The Glan Valley Railway () is a non-electrified line along the Glan river, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It consists of the Glan-Münchweiler–Altenglan section, which was built as part of the Landstuhl–Kusel railway and sections that were built later for military reasons: Homburg–Glan-Münchweiler, Altenglan–Staudernheim and Odernheim–Bad Münster am Stein. The line had strategic importance, otherwise traffic was rather low, except on the Glan Munchweiler–Altenglan section.
The line runs right next to the river for 60 km of its 85 km length from Homburg to Bad Münster. The line is closed, except for the ten km section from Glan-Münchweiler to Altenglan that forms part of the Landstuhl–Kusel line. It is used for tourism and draisine rides have been offered on the section between Altenglan and Staudernheim since 2000. In contrast, the Waldmohr–Glan-Münchweiler section has been dismantled.
History
Although the possibility of a railway along the Glan to connect the Saar region and the region around Bingen would have been obvious from a geographical perspective, the fact that in the 19th century it would have run across the territory of several countries prevented the realisation of the project for some time. The first efforts were aimed at a railway connecting the north-western Palatinate, starting in 1856. During the construction of the Rhine-Nahe Railway (Rhein-Nahe-Bahn), a proposal was developed to build a railway via Lauterecken, Altenglan and Kusel to St. Wendel and Neunkirchen. However, these efforts were not initially successful, since Prussia demanded to be in charge of the line within its own territory. In addition, the border between Bavaria and Prussia in the middle and lower Glan valley, especially from Altenglan to Staudernheim, was very irregular, making construction difficult.
In 1860, a committee was formed called Notabeln des Glan- und Lautertales (notables of the Glan and Lauter valleys). It campaigned for a line that branched in Kaiserslautern from the Palatine Ludwig Railway (Pfälzischen Ludwigsbahn), then ran via the Lauter and the lower Glan valley and met the Rhine-Nahe Railway in Staudernheim; this line was completed in the same year. Prussia opposed the proposal because it feared that the Nahe line would lose its importance. However, the project received support from Hesse-Homburg, as it would connect its exclave of Meisenheim to the rail network. The Hessian Privy Councillor Christian Bansa also supported the proposed rail link in 1861 in discussions with the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, arguing that there was a greater need for it than for the planned line along the Alsenz.
However, Prussia was only willing to support the Palatine Northern Railway Company (Gesellschaft der Pfälzischen Nordbahnen), which was established in 1866 and completed the Alsenz Valley Railway in 1871. Its northern end point was in the then Prussian town of Bad Münster. In contrast, neither Bavaria (which then owned some of the territory involved) nor Prussia were interested in guaranteeing the interest on loans for the proposed railway, which in 1873 was estimated to cost a total of about 3.6 million guilders.
Plans for a strategic railway and the opening of the Lauterecken–Staudernheim section
The granting of the concession in the 1860s to build the Kusel-Landstuhl railway, which was opened in 1868 and follows the course of the Glan from Glan Munchweiler to Altenglan, gave new life to the proposal to build a line through the rest of the Glan valley. A company was founded in 1865 in Meisenheim to carry out the planning of this line. However, several wars in the following years at first prevented the completion of the project.
As Alsace and Lorraine were incorporated in the German Empire in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian War, the fear that France would start another war in order to regain Alsace-Lorraine developed in Germany. To prevent this, the primary interest in new railways in south-western Germany towards the end of the 19th century was in railways intended mainly for military purposes. In the Palatinate and Prussia planning started on the strategic railway, which would branch from the Palatine Ludwig Railway in Homburg and follow the Glan river, sharing the Kusel-Landstuhl railway between Glan-Münchweiler and Altenglan. On 7 September 1871, a committee met in Meisenheim to consider the plans developed by engineers for such a line. The committee issued a memorandum on 27 January 1871 that highlighted the economic and the military importance of a railway along the Glan.
However, the opposition of Bavaria prevented the project for the time being; this attitude was due to the high construction costs expected. Because of the border, which would also hinder the construction, there were at the time plans for a branch line from Altenglan to St Julian, which would run exclusively through Bavarian Palatinate.
In 1891, Bavaria and Prussia signed a treaty that included the construction and operation of a line from Lauterecken to Staudernheim as a direct continuation of the Lauterbrunnen Valley Railway of the Palatine Northern Railway Company from Kaiserslautern to Lauterecken; preparatory work for its construction had already begun in 1886. Moreover, the railway entrepreneur Karl Jakob von Lavale had agreed that the Board would be responsible for half the land acquisition costs. The section between Lauterecken and Meisenheim was open on 16 June 1896 and the Lauterecken-Odernheim section was opened in October 1896. Construction work on closing the gap to Staudernheim began on 2 November, but on the same day a flood scoured the embankment at Odenbach and interrupted traffic. The remaining line to Staudernheim on the Nahe Valley Railway was finally taken into operation on 1 July 1897.
Completion of the Glan Valley Railway
At the same time Bavaria reversed its opposition to a strategic railway line along the entire Glan as Germany's relations with France had deteriorated in the meantime. This culminated in an agreement, concluded in November 1900, to build a strategic railway along the Glan, which would be the shortest connection from the Saar region to the Rhine. The main purpose of the route was kept secret, so the Palatine district offices received a circular which prohibited the use of terms such as "strategic line" or "military railway" in public. Nevertheless, an article entitled "Die Strategische Bahn in der Pfalz” (The Strategic Railway in the Palatinate) still appeared two years later in the Pfälzische Presse newspaper.
The plan was for a route with high embankments, which were deemed necessary because of the frequent flooding along the Glan. The strategic line had its starting point in Scheidt, and would continue via Homburg and use the existing Landstuhl–Kusel line between Glan-Munchweiler and Altenglan and the line opened in 1896 between Lauterecken and Odernheim. Both existing lines would be duplicated. The strategic railway was planned to run on the right bank of the Nahe from Odernheim to Bad Münster. It would be necessary to make fundamental changes to the Bad Münster am Stein station.
Construction of the strategic line started in the summer in 1902. From 14 August 1902 materials for the construction of the railway were brought to Ulmet on a narrow gauge railway and by horse-drawn carts from Altenglan. Italian and Croatian construction workers prepared the subgrade from Altenglan to St. Julian. On 27 October of the same year, the Mannheim-based company Grün & Bilfinger started the construction of the section from St. Julian to Lauterecken. The Glan and a parallel road had to be moved at Niedereisenbach. Material obtained in digging a new bed for the Glan River was used for the construction of an embankment for the railway to prevent flooding. The work was carried out by day labourers from Italy. Due to weather conditions in December 1902, work had to be suspended until spring, 1903. The superstructure between Eschenau and Lauterecken was largely completed on 21 January 1904.
As early as 1903, coal trains ran to the Nordfeld Consolidated Coal Mine on the Homburg–Jägersburg section, which had not yet been officially opened. The mine was connected by a branch line, the so-called Nordfeldbahn (northern light railway). However, the mine, along with the branch line was closed two years later due to its unprofitability. Finally, the Glan Valley Railway was opened over its entire length on 1 May 1904, including the newly built Homburg–Glan-Münchweiler, Altenglan–Lauterecken and Odernheim–Bad Münster am Stein sections. There were 26 intermediate stations along the new line.
First years of operation and the First World War (1904–1918)
The new line provided a continuous connection from Homburg via Glan-Münchweiler, Altenglan, Lauterecken-Grumbach and Odernheim to Bad Münster am Stein. The line was originally double track to meet its military requirements as a strategic railway. Altenglan station was rebuilt during the building of the line at the rail junction with diverging platforms and a new entrance building was built. The old Lauterecken station was unsuitable for the junction with the Lauter Valley Railway due to its location on the southern outskirts and it was demoted to a halt and a new Lauterecken-Grumbach station was opened in 1904 as a junction station. It was built immediately to the north of a halt that had opened in 1896 on the Lauter Valley Railway and was closed at the same time as the opening of the new junction station.
The connection of the line to Bad Munster am Stein happened against the background that the Palatinate Railway (Pfalzbahn), which had absorbed the Palatine Northern Railway Company in 1870, wanted to compete with the Prussian Nahe Valley Railway. So the Glan Valley Railway ran from Odernheim on the right bank of the Nahe river almost parallel with the Nahe Valley Railway on the other side of the river. The Nahe Valley Railway had a significantly higher volume of traffic and the section of the Glan Valley Railway between Odernheim and Bad Münster was only important as a military railway.
On 1 January 1909, the Glan Valley Railway was absorbed into the Royal Bavarian State Railways, along with the other railway lines in the Palatinate.
During the First World War, the line served largely strategic purposes as planned. Already from 9 to 16 August 1914, the Glan Valley Railway was used by several military trains daily from the Poznań (then German Posen) region to the west. The timetable was changed eight times that year. At the same time, the provision for civilian traffic during the four years of war was limited. On 1 November 1917, the stations in Eschenau, Wiesweiler and Raumbach had to be temporarily abandoned due to lack of staff, but they had already been reactivated in October 1918.
Weimar Republic (1919–1933)
In the postwar period, the line was affected by damage as a result of the war, especially in the form of long travel times. In 1920, the Glan Valley Railway between Homburg and Jägersburg became part of the newly created Saar, which was controlled by the United Kingdom and France for a period of 15 years as a League of Nations mandate. This meant that Waldmohr station had customs and border controls. With the founding of Deutsche Reichsbahn in the same year, it took over the Glan Valley Railway to Schönenberg-Kübelberg and the Saar Railway (Saareisenbahn) was responsible for the remaining section to Homburg.