Karlsruher Lokalbahn

The Karlsruhe Local Railway (German: Karlsruher Lokalbahn) was a metre-gauge light railway which formerly connected Spöck, Karlsruhe and Durmersheim, now in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. After its opening in 1890/91, it had little commercial success, so that by 1938 most sections of it had been shut down. Some modest residual traffic in the city of Karlsruhe continued until 1955. Parts of it route are now used by line S2 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn.

After 1880, when the Baden railway network was largely completed, two major issues remained in the Karlsruhe area: how to connect to the places in the northeast and the southwest of the city that had been left without rail connections. As, at the time, a railway connection promised economic growth and enabled people to accept jobs in the emerging industries of Karlsruhe, various plans had been put forward since 1883 to build a light railway that would close the gaps in the local railway network. Finally, the railway entrepreneur Herrmann Bachstein and his financiers became involved in the project. Construction began after he obtained a concession for the project in 1888. The main contractor and the first operator was the Centralverwaltung für Secundairbahnen (central administration for secondary railways) Herrmann Bachstein.

The southern route from Karlsruhe via Grünwinkel, Forchheim, Mörsch to Durmersheim was opened on 6 October 1890. It started in Karlsruhe at the Lokalbahnhof (Lokalbahn station) in Kapellenstraße near the old Karlsruhe central station (Hauptbahnhof), where a locomotive shop was established. The terminus in Durmersheim was located in the current street of Chenneviersplatz. The northern line was opened shortly later on 29 January 1891 and ran from the Lokalbahnhof via Hagsfeld, Blankenloch, Staffort and Friedrichstal to Spock. North of Blankenloch it zigzagged across the countryside to Staffort, Friedrichstal and the edge of Spock.

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