridge of 1867 had temporarily taken into railway operations again. The flying junction between Schifferstadt and Limburgerhof, which had been affected by the combat operations, was taken out of service and the line now consisted of only two tracks in this area. The Halberg–Brebach connecting curve, which

11433-430: Was rebuilt in March 1945, contributed to the fact that through traffic increasingly concentrated on the main line from Mannheim to Saarbrücken. In May 1959, the Bundesbahn established a connection between Mundenheim and Mannheim to bypass Ludwigshafen Hauptbahnhof. Because of its great importance for long-distance traffic, the electrification of the line began in 1960. Corresponding plans already existed immediately after

11544-435: Was rebuilt with three-story wings on both sides in order to cope with the opening of the line to Worms on 15 June 1853 and the bridge over the Rhine to Mannheim on 25 February 1867. The early connection of Ludwigshafen to the rail network significantly promoted the rapid development of Ludwigshafen, but it also caused significant urban problems, as the station separated the neighbourhoods now called Nord and Mitte. A viaduct

11655-467: Was rejected by the Federal Government in the early 1950s because it failed to maintain connections with the BASF factory. In May 1959, a direct connection curve between the lines from Mainz and Mannheim was opened for long-distance fast passenger trains and freight trains at a cost of 16 million Deutsche Marks . Previously all trains on this route had to reverse either in the terminus or the freight yard. In

11766-502: Was renamed as the Reichsbahndirektion Saarbrücken . This led to the gradual dissolution of the railway division of Ludwigshafen over the next two years. The Saarbrücken–Hochspeyer section came under the control of the railway division of Saarbrücken in 1936, the rest with effect from April 1937 came under the control of the railway division of Mainz. After the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939,

11877-465: Was responsible for the entire section of the line from immediately west of Frankenstein. The development program for the network of Deutsche Bundesbahn presented in 1970 contained a newly built railway ( Neubaustrecke ) between Hochspeyer and Ludwigshafen on a straightened route by 1985. It would be ten kilometres shorter than the existing line. In the Frankenthal area there would be a link with

11988-569: Was sourced from the quarries along the Haardt ; The railway carried about 24.000 cubic metres of ashlar . The iron superstructure was installed in July 1866. This was followed by load testing of the bridge on 21 and 22 January 1867 and the first train crossed the Rhine bridge on 25 February. However, there were no festivities. The Rhine bridge was initially single track until the second track opened on 10 August 1867. The railway ran along

12099-701: Was still no regular interval timetable. The line between Mannheim and Kaiserslautern was used by an express service on the Würzburg–Pirmasens route. Between 1970 and 1975, the line was used by the TEE 50/51 service ( Goethe ). There was a clear improvement in long-distance services from May 1985 onwards. With the introduction of the Saar-Palatinate regular interval timetable ( Saar-Pfalz-Takt ) there were hourly operations between Mannheim and Saarbrücken with Intercity (IC), D-Züg and Eilzug services. In 1989,

12210-438: Was temporary only accessible on a single-track basis; the trains were allowed to run at 40 kilometres per hour at most. Due to the restricted capacity, several freight trains ran over the Landau–Rohrbach and Langmeil–Monsheim railways towards Worms from 20 March 1960. The line could be operated electrically along its whole length from 12 March 1964. The flying junction that had existed since 1907 north of Schifferstadt

12321-626: Was then developing from Rheinschanze. The opening of the Ludwigshafenn–Neustadt section took place on 11 June 1847, the Homburg–Kaiserslautern section followed on 2 July 1848 and the Kaiserslautern–Frankenstein section was completed on 2 December of that year. On 6 June of the following year, the Ludwig Railway reached Bexbach in the west. From August 1849, trains could run over the line from Ludwigshafen via Neustadt, Kaiserslautern and Homburg to Bexbach. The main line

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