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74-508: The viaduct is Europe's longest limestone bridge, and its construction was one of the earliest significant events in the history of rail transport in Germany . As part of the Hamm–Warburg railway between Paderborn and Altenbeken, it is still in use today. It is also the emblem of Altenbeken, and is depicted, in stylized form, on the coat of arms of the municipality. The viaduct was built by

148-608: A railway town , which owes its present size almost exclusively to the railway. During World War II , the viaduct was a prime target of Allied bomb attacks, in which several columns were destroyed. According to the Americans, the Altenbeken Viaduct, together with the Schildesche Viaduct at Bielefeld , was one of the two most important German railway bridges. The Western Allies were hoping that their destruction would have

222-541: A state railway : the route from Mannheim to Heidelberg and the first section of the 285-kilometre-long (177 mi) Baden Main Line from Mannheim to Basel , which reached Freiburg im Breisgau on 1 August 1845, and which was completed in 1855. Unlike all the surrounding railways, Baden used a broad gauge of 1600 mm until 1854/55. On 12 September 1841, the Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company began working

296-698: A wagonway was also built in Austria and Bohemia from Budweis to Gmunden via Linz ( de ). The railways in Germany were given a significant impetus by the development of the first working locomotives in England (by Richard Trevithick in 1804 and John Blenkinsop in 1812) and the opening of the first public railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway , in 1825. In Germany, even before the first real railways opened, there were attempts to use locomotives for railway operations. For example, in 1815, Johann Friedrich Krigar ( de ) built

370-454: A concession was made, opposition began to surface from carters and horse drivers engaged in coal transportation. Meanwhile, the neighboring city of Barmen was also active with its own plans, as it felt disadvantaged by Elberfeld’s plans. The time was not ripe for such a project using completely new technology. People were reluctant to invest their money in it. Even the king of Prussia who ultimately had to approve any plans, did not understand

444-635: A copy of the Blenkinsop steam engine at the Royal Iron Foundry ( de ), Berlin, for Königshütte in Upper Silesia ; and, in 1818, he built another locomotive for the 1.8-kilometre-long Friederiken-Schienenweg ( de ), a coal line near Geislautern in the Saarland , which had been converted in 1821 from wooden to iron rails. This engine worked, but failed to meet expectations due to its poor performance. In

518-522: A decisive effect on the war; they wanted to stop the vital coal supply lines and break the backbone of the German war economy. The stakes were correspondingly high: even the first Allied bombing raid of 26 November 1944 resulted in the greatest air battle of World War II. As early as September 1943, the second battery of Flakabteilung 943 zur Reichsverteidigung was posted at the viaduct until January 1944. The first air attack on 26 November 1944 by US bombers cut

592-472: A pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s, but the growing importance of the Zollverein made the construction of a coherent infrastructure a necessity. The initial impetus to build was hampered by complicated negotiations on land ownership. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines did link the major cities; each German state being responsible for the lines within its own borders. During

666-600: A running surface of 40 mm ( 1 + 9 ⁄ 16  in) thick iron, known, using British terminology as a plateway . The line ran for a Prussian mile (7,532 metres or 8,237 yards), and its gauge was 820 mm ( 2 ft  8 + 9 ⁄ 32  in ) narrow-gauge . The railway was built to be operated by relay. The route was divided into three 700 Prussian rod (3.766 metres or 4.119 yards) long (2.636 kilometres or 1.638 miles in total) relay sections and four 25 rod (94 m or 308 ft 5 in) long transitional sections. The transitional sections were at

740-546: A son of the Prussian king, Frederick William II , and was to be called from then on the Prince William Railway Company (PWE). Until 1844 it was operated as a wagonway for the transportation of coal , but as early as 1833 passenger wagons were available "for enjoyment". In 1847, the railway was converted to standard gauge and was worked between Steele South and Vohwinkel as a steam-driven railway with

814-535: A steam locomotive was seen as the beginning of a new era. The decision of the Ludwig Railway Company to opt for the English system, including its rail profile and track gauge , flanges, wagons and so on, also had a normative effect because subsequently, the German railways adopted the same standards based on what was clearly a mature system. The development of the German railway network bypassed this line and it

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888-623: A suburb of Kupferdreh (now part of Essen ), to Nierenhof near Langenberg (now part of Velbert ). This route is now part of the Wuppertal-Vohwinkel–Essen-Überruhr railway and served by Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn line S9 trains. On 20 September 1831 the railway was opened by Prince William , the brother of the King of Prussia at the time, and renamed in honour of the prince. It operated as a horse-drawn railway carrying coal until 1844, but from 1833 it also carried passengers. In 1847, it

962-528: A vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from the noise they made on the tracks. Such wagonways soon became very popular in Europe. From 1787, a network of wagonways , about 30 kilometres long, was also built above ground for the coal mines of the Ruhr in order to speed up the transportation of coal to loading quays on

1036-575: A viaduct walk through the town and a plastic duck race on the Beke river. Celebrities such as Urban Priol , Hennes Bender , Götz Alsmann , Ingo Oschmann or Guildo Horn have complemented the Viaduktfeste with cultural events. The festival always takes place in early July of odd numbered years. History of rail transport in Germany The history of rail transport in Germany can be traced back to

1110-488: A wagonway from the Schlebusch Coal Region ( Kohlerevier Schlebusch ) to Haspe . The Schlesbusch-Harkort Coal Railway ( Schlebusch-Harkorter Kohlenbahn ), with a length of one Prussian mile (7½ kilometres), was largely completed by 1828 and was the first railway to operate over such a distance. The haulage of coal on this narrow gauge railway was carried out by horses. On 1 April 1876, steam locomotives took over

1184-564: The Länderbahnen (state railways). Those created up to 1871 were the: The Palatinate Railway ( Pfalzbahn ), formed in 1870, was a private railway company that was nationalised in 1909 and became part of the K.Bay.Sts.B. . In order to enable the free exchange of goods wagons between the different state railway administrations, the German State Railway Wagon Association ( Deutscher Staatsbahnwagenverband or DSV )

1258-606: The Länderbahnen were united to form the Deutsche Reichsbahn . In accordance with the " Dawes Plan ", on 30 August 1924 the state railways were legally merged to form the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG, German State Railway Company), a private company, which was required to pay reparations of about 660 million Marks annually. Prince William Railway The Prince William Railway Company ( German : Prinz-Wilhelm-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , PWE)

1332-720: The Berlin–Hamburg Railway went into service: a 286-kilometre-long (178 mi) diagonal connection between the two largest cities of what became the German Empire . Likewise in 1846 the Main-Neckar Railway from Frankfurt (Main) to Mannheim and Heidelberg went into service. In the north the line from Celle to Harburg owned by the Hanoverian State Railway in the Kingdom of Hanover reached Harburg on

1406-519: The Deutsche Reichsbahn was founded. Prior to that, there were the following early and significant approaches to the creation of national "state railways" ( Staatsbahnen ): German unification in 1871 stimulated consolidation, nationalization into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialization, and so heavy lines crisscrossed

1480-603: The Frederick William Northern Railway in the Electorate of Hesse were completed. The connexion of the southern German states of Baden and Bavaria took somewhat longer: Following the takeover of Cöln-Crefeld Railway at the turn of 1855/56, the Rhenish Railway Company, which was founded to build the line to Belgium, began work on a railway from Cologne upriver along a section of the left bank of

1554-662: The River Elbe on 1 May 1847. In autumn of that year continuous east-west links were established: Berlin's termini were not linked within the city until 1851, when the Berlin Link Railway entered service. On 18 October 1847, there was a continuous line from Breslau to Kraków for the first time when the Upper Silesian Railway was linked to the Kraków-Upper Silesian Railway . With the completion of

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1628-591: The River Ruhr . The system was horse-drawn, and was not available to the public as transport. Some of these tracks were already using iron rails – hence the German term for railway, Eisenbahn , which means "iron way". The Rauendahl Incline ( de ) in Bochum (1787) and the Schlebusch-Harkort Coal Railway ( de ) (1829) are examples of railways from those early days that can still be seen today. From 1827 to 1836,

1702-529: The Royal Westphalian Railway Company , and was inaugurated on 21 July 1853 by King Frederick William IV . He was the one who coined the phrase "I had thought I would find a golden bridge, because so many terrible dollars have been spent" . The construction and opening of the viaduct and nearby station , rail yard and tunnel under the Rehberg caused the village of Altenbeken to develop into

1776-527: The unification of Germany in 1871, attitudes changed in Prussia; Otto von Bismarck , in particular, pressed for the development of a state railway system. The railway was seen as having great military-strategic importance . Numerous ways were tried in order to create a common, German state railway. This was finally achieved during the inter-war years (1918–1939): in accordance with the Weimar Constitution

1850-547: The "Steele-Vohwinkel Railway" on 1 December 1847 as a steam railway from Überruhr (south of the Ruhr, opposite Steele) to Vohwinkel via Kupferdreh, Langenberg and Neviges. Between Neviges and Vohwinkel the trains had to climb a slope, which at this time could only be climbed with the aid of a zig zag . At the terminal station (German: Kopfstation , literally head station) built in 1847 in the Siebeneick Valley trains had run into

1924-557: The 16-kilometre-long (9.9 mi) Kreuzbahn ("cross railway") was opened from Hanover to Lehrte , the first line operated by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways . Lehrte became an important railway hub, with routes to Berlin , Cologne , Hildesheim and Harburg in front of the gates of Hamburg . The first section of the Cologne-Minden Railway , from Deutz to Düsseldorf, was opened on 20 December 1845;

1998-404: The 16th century. The earliest form of railways, wagonways , were developed in Germany in the 16th century. Modern German rail history officially began with the opening of the steam-powered Bavarian Ludwig Railway between Nuremberg and Fürth on 7 December 1835. This had been preceded by the opening of the horse-drawn Prince William Railway on 20 September 1831. The first long-distance railway

2072-531: The 1820s, the nobility favoured costly and economically inefficient (but prestigious) canal projects over railways. In the 1830s, the growing liberal middle classes supported railways as a progressive innovation with benefits for the German people in general as well as for the shareholders in the joint stock companies that built and operated the railroads. Though private concerns such as the Nuremberg-Fürth Railway were superseded by state railway companies in

2146-476: The 1840s, the government companies copied many of the private companies' methods and organizational structures. Economist Friedrich List , speaking for the liberals, summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in 1841: Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned the skills needed to operate and expand

2220-593: The 330-kilometre-long (210 mi) Lower Silesian-Märkisch Railway was opened, linking the two great cities of Prussia, Berlin and Breslau . At the same time the main line of the Upper Silesian Railway that started in Breslau reached Gleiwitz in October of that year. Within three years the railway network in the German Confederation had more than doubled in length. Three and a half months later, on 15 December 1846,

2294-581: The Deil Valley Railway was built up the Deilbach valley from Hinsbeck, a suburb of Kupferdreh (now part of Essen ), to Nierenhof near Langenberg (now part of Velbert ). This line was already called a "railway" because it had iron wheels on iron rails. It was built on oak sleepers , on which two 3.30 m (10 ft 9 + 7 ⁄ 8  in) long planks called Straßbäume, ("street trees") were secured with wooden nails. The Straßbäume were covered with

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2368-527: The Elberfeld Council two routes for the construction of such a railway from Elberfeld via Uellendahl, Horath and Herzkamp to Hinsbeck or from Elberfeld via Horath to Langenberg . In 1826 and 1827 surveying were carried out in these districts. Another railway pioneer, school teacher Peter Nikolaus Caspar Egen, however, favoured the construction of a normal rail railway. While Egen and Harkort fought out their differences, and even before an application for

2442-687: The Rhine, in the west, Harburg in the north, Warsaw and Kraków in the east and as far as Gloggnitz at the northern foot of the Semmering Pass in the south. Among the northern lines there were still small gaps in Berlin and Hamburg. In the following year, 1849, a connexion from Berlin to Kassel via Halle (Saale) / Gerstungen was established when the Halle–Bebra railway owned by the Thuringian Railway and

2516-735: The Rhine, were joined to the central European network that, meanwhile, had been extended to Flensburg , Königsberg (Prussia) (now Kaliningrad), Rzeszów in Galicia , Hungary beyond the Theiß , and to Triest on the Mediterranean . In 1860 the Prussian Eastern Railway was extended to the Russian border beyond Eydtkuhnen (today Chernyshevskoye ) in German East Prussia . With the opening of

2590-534: The Rhine. This line reached Rolandseck on 1 January 1857, Bingerbrück in 1859, today Bingen Central Station , to where in the same year the main line of the Hessian Ludwig Railway was extended, linking Mainz with Ludwigshafen from 1853. With the opening of Cologne's Cathedral Bridge on 3 October 1859 the west European rail network, consisting of the French and Belgian networks and German lines west of

2664-426: The Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives each annually pulling 43,000 passengers or 30,000 tons of freight, and forged ahead of France. Prussia nationalized its railways in an effort both to lower rates on freight service and to equalize those rates among shippers. Instead of lowering rates as far as possible,

2738-472: The Ruhr and other industrial districts, and provided good connections to the major ports of Hamburg and Bremen. By 1880, Germany had 9,400 locomotives pulling 43,000 passengers and 30,000 tons of freight a day, and forged ahead of France. The first section of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway , from Leipzig to Althen , was opened on 24 April 1837, becoming the third German railway to be built. The line

2812-580: The beginning and end of the line, at "Kupperdrehe" and Eisenhammer in Deilmannhof im Deilbachtal. At these passing places the horses were changed so that the horses that had pulled up the full wagons were unhitched and attached to empty wagons for their return. A total of seven horses were required. On the flat track next to the Ruhr only one or two horses were needed for the coal train. On the uphill route to Nierenhof, in contrast, three or four horses were required. On 20 September 1831 Prince William of Prussia ,

2886-545: The branch from Vilnius (German: Wilna )– Kaunas – Virbalis (German: Wirballen , Russian: Вержболово and Polish: Wierzbałowo ) on the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway to this border crossing near Kybartai , the first junction between the European standard gauge and the Russian broad gauge networks was established. The governing bodies of the German states had differing attitudes to the railway. Some left

2960-489: The first destructive attack – could the viaduct be put back into operation in its old form. The reconstruction of the viaduct took into account the historical shape of the bridge, such that since 1950 it has resembled its old form once again. However, the keystones of the viaduct could not be reinstated. In July 2009, after being displayed for many years as a monument in Adenauerstraße , Altenbeken, they were integrated into

3034-522: The first half of the 19th century, opinions about the emerging railways in Germany varied widely. While business-minded people like Friedrich Harkort and Friedrich List saw in the railway the possibility of stimulating the economy and overcoming the patronization of little states, and were already starting railway construction in the 1820s and early 1830s, others feared the fumes and smoke generated by locomotives or saw their own livelihoods threatened by them. The political disunity of three dozen states and

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3108-597: The first international main line and had a route length of 116 km (72 mi). Between 1839 and 1843, the Rhenish Railway was built from Cologne to the border station of Herbesthal , with its connection to Antwerp . The line was opened on 15 October 1843 and was the first railway line that crossed an external border of the German Confederation . On 12 September 1840, the Grand Duchy of Baden opened

3182-595: The first railway projects and wrote in 1825 in the journal Hermann an article on "Railways". He sought the interest of donors to realise such a project. He finally found interest mainly in the mining trades in the Ruhr . In 1826 he had built a small test track, as a monorail following a design of the Englishman Henry Robinson Palmer . This was a precursor to the Wuppertal Schwebebahn finally built 74 years later. On 9 September 1826 he advised

3256-402: The government ran the railways as a profitmaking endeavor, and the railway profits became a major source of revenue for the state. The nationalization of the railways slowed the economic development of Prussia because the state favoured the relatively backward agricultural areas in its railway building. Moreover, the railway surpluses substituted for the development of an adequate tax system. As

3330-616: The important railway link. From then onwards, passengers had to climb about 35 m (115 ft) down ladders and then climb up the other side to continue in another train. Goods traffic was diverted to the Detmold-Herford-Bielefeld/Ost route. Following temporary repairs, the viaduct was again destroyed in February 1945. By May 1946, the viaduct could once again be traversed, over makeshift trackwork, at 20 km/h (12 mph). Only on 2 October 1950 – almost six years after

3404-562: The initiative to private operators, others attempted to establish a state-owned railway, especially in the southern German monarchies of the Grand Duchy of Baden , Kingdom of Bavaria and Duchy of Württemberg . Prussia , on the other hand, initially encouraged private railways, but later took several railway companies into state ownership that had run into financial difficulties, such as the Berg-Mark Railway Company . Following

3478-683: The line between Düsseldorf and Erkrath on 20 December 1838, thus becoming the first steam railway in the Rhineland and the Prussian Rhine Province . The first railway line in Hesse was the 41.2-kilometre-long Taunus Railway between the free city of Frankfurt and Wiesbaden , the capital of the Duchy of Nassau , which was taken into operation in four stages between 26 September 1839 and 19 May 1840. The takeoff stage of economic development came with

3552-473: The main line network consolidated, railways were driven into the hinterland, serving local needs and commuter traffic. This was the age of the branch line or Nebenbahn (plural: -en), also variously called the Sekundärbahn ("secondary line"), Vizinalbahn ("neighbourhood line") or Lokalbahn ("local line") depending on local laws and usage. Several states operated their own railways, collectively called

3626-445: The major cities; each German state was responsible for the lines within its own borders. Economist Friedrich List summed up the advantages to be derived from the development of the railway system in 1841: # As a means of national defence, it facilitates the concentration, distribution and direction of the army. Lacking a technological base at first, the Germans imported their engineering and hardware from Britain, but quickly learned

3700-578: The name Steele-Vohwinkel Railway ( Steele-Vohwinkler Eisenbahn ). The trackbed is used today by S-Bahn line no. 9 . The majority and official view, however, is that the Bavarian Ludwig Railway , built in 1835 by the private Ludwig Railway Company in Nuremberg ( Ludwigs-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in Nürnberg ) by engineer Paul Camille von Denis , was the first railway in Germany, because it introduced

3774-424: The new type of steam engine. It was officially opened on 7 December 1835 with a journey from Nuremberg to Fürth after earlier test runs had been carried out with the locomotive Adler , built by Stephenson and Co. in Newcastle upon Tyne . The Englishman William Wilson drove the locomotive on this first journey and became the first engine driver in Germany. In contemporary publications, this first journey by

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3848-511: The north to Steele and in the south to Vohwinkel. To get the necessary funds, it needed to issue new shares. It offered purchasers of shares the guarantee of favourable freight rates, but the mining companies rejected this. Eventually it procured sufficient capital and on 29 July 1844 construction started. The line was rebuilt as 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ) standard gauge and extended in both directions. The 32-kilometre long (20 mi) railway line opened as

3922-418: The proposals. But in order just to make a start, Harkort then proposed a "stripped down" version. He founded the Deil Valley Railway Company , the first German railway joint stock company in 1828 with his brother, the industrialist Ludwig Mohl, Peter Nikolaus Caspar Egen, Dr. Voss (a physician and miner from Steele, now part of Essen ) and Reichmann and Meyberg (merchants from Langenberg ). In 1830 and 1831

3996-399: The railroad revolution in the 1840s, which opened up new markets for local products, created a pool of middle managers, increased the demand for engineers, architects and skilled machinists and stimulated investments in coal and iron. Political disunity of three dozen states and a pervasive conservatism made it difficult to build railways in the 1830s. However, by the 1840s, trunk lines did link

4070-412: The railway within Breslau on 3 February 1848 that connected its termini, there was now a continuous rail link from the Rhine to the Vistula And with the closure of a short gap between the William Railway in Upper Silesia and the Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway in Austrian Silesia on 1 September 1848, the first contiguous Central European network was formed, reaching as far as Deutz , right of

4144-403: The railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. Observers found that even as late as 1890, their engineering was inferior to Britain's. However, German unification in 1870 stimulated consolidation, nationalisation into state-owned companies, and further rapid growth. Unlike the situation in France, the goal was support of industrialisation, and so, heavy lines crisscrossed

4218-442: The railways. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and the railways were a major impetus for the growth of the new steel industry. The following years saw a rapid growth: By the year 1845, there were already more than 2,000 km of railway line in Germany; ten years later that number

4292-428: The return journey from Nierenhof to Hinsbeck, for which no cargo was available. By 1833 there were some coaches available for “pleasure”. As the operation of the railway satisfied its shareholders, it was decided to extend it in 1840. On 23 August the company wrote to the district administration to request a concession for the extension. On 29 June 1844 the Treasury gave permission for the company to build an extension in

4366-441: The route from the Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin to Köthen (Anhalt) , where the line met the Berlin-Potsdam-Magdeburg Railway . As a result, Köthen became the first railway hub in Germany. With the opening of the Berlin-Frankfurt Railway on 31 October 1842 from Berlin's Silesian station to Frankfurt (Oder) the now loosely connected German railway network now had a total length of just under 1,000 km. On 22 October 1843,

4440-449: The second section to Duisburg followed on 9 February 1846. The line was extended the following year, reaching Hamm via Dortmund on 15 May. On 15 October 1847, the entire 263-kilometre-long (163 mi) line to Minden was completed, initially just single-tracked. On the same day the line from Hanover to Minden was opened by the Royal Hanoverian State Railways . On 1 September 1846, the last section (Frankfurt (Oder) – Bunzlau ) of

4514-433: The skills needed to operate and expand the railways. For example, in 1837-39, Thomas Clarke Worsdell (1788–1862), chief coachbuilder of the Liverpool and Manchester Company, came to help engineer the railway linking Leipzig and Dresden. In many cities, the new railway shops were the centres of technological awareness and training, so that by 1850, Germany was self-sufficient in meeting the demands of railroad construction, and

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4588-416: The station before reversing on to the other line out of the station. This arrangement was eliminated in 1862 when a new alignment was built, but the whole area still bears the name Kopfstation . On 13 March 1854 the Bergisch-Märkische Railway Company (German: Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , BME) took over the operation of the route. Under an agreement of 6 December 1862 the BME legally acquired

4662-440: The tracks of this line consisted of oak sleepers on which so-called Straßbäume ( wooden rails ), each 3.30 metres long, were laid in pairs and fixed with wooden nails. Iron rails, 40 millimetres thick, were fastened onto the Straßbäumen , again with wooden nails. The track gauge was initially just 82 cm. The line was one Prussian mile. On 20 September 1831, the Deilthal Railway was ceremonially opened by Prince William ,

4736-438: The viaduct's newly constructed viewing platform. Between 11 and 21 July 2003, under the name "Vivat Viaduct", Altenbeken celebrated the 150th anniversary of the viaduct. About 40,000 visitors came to Altenbeken. As the festival was so successful, it was decided to organise it again every two years as a "town and station festival". Thus, in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011, many people came to the event. The Viaduktfest also includes

4810-399: The work. The railway is now closed and has been dismantled, although parts of the line may still be seen. The tracks and wagons were later used in a roughly similar way in the construction of the Deilthal Railway. With the laying of iron rails from Essen by the Deilthal Railway Company, founded in 1828, the first proper railway line was built on German soil. According to one description,

4884-419: The youngest brother of King Frederick William III , officially opened the railway. On this day the prince and his family travelled on coal wagons lined with carpets. The railway was allowed to call itself the Prince William Railway afterwards. Until 1844, the Prince William railway was operated by horse-drawn wagons to transport coal. After one year of operation passengers were also transported, in particular on

4958-430: Was converted to 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ) standard gauge , extended north to Steele Süd and south to Vohwinkel (in Wuppertal ), converted to steam operation and renamed the Steele-Vohwinkler Eisenbahn . Friedrich Harkort had an early interest in improving the transportation of coal from the Ruhr in the Bergisches Land to Wuppertal . He therefore visited England to study

5032-415: Was above 8,000. Most German states had state-owned railway companies, but there were several large private companies as well. One of these private companies, the Rhenish Railway ( Rheinische Eisenbahn ), built one of the first ever international railway lines. The line connected Cologne to Antwerp in Belgium and was opened in 1843. In 1820, Friedrich Harkort founded a consortium with the aim of building

5106-411: Was an early horse-drawn railway in Germany . It was founded as the Deil Valley Railway Company ( Deilthaler Eisenbahn Aktiengesellschaft ) in 1828 and renamed in 1831. It built a 820 mm ( 2 ft  8 + 9 ⁄ 32  in ) narrow gauge line that ran for a Prussian mile (7,532 metres or 8,237 yards) along the Deilbach valley from a point near Kupferdreh Old Station in Hinsbeck,

5180-465: Was completed through to Dresden on 7 April 1839. With a total route length of 120 km (75 mi), this was also the first German trunk or long-distance railway and the first exclusively steam-powered railway in Germany. Its route also included the first German railway tunnel . On 29 June 1839, the first section of the Magdeburg-Leipzig Railway , from Magdeburg to Schönebeck was opened. After being extended to Halle and Leipzig in 1840 it became

5254-444: Was formed in 1909. The standard wagons that resulted are often referred to as ' DSV wagons '. At the end of the First World War, most of the state railways lost their 'royal' or 'grand duchy' titles as the nobility abdicated. Huge reparations of locomotives and rolling stock followed. Epoch I ended with the merger of the seven remaining state railways in the newly created Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920. In 1920, following World War I,

5328-482: Was never connected to other railways. Finally, it had to compete with electric trams running between Nuremberg and Fürth . On 31 October 1922, it was closed and used for a tramway. This was followed by the first railway in Prussia, the Berlin-Potsdam Railway : the 11-kilometre-long stretch from Zehlendorf to Potsdam which opened on 22 September 1838; its 12-kilometre extension from Zehlendorf to Berlin

5402-410: Was opened on 29 October 1838. From 1 December 1838, the Duchy of Brunswick State Railway operated between Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel . This was the first railway in Germany to be in state ownership, probably intended to prevent a takeover by Prussia, but it was later sold to Prussia in 1869 due to the financial difficulties which the duchy found itself in. The Düsseldorf-Elberfeld Railway opened

5476-729: Was the Leipzig-Dresden railway , completed on 7 April 1839. The forerunner of the railway in Germany , as in England , was to be found mainly in association with the mining industry. Mine carts were used below ground for transportation, initially using wooden rails, and were steered either by a guide pin between the rails or by flanges on the wheels. A wagonway operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola (image right) in his work De re metallica . This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and

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