128-589: Source: German railway atlas The Taunus Railway (German: Taunus -Eisenbahn ) is a double-track electrified railway line, which connects Frankfurt and Wiesbaden , Germany . It is 41.2 km long and follows the course of the Main on its north side, running quite close to it in some places. Its first stage was opened in September 1839 and is thus the oldest railway line in the German state of Hesse and one of
256-538: A convincing list of all 16. Of those identified, most were built for use at Killingworth or for the Hetton colliery railway . A six-wheeled locomotive was built for the Kilmarnock and Troon Railway in 1817 but was withdrawn from service because of damage to the cast-iron rails. Another locomotive was supplied to Scott's Pit railroad at Llansamlet , near Swansea , in 1819 but it too was withdrawn, apparently because it
384-607: A daughter, was born in July 1805. She was named Frances after her mother. The child died after just three weeks and was buried in St Bartholomew's Church, Long Benton north of Newcastle. In 1806 George's wife Frances died of consumption ( tuberculosis ). She was buried in the same churchyard as their daughter on 16 May 1806, though the location of the grave is lost. George decided to find work in Scotland and left Robert with
512-547: A development program, which included two connecting curves from a new Cologne – Gross-Gerau line, connecting to Frankfurt, Mainz and Wiesbaden. During the 1992 regional planning process for the high-speed line between Cologne and the Rhine/Main , the so-called Eddersheim curve was proposed southwest of Eddersheim to connect the high-speed line with the Taunus Railway to/from Frankfurt. The curve, which would have had
640-474: A farmer's daughter from Black Callerton, whom he met secretly in her orchard. Her father refused marriage because of Stephenson's lowly status as a miner. George next paid attention to Anne Henderson where he lodged with her family, but she rejected him and he transferred his attentions to her sister Frances (Fanny), who was nine years his senior. George and Fanny married at Newburn Church on 28 November 1802. They had two children Robert (1803) and Fanny (1805) but
768-460: A fissure from which firedamp was issuing. The two designs differed; Davy's lamp was surrounded by a screen of gauze, whereas Stephenson's prototype lamp had a perforated plate containing a glass cylinder. For his invention Davy was awarded £2000, whilst Stephenson was accused of stealing the idea from Davy, because he was not seen as an adequate scientist who could have produced the lamp by any approved scientific method. Stephenson, having come from
896-522: A geographically incorrect name as the station is located in the south of Wiesbaden. From 18 September 1862, there was a connection from Curve station to Nassau Rhine Railway ( Nassauische Rheinbahn ), which since 1856 had run down the Rhine to Rüdesheim in the Rheingau . This link is now in regular use only by freight trains. A brief period of operation with long-distance trains, which, in order to shorten
1024-458: A local woman while he went to work in Montrose . After a few months he returned, probably because his father was blinded in a mining accident. He moved back into a cottage at West Moor and his unmarried sister Eleanor moved in to look after Robert. In 1811 the pumping engine at High Pit, Killingworth was not working properly and Stephenson offered to improve it. He did so with such success that he
1152-596: A more gaseous atmosphere. He made reference to an incident at Oaks Colliery in Barnsley where both lamps were in use. Following a sudden strong influx of gas the tops of all the Davy Lamps became red hot (which had in the past caused an explosion, and in so doing risked another), whilst all the Geordie Lamps simply went out. There is a theory that it was Stephenson who indirectly gave the name of " Geordies " to
1280-881: A new building on today's Wilhelm-Kalle-Straße, which today is being used by the employee health insurance company of the Chemische Fabrik Kalle. The Taunus Railway has ended in Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof (line-kilometre 41.2) since 1906. From 1840 to 1906, the Taunus Railway ended at the Taunus station ( Taunusbahnhof ; line-kilometre ca. 43), before it was replaced by today's Hauptbahnhof. Both regional and express services were operated with Silberling carriages, hauled by class 140 or 141 locomotives and occasionally by other classes, while long-distance services were hauled mainly by class 103 , 110 and later 112 locomotives. The IC commuter trains in
1408-411: A passenger ferry until the opening of the fixed Mainz road bridge on 30 May 1885. Wiesbaden Ost (east) station (line-kilometre 37.8) was originally called Biebrich Curve and 'was later called Biebrich Ost . After the incorporation of Biebrich into Wiesbaden , "Wiesbaden" was added to its name in 1927, but "Biebrich" was deleted in 1934 and only "Ost" was maintained in the station name. This led to
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#17327726838141536-635: A penny a sheet, and at one point there was a suggestion to move George's body to Westminster Abbey . The centenary of George's birth was celebrated in 1881 at Crystal Palace by 15,000 people, and it was George who was featured on the reverse of the Series E five pound note issued by the Bank of England between 1990 and 2003. The Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields is named after George and Robert Stephenson. George Stephenson's Birthplace
1664-430: A radius of 975 m, was not ultimately built. Frankfurt Taunusbahnhof was the historical starting point of the Taunus Railway and was replaced in 1888 by the new Centralbahnhof (central station), now: Hauptbahnhof (main station). Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof (line-kilometre 0.0) has been the starting point of the line since 1888 and is the point from which chainage is currently calculated. The western entrance to
1792-617: A reassuring name rather than a cutting-edge technical adviser. He was the first president of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on its formation in 1847. By this time he had settled into semi-retirement, supervising his mining interests in Derbyshire – tunnelling for the North Midland Railway revealed coal seams, and Stephenson put money into their exploitation. George first courted Elizabeth (Betty) Hindmarsh,
1920-750: A rift between them which was never healed. Despite Stephenson's loss of some routes to competitors due to his caution, he was offered more work than he could cope with, and was unable to accept all that was offered. He worked on the North Midland line from Derby to Leeds , the York and North Midland line from Normanton to York, the Manchester and Leeds , the Birmingham and Derby , the Sheffield and Rotherham among many others. Stephenson became
2048-649: A significant contribution to Wiesbaden's water supply. The largest unit of the Taunus in terms of area, the Hintertaunus unit, is mainly composed of the black rock series of the Hunsrück slate and the Singhofen layers of the lower Ems tier, often greywacke-like sandstones as well as siltstone and claystone . Younger rocks are only exposed here in small occurrences near Usingen and on the very eastern edge of
2176-559: A speed of 24 miles per hour (39 kilometres per hour) on one stretch. The first purpose-built passenger car, Experiment , was attached and carried dignitaries on the opening journey. It was the first time passenger traffic had been run on a steam locomotive railway. The rails used for the line were wrought-iron , produced by John Birkinshaw at the Bedlington Ironworks . Wrought-iron rails could be produced in longer lengths than cast-iron and were less liable to crack under
2304-524: A travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher after the Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (It was suggested the name sprang from Blücher's rapid march of his army in support of Wellington at Waterloo ). Blücher was modelled on Matthew Murray 's locomotive Willington , which George studied at Kenton and Coxlodge colliery on Tyneside, and
2432-464: A very low wage, so there was no money for schooling. At 17, Stephenson became an engineman at Water Row Pit in Newburn nearby. George realised the value of education and paid to study at night school to learn reading, writing and arithmetic – he was illiterate until the age of 18. In 1801 he began work at Black Callerton Colliery south of Ponteland as a 'brakesman', controlling the winding gear at
2560-457: Is a 6.6-kilometre-long branch line to Bad Soden am Taunus , which was operated from its opening in 1847 by the Taunus Railway and taken over by it in 1862/63. Frankfurt-Höchst Farbwerke (line-kilometre 10.4) is a part ( Bahnhofsteil , Bft ) of Frankfurt-Höchst station. When it was opened in 1967, it was designated as Farbwerke Hoechst , but after the dissolution of the Hoechst dye works , it
2688-724: Is a high-altitude landscape with dense forest cover, a harsher climate and poor soil in the Pferdskopf-Bergland ; but also the Usinger basin , a gently undulating, open basin landscape with fertile soil and a balanced climate. The Hintertaunus is divided into the Western and Eastern Hintertaunus by the Idstein Depression, which developed in the Idstein – Bad Camberg area. The Idstein depression widens towards
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#17327726838142816-540: Is a mountain range in Hesse , Germany , located north west of Frankfurt and north of Wiesbaden . The tallest peak in the range is Großer Feldberg at 878 m; other notable peaks are Kleiner Feldberg (825 m) and Altkönig (798 m). The Taunus range spans the districts of Hochtaunuskreis , Main-Taunus-Kreis , Rheingau-Taunus , Limburg-Weilburg , and Rhein-Lahn . The range is known for its geothermal springs and mineral waters that formerly attracted members of
2944-534: Is an 18th-century historic house museum in the village of Wylam , and is operated by the National Trust . Dial Cottage at West Moor , his home from 1804, remains but the museum that once operated there has closed. Chesterfield Museum in Chesterfield , Derbyshire, has a gallery of Stephenson memorabilia, including straight thick glass tubes he invented for growing straight cucumbers . The museum
3072-679: Is composed of pure, mostly black mudstone and embedded sandstone banks and occurs in stratigraphically different positions in the Upper Siegen and in the Ems. The bulk of the Hunsrück Slate is attributed to the Elm Lower Stage . It is known for its exceptionally well-preserved fossils and is locally well suited for use as roofing slate . . In the western Hintertaunus, the almost sand-free Hunsrück slate can be easily separated from
3200-424: Is connected by a siding from Flörsheim Taubertsmühle junction (line-kilometre 25.0). Hochheim (Main) station (line-kilometre 28.4) serves the town of Hochheim am Main . Mainz rail bypass meets the Taunus railway at Kostheim junction (line-kilometre 30.8). The associated signal box building has been preserved. It stands side-gabled to the south of the tracks and was put into operation in 1904 together with
3328-425: Is divided according to morphology , geological structure , climate and partly by the prevailing vegetation into sub-landscapes that are more uniform in themselves. The cultural landscape, i.e. the natural landscape shaped by man, shows the following structure in terms of land use, the location and distribution of settlements and the course of traffic routes. In the south are the more wooded and higher parts, namely
3456-696: Is geologically divided from south to north into the units Vordertaunus unit (also northern phyllite zone or metamorphic southern edge zone), Taunus ridge unit and Hintertaunus unit. Finally, south of the Lahn, the Taunus natural region has a share in the Lahn trough and the Giessen nappe . The Vordertaunus Unit is a narrow zone of weakly metamorphic rocks such as phyllites, greenschists and sericite gneisses .[5] They are appear greenish through chlorite and epidote . The starting products of these rocks were mudstones and volcanic rocks . The rock strata occurring in
3584-626: Is in the Stephenson Memorial Hall not far from both Stephenson's final home at Tapton House and Holy Trinity Church within which is his vault. In Liverpool, where he lived at 34 Upper Parliament Street, a City of Liverpool Heritage Plaque is situated next to the front door. Stephenson College , founded in 2001 on the Durham University 's Queen's Campus in Stockton-on-Tees (relocated to Durham in 2018),
3712-909: Is named after him. Also named after him and his son is George Stephenson High School in Killingworth, Stephenson Memorial Primary School in Howdon , the Stephenson Railway Museum in North Shields , the Stephenson Locomotive Society , the Stephenson Centre, an SEBD Unit of Beaumont Hill School in Darlington, and the Stephenson Building, home of the school of engineering at Newcastle University . His last home in Tapton, Chesterfield
3840-545: Is not to be confused with the lighthouse-building engineering family of Robert Stevenson , which was active in the same era. Note the spelling difference. Britain led the world in the development of railways which acted as a stimulus for the Industrial Revolution by facilitating the transport of raw materials and manufactured goods. George Stephenson, with his work on the Stockton and Darlington Railway and
3968-498: Is now part of Chesterfield College and is called Tapton House Campus. As a tribute to his life and works, a bronze statue of Stephenson was unveiled at Chesterfield railway station (in the town where Stephenson spent the last ten years of his life) on 28 October 2005, marking the completion of improvements to the station. At the event a full-size working replica of the Rocket was on show, which then spent two days on public display at
Taunus Railway - Misplaced Pages Continue
4096-467: Is to lay the bricks forming the arch at an angle to the abutments (the piers on which the arches rest). The technique, which results in a spiral effect in the arch masonry, provides extra strength in the arch to compensate for the angled abutments. The bridge is still in use at Rainhill station , and carries traffic on the A57 (Warrington Road). The bridge is a listed structure . George Stephenson moved to
4224-690: The Bunte Schiefer are greenish-grey or strikingly violet in color due to finely distributed hematite . Agnaths (jawless fish) found in the Bunte Schist are from the Gedinne (Lochkovian); just like the formation of the rock , they show a deposit of the colorful slate in rivers or lakes . The rocks of the colorful slate are found on the Großer Feldberg , where they were mined in tunnels to extract roofing slate (slate tunnel below
4352-708: The Deutsche Reichsbahn . It attained great importance for long distance, regional and suburban passenger traffic and to a lesser extent in freight traffic. The railway line was badly damaged in the Second World War, particularly in the area of the central stations in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt and in the Mainz-Kastel area. After its repair and the resumption of operations, it re-established its former importance, with increasing freight traffic on
4480-738: The Eschbacher cliffs near Usingen are such a quartz vein ( Härtling ) exposed by erosion . This vein, also known as the Usinger quartz vein, can be traced over a length of about 12 km, making it one of the longest German quartz veins after the Bavarian Pfahl. The northwestern part of the Eastern Hintertaunus (Langhecker Lahntaunus) , which leads to the Weilburger Lahntalgebiet, belongs geologically to
4608-718: The Hattersheim (Main) station on a rather nondescript two-arch sandstone bridge. The bridge dates from the origin of the railway from 1839 and is thus—like the Nied railway bridge—one of the oldest still operating railway bridges in Germany. It was based on a design by Paul Camille von Denis . The bridge was renovated with concrete in 1911. It is heritage-listed under the Hessian Monument Protection Act. Hattersheim (Main) station (line-kilometre 14.9)
4736-651: The Killingworth wagonway. Other locomotives include: In 1821, a parliamentary bill was passed to allow the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). The 25-mile (40 km) railway connected collieries near Bishop Auckland to the River Tees at Stockton , passing through Darlington on the way. The original plan was to use horses to draw coal carts on metal rails, but after company director Edward Pease met Stephenson, he agreed to change
4864-596: The Lahnmulde and is rich in magmatism . of mineral resources from the Middle Devonian such as iron in the form of red ironstone with up to 50 percent iron content, or river ironstone with up to 35% iron, as well as silver ore , roofing slate and diabase . The ore was mined in numerous mines here, as in the Montan area Lahn-Dill area ; some have been converted to visitor mines. The Mining that operated from
4992-462: The Prussian state railways , which took it over on 3 May 1872. In 1888, the line in Frankfurt was shortened by about a kilometre when it was diverted from its old railway terminal to the new Frankfurt Central Station ( Hauptbahnhof ). The same happened in 1906 at the Wiesbaden end, where the current Wiesbaden Central Station replaced the old Taunus station. In 1920, the line was taken over by
5120-729: The Rainhill Trials were run in October 1829. Entries could weigh no more than six tons and had to travel along the track for a total distance of 60 miles (97 km). Stephenson's entry was Rocket , and its performance in winning the contest made it famous. George's son Robert had been working in South America from 1824 to 1827 and returned to run the Forth Street Works while George was in Liverpool overseeing
5248-716: The Red Cross ). Quartzite sandstones are embedded in them, from which the Brunhildis rock on the summit of the Großer Feldberg consists. The Hermeskeil layers are exposed below the Großer Feldberg and consist of mudstones, weakly consolidated micaceous sandstones and quartzites of the Lower Siegen (Lower Pragian). They are covered by several 100 m thick layers of Taunus quartzite (Middle Siegen, Pragian/Emsian). The very weather-resistant rock forms many summits of
Taunus Railway - Misplaced Pages Continue
5376-446: The Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (Rhine-Main Transport Association, RMV) replaced the FVV, and simultaneously introduced the new Regional-Express line 90 (the former express trains were now rebranded as Regional-Expresses, abbreviated as RE), which used the Taunus Railway from Wiesbaden Central Station to Kostheim junction. At the timetable change in the summer of 2000, the RE-90 service was discontinued due to poor loadings and replaced on
5504-413: The Rheingau and the Main-Taunus foothills form natural borders. The last three landscapes are part of the Rhine-Main lowlands. On the southern edge are the towns of Rüdesheim am Rhein , Wiesbaden , Hofheim am Taunus and Bad Homburg vor der Höhe at the junctions with the valleys of the Upper Rhine and Main ; the towns of Bad Nauheim and Butzbach are on the eastern edge at the junction with
5632-418: The Suez Canal . George Stephenson's daughter was born in 1805 but died within weeks of her birth. Descendants of the wider Stephenson family continue to live in Wylam (Stephenson's birthplace) today. Also relatives connected by his marriage live in Derbyshire. Some descendants later emigrated to Perth , Australia, and Minnesota , with later generations remaining to this day. This Stephenson engineering family
5760-407: The Upper Ordovician and Silurian using uranium-lead dating . They are overlaid by the Eppstein slates of the Silurian and the Lower Devonian Lorsbach slates . At the very southern edge and in a small deposit near Mühlbach in the east of the Vordertaunus unit, limestones are exposed that are attributed to the Middle Devonian . To the north of the Vordertaunus is the Taunuscrest, also known as
5888-465: The Vordertaunus (naturally also called Vortaunus) and the Hohe Taunus (around Taunus main ridge ), where in the Feldberg massif the highest heights not only of the Taunus but of the entire Rhenish Slate Mountains are reached. That is why the climate here is rougher than in the upstream landscape areas - it is colder on average, it rains and, in particular, it snows more. The turbulent relief offers little space for settlements and agricultural use. On
6016-440: The Wetterau ; in the north on the Lahn the towns of Wetzlar , Weilburg , Bad Ems and Lahnstein border on the Hintertaunus ; in the west in the Middle Rhine is, among other things, Lorch at the seam (each in an anti-clockwise direction). The Taunus is a heterogeneous landscape area, but it is usually quite distinct from the surrounding landscapes and is classified as a main natural area unit group. The natural landscape
6144-412: The oldest in Germany . Today it is used by Regional-Express trains between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden and the trains of line S1 of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn between Frankfurt-Höchst and Wiesbaden. Between Frankfurt Hbf (Frankfurt central station) and Frankfurt-Höchst, they run on the line of the former Hessian Ludwig Railway . The building of the line was preceded by many years of negotiations between
6272-407: The 'Geordie Lamp', and awarded him £1,000, but Davy and his supporters refused to accept their findings, and would not see how an uneducated man such as Stephenson could come up with the solution he had. In 1833 a House of Commons committee found that Stephenson had equal claim to having invented the safety lamp. Davy went to his grave believing that Stephenson had stolen his idea. The Stephenson lamp
6400-411: The 17th to the 20th centuries has now ceased. In the eastern Taunus between Idstein in the west and Usingen in the east, from the late Middle Ages to the early 20th century, there was a large number of pits in which there was mining of varying intensity on post-varistic, i.e. only after the varistic orogeny ore veins formed in the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous. The last active lead and silver ore mine,
6528-454: The Chesterfield Market Festival. A statue of him dressed in classical robes stands in Neville Street, Newcastle, facing the buildings that house the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne and the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers , near Newcastle railway station . The statue was sculpted in 1862 by John Graham Lough and is listed Grade II. From 1990 until 2003, Stephenson's portrait appeared on
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#17327726838146656-431: The European aristocracy to its spa towns . The car line Ford Taunus is named after it. The Taunus is the southeastern part of the Rhenish Slate Mountains . The low mountain range is about 75 km long from southwest to northeast and about 35 km wide across it from northwest to southeast,it covers an area of about 2700 km . In the west, the Upper Middle Rhine Valley borders the Taunus and separates it from
6784-435: The Frankfurt main freight yard ( Hauptgüterbahnhof ) was located at line-kilometre 6.1. After this was abandoned, the access route was closed. The Nied railway bridge (line-kilometre 8,5) is the second oldest railway bridge still in operation in Germany. In Frankfurt-Höchst (line-kilometre 9.3), the Main-Lahn Railway crosses the Taunus railway and the Königstein Railway and the Soden Railway branch off here. The latter
6912-433: The Giessen Nappe, which lies flat today, on rocks from the Hintertaunus and the Lahn Mulde is of even greater extent. Their rocks are not otherwise found in the Taunus, they must have been deposited south of the Vortaunus and were thrust at least 25 km over the Taunus and Hintertaunus, possibly significantly more due to large-scale considerations. In addition to the deformation of the layers, these are clearly metamorphic in
7040-427: The Heftrich pit with the Hannibal and Hasdrubal tunnels, was closed around 1924. Exploration drilling carried out by the Hessian State Office for Soil Research in the 1980s no longer provided any indication of deposits worth building. Due to its hardness, the Taunus quartzite was often mined in the past, currently only one quarry near Köppern is in operation. Some limestone and diabase quarries are still in operation in
7168-522: The High Taunus, which mainly consists of Lower Devonian clastic rocks . It is composed of the stratigraphic sequences Graue Phyllite , Bunte Schiefer , Hermeskeilschichten and Taunusquarzit . The Lower Devonian sub-layer only appears in two small outcrops, metavolcanites of the type found in the Anterior Taunus rocks. The Graue Phyllite consist of slates and sandstones . They contain impressions of Upper Silurian brachiopods and corals and were deposited in shallow water . The clay slates of
7296-432: The Hintertaunus in the Oberkleen area. The geology of the Hintertaunus is not as well known as that of the Vortaunus and Hochtaunus in the south or that of the Lahnmulde in the north due to the often monotonous sandy and slate rocks that form only a few continuous reference horizons and provide hardly any index fossils . The Hunsrück slate refers to a rock facies occurring mainly in the Hunsrück and Hintertaunus, which
7424-445: The L&MR , on 15 September 1830, drew luminaries from the government and industry, including the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington . The day started with a procession of eight trains setting out from Liverpool. The parade was led by Northumbrian driven by George Stephenson, and included Phoenix driven by his son Robert, North Star driven by his brother Robert and Rocket driven by assistant engineer Joseph Locke . The day
7552-417: The Lahn valley towards the Limburg Basin and is also known as the Goldener Grund in the northern area, probably because agriculture found more favorable conditions here. The relief is gently undulating, the soil is fertile due to the high proportion of loess and the climate is milder due to the basin location. The Taunus (main unit group 30) is subdivided in terms of natural space as follows: The Taunus
7680-412: The Lahnmulde and Dillmulde typical rocks of this time such as Schalstein , Massenkalk and deck diabase absent here. The greywacke occurring here and at other places in the eastern Hintertaunus cannot or can hardly be distinguished from the Carboniferous Kulm greywacke and are considered by some scientists to be the remains of the ' Viewed 'Giessen Ceiling . The strata of the Taunus were formed in
7808-409: The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, paved the way for the railway engineers who followed, such as his son Robert, his assistant Joseph Locke who carried out much work on his own account and Isambard Kingdom Brunel . Stephenson was farsighted in realising that the individual lines being built would eventually be joined, and would need to have the same gauge. The standard gauge used throughout much of
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#17327726838147936-448: The Mainz rail bypass. A few metres east of the signal box was a listed building pedestrian bridge, also from 1904, that crossed the tracks. It was demolished with the building of Kommerzienrat-Disch Bridge, a road bridge that still connects the main street of Mainz-Kostheim with Hochheimer Straße (L 119). Mainz-Kastel station (line-kilometre 33.4) is now the most southerly station of Wiesbaden . From here there were two connections to
8064-560: The North-East, spoke with a broad Northumberland accent and not the 'Language of Parliament,' which made him seem lowly. Realizing this, he made a point of educating his son Robert in a private school, where he was taught to speak in Standard English with a Received Pronunciation accent. It was due to this, in their future dealings with Parliament, that it became clear that the authorities preferred Robert to his father. A local committee of enquiry gathered in support of Stephenson, exonerated him, proved he had been working separately to create
8192-446: The Taunus Railway. The time lost as a result of operating through the terminal station at Wiesbaden, which at the time still required the exchange of locomotives, and the increasing aspiration to integrate Frankfurt Airport in the regular-interval network of the IC movement led to a gradual depletion of the major connections on the line, as the route via Mainz did not need a change in direction and running times could thus be shortened. In
8320-513: The Taunus range are Bad Schwalbach (formerly Langenschwalbach ) mentioned in documents dating back to the 16th century, Bad Ems , one of the most reputed therapeutic spas in Germany since the 17th century, as well as Bad Weilbach , where a spring reached wide fame for some time. By the 19th century the most famous spa towns in the area were Wiesbaden , Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Bad Nauheim , and Bad Soden am Taunus . George Stephenson George Stephenson (9 June 1781 – 12 August 1848)
8448-460: The Taunus ridge ( Altkönig , Kleiner Feldberg , Glaskopf ), but also individual rock elevations (such as the Hohle Stein ). The Celtic ring walls and the rubble heap on the "White Wall" on the Altkönig consist of Taunus quartzite. The fractured groundwater of the Taunus quartzite is of local interest for water extraction. They are dammed by the underlying Hermeskeilschichten and pumped through groundwater tunnels. Four such groundwater tunnels make
8576-440: The Vordertaunus are divided from north to south into the metavolcanic sequence, the Eppstein slate and the Lorsbach slate. The oldest sedimentary rocks of the Taunus are the phyllites of Bierstadt from the lower Ordovician era, known only from a borehole in Wiesbaden , with an age of about 480 million years determined by the evidence of spores . The volcanic rocks of the metavulcanite unit are younger, they could be dated to
8704-428: The Vordertaunus – the latter clearly decreases to the north. In later uplift phases between the Late Jurassic and the Tertiary , cross-fractures were applied perpendicular to strike. The rift valley of the Idstein Depression divides the Hintertaunus into an eastern and western part, while the Limburg Basin divides the Lahn Mulde as it sinks. Some of the fractures are now filled with quartz . The free-standing rocks of
8832-433: The centre of Mainz: a pontoon bridge and the Mainz–Kastel train ferry . The construction of a railway bridge was not possible. Therefore, the Taunus Railway in cooperation with the Hessian Ludwig Railway ( Hessische Ludwigsbahn ) opened the Mainz–Kastel train ferry with three steam-powered ferries in 1861. This was closed after the opening of the Mainz South Bridge ( Mainzer Südbrücke ) in 1863 but continued to operate as
8960-406: The construction of the line. Robert was responsible for the detailed design of Rocket , although he was in constant postal communication with his father, who made many suggestions. One significant innovation, suggested by Henry Booth , treasurer of the L&MR, was the use of a fire-tube boiler , invented by French engineer Marc Seguin that gave improved heat exchange. The opening ceremony of
9088-432: The course of the Variscan Orogonese foliated , scaled and in the southwest-northeast strike saddles and troughs folded. The folds are predominantly northwestvergent . Widespread to the northwest, the rock series were thrust onto younger ones. Thus, at the fault zone of the Taunuskamm overthrust , the entire length of the southern Taunus nappe-like was thrust over rocks of the Younger Lower Devonian. The overthrust of
9216-656: The current Wiesbaden-Biebrich station on the Right Rhine line), later called Rheinbahnhof (Rhine station), lay at the end of a branch line on the Rhine bank in Biebrich . It was particularly important in the early days for rail freight operations and was in the immediate vicinity of the customs office on the Rhine bank. The opening of the link triggered the so-called fog prank ( Nebeljungenstreich ) in 1841. With this act of sabotage Mainz merchants attempted to block access to
9344-554: The early 1990s, the long-distance traffic on the Taunus Railway was operated only by single IC commuter trains between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, which was eventually discontinued for lack of demand. With the founding of the Frankfurter Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund (Frankfurt Transport and Fares Association), the line was included in its fare structure. Line S 1 of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn started operations on
9472-619: The factory of George and Robert Stephenson , 87 carriages and 44 wagons. The first engine drivers were British. The Taunus Railway suffered from competition from the Frankfurt–Mainz line (opened on the south bank of the Main in 1863) and it decided to sell its company to the Hessian Ludwig Railway ( Hessischen Ludwigsbahn , HLB) in 1871. The HLB took over the enterprise with effect from 1 January 1872, but it sold it on to
9600-753: The final concession was not approved until 1838: by the City of Frankfurt on 8 May, by the Grand Duchy of Hessen on 11 May and by Nassau on 13 June. The private Taunus Railway Company ( Taunus-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft ) was established on 12 August 1838 in Frankfurt/Main. Paul Camille von Denis , a Bavarian, born in Mainz , who had worked on the first German railway, the Bavarian Ludwigsbahn between Nuremberg and Fürth (opened in 1835), designed
9728-433: The financial loss he suffered by not using his own patented design. Stephenson was hired to build the eight-mile (13-km) Hetton colliery railway in 1820. He used a combination of gravity on downward inclines and locomotives for level and upward stretches. This, the first railway using no animal power, opened in 1822. This line used a gauge of 4 ft 8 in ( 1,422 mm ) which Stephenson had used before at
9856-568: The first dozen or so locomotives utilised there were purchased from the Stephenson shops. Stephenson's conservative views on the capabilities of locomotives meant he favoured circuitous routes and civil engineering that were more costly than his successors thought necessary. For example, rather than the West Coast Main Line taking the direct route favoured by Joseph Locke over Shap between Lancaster and Carlisle , Stephenson
9984-483: The first public inter-city railway line in the world to use locomotives, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway , which opened in 1830 . George Stephenson was born on 9 June 1781 in Wylam , Northumberland , which is 9 miles (15 km) west of Newcastle upon Tyne . He was the second child of Robert and Mabel Stephenson, neither of whom could read or write. Robert was the fireman for Wylam Colliery pumping engine, earning
10112-432: The first rail cars of coal into Leicester dramatically reducing the price of coal and saving the city some £40,000 per annum. Stephenson remained at Alton Grange until 1838 before moving to Tapton House in Derbyshire. The next ten years were the busiest of Stephenson's life as he was besieged with requests from railway promoters. Many of the first American railroad builders came to Newcastle to learn from Stephenson and
10240-404: The free port of Biebrich to remove the competitive advantage of the railway. The station's entrance building was rather simple: a two-storey building on a rectangular floor plan with a clock tower on the ridge. It resembled the central buildings of the main stations in Wiesbaden and Frankfurt, which had also been planned by Ignaz Opfermann. This first building was demolished in 1908 and replaced by
10368-520: The grand opening of the skew bridge in Rainhill over the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The bridge was the first to cross any railway at an angle. It required the structure to be constructed as two flat planes (overlapping in this case by 6 ft (1.8 m)) between which the stonework forms a parallelogram shape when viewed from above. It has the effect of flattening the arch and the solution
10496-534: The late 1990s consisted of 2 to 3 carriages, hauled by a class 141 locomotive. As early as the mid-1970s, prior to the inauguration of the S-Bahn, trains were also operated by class 420 electric multiple units . After the conversion to S-Bahn operations, all S-Bahn services were operated with these trains. Class 420 sets are still used overwhelmingly on lines S 8 and S 9, while line S 1 has been operated since 2004 almost exclusively with class 423 multiple units . Line S 1
10624-636: The latter died within months. George's wife died, probably of tuberculosis, the year after. While George was working in Scotland, Robert was brought up by a succession of neighbours and then by George's unmarried sister Eleanor (Nelly), who lived with them in Killingworth on George's return. On 29 March 1820, George (now considerably wealthier) married Betty Hindmarsh at Newburn. The marriage seems to have been happy, but there were no children and Betty died on 3 August 1845. On 11 January 1848, at St Chad's Church in Shrewsbury , Shropshire, George married for
10752-532: The line across it. The method he used was similar to that used by John Metcalf who constructed many miles of road across marshes in the Pennines, laying a foundation of heather and branches, which became bound together by the weight of the passing coaches, with a layer of stones on top. As the L&;MR approached completion in 1829, its directors arranged a competition to decide who would build its locomotives, and
10880-472: The line and damaged the tracks. They were prevented at gunpoint from inflicting more damage. The director of the company from 1840 to 1852 was Johann Adam Beil, a Hessian privy councillor and former Frankfurt senator. The line was originally 43.4 kilometres long. A 6.6 kilometres branch from Höchst to Bad Soden (the Soden Railway ) opened in 1863. Originally the railway operated six locomotives from
11008-543: The line in May 1978, although this service does not run on the Taunus Railway runs between Frankfurt-Höchst and Frankfurt Central Station, instead it uses the Main-Lahn Railway . In addition, express trains operated on the route, in some cases to/from Koblenz . In 1980, services of S-Bahn line S 14 (called S 8 service since 1995) commenced on the section between Wiesbaden Ost and Wiesbaden Central Station. In 1995,
11136-437: The line, especially on the section from Kostheim junction to Wiesbaden East station . By the end of 1970 the line had achieved considerable importance for long-distance traffic. The Deutsche Bundesbahn timetable in 1970 included a long-distance service from Wiesbaden to Bremerhaven-Lehe . With the introduction of the two-class Intercity (IC) network in 1979, every second IC train ran from Cologne to Frankfurt via Wiesbaden and
11264-799: The line. Since the timetable change in December 2010, Regionalbahn services (now RB 10 ) have been operated on the route of the Taunus Railway and the Right Rhine Railway by the Frankfurt-based company, VIAS. 19 Stadler FLIRT low-floor trains are used on this line. These replaced the Regional-Express services operated by Deutsche Bahn, so that between Koblenz and Wiesbaden, all stops are served hourly. At peak times services between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden are operated every half hour. Taunus The Taunus
11392-501: The master of the craft. George Stephenson had two children. His son Robert was born on 16 October 1803. Robert married Frances Sanderson, daughter of a City of London professional John Sanderson, on 17 June 1829. Robert died in 1859 having no children. Robert Stephenson expanded on the work of his father and became a major railway engineer himself. Abroad, Robert was involved in the Alexandria–Cairo railway that later connected with
11520-513: The mostly shallow and fertile soils , which developed from acidic rock , there is mainly forest here. The Vortaunus is more inconsistent than the main ridge, it is morphologically more fragmented and the bays of the foothills divide it more. Hintertaunus is the name given to the area north of the Hoher Taunus up to the Lahn valley . The landscape here is lower and less mountainous than in
11648-520: The original route of the L&MR caused by hostility from some affected landowners meant Stephenson encountered difficulty during Parliamentary scrutiny of the original bill, especially under cross-examination by Edward Hall Alderson . The bill was rejected and a revised bill for a new alignment was submitted and passed in a subsequent session. The revised alignment presented the problem of crossing Chat Moss , an apparently bottomless peat bog, which Stephenson overcame by unusual means, effectively floating
11776-439: The other two states and demanded instead rail connections between Frankfurt and its own cities of Darmstadt , Mainz and Offenbach . In the end they agreed on the current route. A consortium to build the railway was established in 1835 under the leadership of the two Frankfurt banks Gebrüder Bethmann and Rothschild . The shares that it issued were immediately oversubscribed 40 times, enabling work to begin in 1837. Nevertheless,
11904-551: The parish of Alton Grange (now part of Ravenstone) in Leicestershire in 1830, originally to consult on the Leicester and Swannington Railway , a line primarily proposed to take coal from the western coal fields of the county to Leicester. The promoters of the line Mr William Stenson and Mr John Ellis , had difficulties in raising the necessary capital as the majority of local wealth had been invested in canals. Realising
12032-580: The part of the Lahnmulde that belongs to the Taunus. In addition, there are countless smaller quarries to supply the local population with building blocks. The Roman Limes was built across the Taunus. The Saalburg , a restored Roman castellum, now houses a museum. After the fall of the Limes (in 259/260 AD), the Alamanni settled in the range and for this reason there are some Alemannic cemeteries in
12160-657: The people of the North East of England. By this theory, the name of the Geordie Lamp attached to the North East pit men themselves. By 1866 any native of Newcastle upon Tyne could be called a Geordie. Cornishman Richard Trevithick is credited with the first realistic design for a steam locomotive, the " Puffing Devil ", in 1801. Later, he visited Tyneside and built an engine there for a mine-owner. Several local men were inspired by this, and designed their own engines. Stephenson designed his first locomotive in 1814,
12288-431: The pit. In 1802 he married Frances Henderson and moved to Willington Quay , east of Newcastle. There he worked as a brakesman while they lived in one room of a cottage. George made shoes and mended clocks to supplement his income. Their first child Robert was born in 1803, and in 1804 they moved to Dial Cottage at West Moor , near Killingworth where George worked as a brakesman at Killingworth Pit. Their second child,
12416-467: The plans. Stephenson surveyed the line in 1821, and assisted by his 18-year-old son Robert, construction began the same year. A manufacturer was needed to provide the locomotives for the line. Pease and Stephenson had jointly established a company in Newcastle to manufacture locomotives. It was set up as Robert Stephenson and Company , and George's son Robert was the managing director. A fourth partner
12544-454: The potential and need for the rail link Stephenson himself invested £2,500 and raised the remaining capital through his network of connections in Liverpool. His son Robert was made chief engineer with the first part of the line opening in 1832. During this same period the Snibston estate in Leicestershire came up for auction, it lay adjoining the proposed Swannington to Leicester route and
12672-438: The problem caused by the weight of the engine on the primitive rails. He experimented with a steam spring (to 'cushion' the weight using steam pressure acting on pistons to support the locomotive frame), but soon followed the practice of 'distributing' weight by using a number of wheels or bogies. For the Stockton and Darlington Railway Stephenson used wrought-iron malleable rails that he had found satisfactory, notwithstanding
12800-641: The route. The first stage was opened on 26 September 1839 from the Taunus station in Gallusanlage (now Willy-Brandt-Platz), Frankfurt, to the then small Nassau town of Höchst am Main by the Mainz masterbuilder, Ignaz Opfermann. The railway reached Hattersheim am Main on 24 November 1839 and Mainz-Kastel on 13 April 1840. The extension to the Wiesbaden Taunus station on the Rheinstraße
12928-478: The same section by the new S 9 service . The RE 10 service ( Neuwied –Koblenz–Wiesbaden–Frankfurt) now run largely hourly, even during peak hours, sometimes every half-hour. There are no longer any scheduled long-distance passenger services on the line, only the Wiesbaden Ost–Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof section is still regularly used by long-distance trains. In 1970, Deutsche Bundesbahn presented
13056-590: The sandy rocks of the Singhofen layers, in the east, rocks in the Facies of the Hunsrück slate recede. Transposed volcanic tuffes and ashes , the so-called porphyroides , are integrated into the Singhofen layers, they can be traced in some cases over several tens of kilometers. The Middle Devonian to Lower Carboniferous of the Usinger Mulde is only about 250 m thick and strongly tectonically disturbed, in
13184-414: The southern Taunus. Between the valleys, some of which are quite deep, there are pronounced plateaus (leveled areas) with heavy agricultural use. Since mostly only the slopes of the valley are forested, the Hintertaunus is generally more open. The landscape of the Hintertaunus is more inconsistent because of its different elevations. This is clearly evident in the eastern Hintertaunus. Here, for example, there
13312-544: The southern foothills of the Taunus ( Eschborn ). This area of the Taunus became part of the Frankish confederation of Germanic tribes after the Battle of Tolbiac around 500 AD. In past centuries the Taunus became famous among aristocrats for its therapeutic hot springs . Certain towns in the area, such as Bad Homburg vor der Höhe with its Kurpark , have geothermal spas that were formerly renowned. Other spa towns in
13440-508: The third time, to Ellen Gregory, another farmer's daughter originally from Bakewell in Derbyshire, who had been his housekeeper. Seven months after his wedding, George contracted pleurisy and died, aged 67, at noon on Saturday 12 August 1848 at Tapton House in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. He was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield , alongside his second wife. Described by Rolt as a generous man, Stephenson financially supported
13568-582: The three sovereigns states through which the planned line ran: the Free City of Frankfurt , the Duchy of Nassau (of which Wiesbaden was capital) and the Grand Duchy of Hesse for the section in Mainz-Kastel , a suburb of Mainz on the eastern bank of the Rhine . In particular the Grand Duchy opposed its building, because it feared a loss of traffic to the port of Mainz as a result of the connection with
13696-541: The travel time, only stopped in Wiesbaden-Biebrich , bypassing Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof, was discontinued because of insufficient demand. A branch line branched off in Wiesbaden Ost to Biebrich , later called Rheinbahnhof (Rhine station; see below). On 3 August 1840 a 1.5 kilometre-long branch line was opened to Biebrich, which was operated by horse-drawn traffic until 14 May 1872. The line
13824-467: The weight of heavy locomotives. William Losh of Walker Ironworks thought he had an agreement with Stephenson to supply cast-iron rails, and Stephenson's decision caused a permanent rift between them. The gauge Stephenson chose for the line was 4 feet 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 inches (1,435 mm) which subsequently was adopted as the standard gauge for railways, not only in Britain, but throughout
13952-659: The western Hunsrück . In the north, the valley of the Lahn (Giessen-Koblenzer Lahntal ) with the Limburg Basin forms a very sharp scenic border to the northern Westerwald . In the east, the Giessen Basin (southernmost part of the West Hessian Uplands ) with Dießenbach and Kleebach border to the north, the Wetterau with Wetter and Nidda to the south of the slate mountains; in the south,
14080-415: The wives and families of several who had died in his employment, due to accident or misadventure, some within his family, and some not. He was also a keen gardener throughout his life; during his last years at Tapton House, he built hothouses in the estate gardens, growing exotic fruits and vegetables in a 'not too friendly' rivalry with Joseph Paxton , head gardener at nearby Chatsworth House , twice beating
14208-555: The world is due to him. In 2002, Stephenson was named in the BBC 's television show and list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote, placing at no. 65. The Victorian self-help advocate Samuel Smiles had published his first biography of George Stephenson in 1857, and although attacked as biased in the favour of George at the expense his rivals as well as his son, it was popular and 250,000 copies were sold by 1904. The Band of Hope were selling biographies of George in 1859 at
14336-499: The world's railways. Pioneered by Stephenson, rail transport was one of the most important technological inventions of the 19th century and a key component of the Industrial Revolution . Built by George and his son Robert 's company Robert Stephenson and Company , the Locomotion No. 1 was the first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public rail line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. George also built
14464-522: The world. Stephenson had ascertained by experiments at Killingworth that half the power of the locomotive was consumed by a gradient as little as 1 in 260. He concluded that railways should be kept as level as possible. He used this knowledge while working on the Bolton and Leigh Railway , and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), executing a series of difficult cuttings, embankments and stone viaducts to level their routes. Defective surveying of
14592-598: Was Michael Longridge of Bedlington Ironworks . On an early trade card, Robert Stephenson & Co was described as "Engineers, Millwrights & Machinists, Brass & Iron Founders". In September 1825, the works at Forth Street, Newcastle, completed the first locomotive for the railway: originally named Active , it was renamed Locomotion and was followed by Hope , Diligence and Black Diamond . The Stockton and Darlington Railway opened on 27 September 1825. Driven by Stephenson, Locomotion hauled an 80-ton load of coal and flour nine miles (14 km) in two hours, reaching
14720-465: Was also looking at the problem. Despite his lack of scientific knowledge, Stephenson, by trial and error, devised a lamp in which the air entered via tiny holes, through which the flames of the lamp could not pass. A month before Davy presented his design to the Royal Society , Stephenson demonstrated his own lamp to two witnesses by taking it down Killingworth Colliery and holding it in front of
14848-474: Was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution . Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians as a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His chosen rail gauge , sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", was the basis for the 4-foot- 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch (1.435 m) standard gauge used by most of
14976-464: Was believed to contain valuable coal reserves. Stephenson realising the financial potential of the site, given its proximity to the proposed rail link and the fact that the manufacturing town of Leicester was then being supplied coal by canal from Derbyshire, bought the estate. Employing a previously used method of mining in the midlands called tubbing to access the deep coal seams, his success could not have been greater. Stephenson's coal mine delivered
15104-492: Was built with the line. The station building dates back to the beginning of 1842. The halt of Eddersheim (line-kilometre 18.9) serves the Eddersheim district of Hattersheim am Main . Flörsheim (Main) station (line-kilometre 21.9) serves the town of Flörsheim am Main . The main entrance building, although rebuilt several times, dates from the first year of the line, 1839. The Flörsheim tank farm of Deutschen Shell AG
15232-451: Was constructed in the colliery workshop behind Stephenson's home, Dial Cottage, on Great Lime Road. The locomotive could haul 30 tons of coal up a hill at 4 mph (6.4 km/h), and was the first successful flanged-wheel adhesion locomotive: its traction depended on contact between its flanged wheels and the rail. Altogether, Stephenson is said to have produced 16 locomotives at Killingworth, although it has not proved possible to produce
15360-515: Was in favour of a longer sea-level route via Ulverston and Whitehaven . Locke's route was built. Stephenson tended to be more casual in estimating costs and paperwork in general. He worked with Joseph Locke on the Grand Junction Railway with half of the line allocated to each man. Stephenson's estimates and organising ability proved inferior to those of Locke and the board's dissatisfaction led to Stephenson's resignation causing
15488-457: Was marred by the death of William Huskisson , the Member of Parliament for Liverpool , who was struck by Rocket . Stephenson evacuated the injured Huskisson to Eccles with a train, but he died from his injuries. Despite the tragedy, the railway was a resounding success. Stephenson became famous, and was offered the position of chief engineer for a wide variety of other railways. 1830 also saw
15616-598: Was opened 19 May 1840. It was the ninth railway line opened in Germany. The new railway line immediately led to changes in transport flows, while the losers from this development – especially in Mainz – vigorously defended themselves in an incident called the Nebeljungenstreich —"fog-boyish-prank"—when Mainz merchants sabotaged the port at Biebrich . Carting companies and drivers of the region, fearing for their income undertook an attack in Mainz-Kastel, on
15744-445: Was promoted to enginewright for the collieries at Killingworth, responsible for maintaining and repairing all the colliery engines. He became an expert in steam-driven machinery. In 1815, aware of the explosions often caused in mines by naked flames, Stephenson began to experiment with a safety lamp that would burn in a gaseous atmosphere without causing an explosion. At the same time, the eminent scientist and Cornishman Humphry Davy
15872-503: Was renamed Frankfurt-Höchst Farbwerke . The halt of Frankfurt-Sindlingen (line-kilometre 12.2) serves the district of Frankfurt- Sindlingen . It was opened as Sindlingen-Zeilsheim in 1893. The original entrance building was replaced by a new one in 1968, which, however, was completely burned down after an explosion on 29 February 1984. The Taunus railway crosses the Schwarzbach (line-kilometre 14.8) about 100 metres northeast of
16000-624: Was shortened in 1908 and the station was relocated accordingly. From then on, the line was only used for freight traffic, as travellers to Wiesbaden, who arrived by ship, could be transported by the Wiesbaden steam tramway, operated by the South German Railway Company ( Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , SEG) from 1889. The branch still exists today as an industrial siding from the Kalle-Albert industrial park. The terminal station of Biebrich (not to be confused with
16128-653: Was thus one of the first lines to be operated by the new S-Bahn trains. These trains were put on the line so that commuters to Frankfurt could avoid extensive construction work on the autobahn to Frankfurt , using the most comfortable trains with the operator hoping to retain them as permanent customers. After the founding of the Deutsche Bahn in 1994, the class 140 locomotives were withdrawn from freight traffic, so that they were increasingly replaced, initially by locomotives of class 110 and later by class 143 , which are currently used almost exclusively for RE services on
16256-453: Was under-boilered and again caused damage to the track. The new engines were too heavy to run on wooden rails or plate-way, and iron edge rails were in their infancy, with cast iron exhibiting excessive brittleness. Together with William Losh , Stephenson improved the design of cast-iron edge rails to reduce breakage; rails were briefly made by Losh, Wilson and Bell at their Walker ironworks. According to Rolt, Stephenson managed to solve
16384-594: Was used almost exclusively in North East England , whereas the Davy lamp was used everywhere else. The experience gave Stephenson a lifelong distrust of London-based, theoretical, scientific experts. In his book George and Robert Stephenson , the author L.T.C. Rolt relates that opinion varied about the two lamps' efficiency: that the Davy Lamp gave more light, but the Geordie Lamp was thought to be safer in
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