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Ammer Valley Railway
Overview
Native name	Ammertalbahn
Line number	4633
Locale	Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Termini	Tübingen Herrenberg
Service
Route number	764
Technical
Line length	21.4 km (13.3 mi)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Minimum radius	215 m (705 ft)
Maximum incline	1.7%
Route map from Plochingen 0.0 Tübingen Hbf to Sigmaringen to Horb 0.2 DB Netz AG / ZÖA Infrastructure boundary 0.5 L 370 0.7 Neckar 0.9 Schlossberg tunnel (288 m) 1.2 B 28 1.6 Tübingen West 2.7 Ammer canal 4.3 Ammer canal 4.3 Ammer 4.5 Ammern 4.8 Unterjesingen Sandäcker 5.9 Unterjesingen Mitte 6.0 L 372 6.6 Enzbach 7.3 L 359 7.5 Pfäffingen 7.5 former Manna company sidings 8.3 Käsbach 10.0 Entringen 11.2 K 6916 11.4 Breitenholz 12.2 Hardtwald bridge 14.6 Altingen 14.8 K 6917 15.2 Tübingen-Böblingen district boundary 15.8 A 81 16.3 K 1036 16.9 former Rigips company siding 17.3 Gültstein 17.5 K 1039 18.0 18.8 18.9 Herrenberg Zwerchweg 19.3 L 1184 19.7 20.1 Aischbach 20.4 from Horb 21.4 Herrenberg to Stuttgart Source: German railway atlas

Altingen station

Herrenberg station: The bay platform of the Ammer Valley Railway is on the far left partially obscured by the entrance building

Near Unterjesingen

Tübingen West station

The Ammer Valley Railway (Ammertalbahn) runs through the German state of Baden-Württemberg, connecting the university town of Tübingen with Herrenberg in the Böblingen district. It mostly runs through the valley of the Ammer river. The single-track, non-electrified, non-federally-owned railway is now owned by the Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal (ZÖA), with operations carried out by DB Regio AG. In addition, individual services are operated by the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn (HzL), acting as a subcontractor for DB Regio.

History

The Herrenberg–Pfäffingen section was opened on 12 August 1909, while the Pfäffingen–Tübingen section was delayed to 1 May 1910, partly because the construction of the Schlossberg tunnel had not been completed. The swampy ground in the Ammer valley also had to be treated, with 13 metre long oak logs being driven into the ground to stabilise the track. Not least, a citizens' initiative had opposed the approach advocated by Tübingen mayor Hermann Haußer for the rail project. Scholars and artists saw their popular promenades along the streets endangered by the railway line. The dispute was known as the Tübinger Alleenstreit ("Tübingen allee dispute"). The Schwäbische Heimatbund ("Swabian homeland association") was founded in 1909 during this dispute. Its goal at the time was to prevent industrialisation destroying any more of the old than was really necessary.

Deutsche Bundesbahn discontinued passenger services between Entringen and Herrenberg on 25 September 1966. The Entringen–Gültstein section continued to be operated for freight traffic until 31 January 1998, while the Gültstein–Herrenberg section was abandoned and eventually dismantled in 1973. The section, however, was never legally shut down and it did not pass out of rail ownership.

On 26 July 1995, the Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal ("municipal association for public transport in the Ammer valley", ZÖA) was established and bought the line from Deutsche Bahn in 1996. The 4.1 km-long section between Gültstein and Herrenberg was rebuilt enabling the line to be reactivated for passenger services over its full length on 1 August 1999. The single-track, non-electrified line was completely modernised and prepared for operations at up to 100 km/h. The stations of Tübingen West, Pfäffingen and Entringen are crossing stations with two platform tracks. Entringen is the station where services are scheduled to cross. In Herrenberg, the trains operate exclusively from platform 102, in Tübingen they operate from platforms 1, 2 or 13. The line is operated using direct traffic control (Zugleitbetrieb) with the train dispatcher located in the Tübingen signalbox.

When the line was recommissioned, 700 passengers per day were expected. On average more than 7,000 passengers per day used the line in 2008. In 2013, more than 8,000 passengers per day were counted.

Double-track upgrade and electrification

End of October 2019: construction work for the second track at Breitenholz station

The Ammertalbahn plays an important role in the planned Neckar-Alb regional light rail line based on the Karlsruhe model. The implementation is to take place in several stages, with the partial double-track expansion and electrification of the route being one of the first steps.

In March 2016, the planning approval process for the electrification of the line with two expansion sections began and on 16 May 2017 the planning approval decision was issued. In Unterjesingen, a double-track expansion took place south of the existing line. This 1.4-kilometer-long expansion section begins behind the Ammer bridges and ends shortly before the Unterjesingen Mitte stop. At the Unterjesingen Sandäcker stop, a second, 110-meter-long outside platform was built on the new track. In Entringen, a new outside platform was built, further north than the previous main platform at the station building. The central platform was dismantled for this, so access to the platform is no longer via the tracks.

A further two-track extension was carried out over 2.6 kilometers between the western end of the platform in Entringen to the Hardtwald level crossing, the second track is also located on the south side of the existing route. The Hardtwald Bridge was no longer connected to the public road network and was demolished without replacement.

A siding with dead-end track in Altingen

According to 2012 figures (at 2006 prices), the estimated cost of the double-track expansion of the two sections (4 km in total), the electrification of the entire route (including the Schlossberg tunnel ) and a new central platform amounted to 27.8 million euros. In the Hardtwald area, the swampy subsoil caused problems, so that the existing track had to be re-founded. For the construction work, the former track 3 in Altingen also had to be temporarily rebuilt as a construction track. This is to be put into permanent operation as a siding without a platform, and the stop will thus become a station again.

Due to delays in the delivery of individual parts of the electronic interlocking system, the completion of the section between Entringen and Herrenberg was delayed from 12 September until the timetable change on 10 December 2022.

Operations

Services on the Ammer Valley Railway are operated with Regio-Shuttle (class 650.0, 650.1 and 650.3) DMUs by DB ZugBus Regionalverkehr Alb-Bodensee, a subsidiary of DB Regio AG. Individual services are also operated each day by Hohenzollerische Landesbahn. Services run every half hour from Monday to Friday and hourly on weekends. Additional trains run between Tübingen and Entringen instead of school buses. Uerdingen railbuses (class 796 or 996) were used on the line until 21 May 1999.

While the trains on the western part of the line always terminate in Herrenberg, services continue from Tübingen every hour to Wendlingen and from there every two hours to Plochingen. Furthermore, on weekdays there are eight direct services from Herrenberg via the Erms Valley Railway to Bad Urach.

There are no freight operations on the line any more.

The owner of the line is the Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal, which is owned by the Böblingen district (20%) and Tübingen district (80%).

References

Sources

• Wolfgang Sannwald, ed. (2009). angeLOKt. 100 Jahre Ammertalbahn im Landkreis Tübingen (in German). Tübingen: Verlag Schwäbisches Tagblatt. ISBN 978-3-92801-164-8.
• Peter-Michael Mihailescu; Matthias Michalke, eds. (1985). Vergessene Bahnen in Baden-Württemberg (in German). Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss Verlag. pp. 197–200. ISBN 3-8062-0413-6.

External links

• "Official website" (in German). Zweckverband ÖPNV im Ammertal. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
• "Photographs of tunnels" (in German). Tunnelportale. Retrieved 29 June 2016.