Erms Valley Railway

Overview

Native name

Ermstalbahn

Locale

Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Termini

Metzingen (Württ)
48°32′23″N 9°17′24″E / 48.5397°N 9.2900°E
Bad Urach
48°29′29″N 9°23′46″E / 48.4914°N 9.3961°E

Line number

763

Technical

Line length

12.260 km (7.618 mi)

Track gauge

1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) standard gauge

Minimum radius

350 m (1,148.3 ft)

Operating speed

80 km/h (49.7 mph) (maximum)

Maximum incline

1.455%

Route number

4621

Route map

from Plochingen

0.000

Metzingen (Württ)

354 m

to Tübingen

0.077

DB Netz AG / ENAG

1.700

Metzingen-Neuhausen

3.259

Erms

3.419

Metzinger Straße

4.095

Dettingen Lehen

4.491

Glemser Straße

4.656

Dettingen-Mitte

397 m

5.413

Dettingen Freibad

5.862

Kalferweg

6.549

Dettingen Gsaid

Munksjö paper factory siding

8.247

Brühlbach

8.679

Bad Urach Wasserfall

Seltbachstraße

9.700

Bad Urach Ermstalklinik

10.400

Bad Urach

463 m

11.070

Sattelmayer siding

11.447

URACA loading point

12.000

Erms and lower mill canal

12.050

upper mill canal

12.260

Kunstmühle Künkele

Source: German railway atlas

The Erms Valley Railway (German: Ermstalbahn, originally written as Ermsthalbahn) is a single-track branch line in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It links Metzingen, where it branches off from the Plochingen–Tübingen railway with Bad Urach (called Urach until July 1983) on the northern edge of the Swabian Jura (Schwäbische Alb). For its entire length, the branch line follows the Erms river and it is now operated by the Erms-Neckar-Bahn Eisenbahninfrastruktur AG (ENAG).

The Erms Valley Railway was opened on 27 December 1873 as a private railway by the Ermsthalbahn-Gesellschaft ("Erms Valley Railway Company"). The concession consigned the railway with effect from 1 April 1904 to the Kingdom of Württemberg, after which the railway was controlled by the Royal Württemberg State Railways (Königlich Württembergischen Staats-Eisenbahnen). On 2 August 1919, the line was extended by 1.194 km to Kunstmühle Künkele. Although this extension was only for the carriage of freight to the mill, provision was made for the construction of an envisaged extension towards Münsingen, which would have created a link to the Reutlingen–Schelklingen railway. After the First World War, the line became part of Deutsche Reichsbahn, which was founded in 1920, and after the Second World War it was taken over by Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB).

The temporary closure of the railway began in the summer of 1971; the DB abandoned operations on the last section between the loading point of the URACA pump factory and Kunstmühle. On Friday, 27 May 1976, the last regular passenger service ran to Urach, but freight traffic was still maintained to URACA. Special excursion trains also operated on the line. In July 1983, Urach was declared to be a spa town and renamed Bad Urach, but freight traffic continued to fall. At the end of 1989, the sparse freight between the crossing loop at Dettingen Gsaidt and Bad Urach was finally abandoned.

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Wikipedia