The German Railway Operating Company (German: Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebs-Gesellschaft) or DEBG was a public limited company ( Aktiengesellschaft ) that was founded on 15 November 1898 in Berlin. It was founded by the Vering & Waechter railway construction and operating company, the firm of Doertenbach & Co and the Central German Credit Bank (Mitteldeutsche Creditbank).
The DEBG immediately took over from Vering & Waechter the running powers for twelve branch lines with a total length of 184 km. These included seven railways of foreign owners in all parts of the German Reich, however these were given up again in the years that followed. One of them was the narrow gauge Gernrode-Harzgerode Railway in the Harz mountains. The remaining five were transferred to the DEBG in 1898/99; four of them were in the Grand Duchy of Baden.
After the turn of the century the centre of gravity for the business was now clearly in the southwestern part of the Empire. The DEBG built another four railways in Baden and three in Alsace-Lorraine, the latter being lost again in 1919/20 after the First World War.
The loss of the lines in Alsace-Lorraine was balanced out by the procurement of five railways from the Badischen Lokal-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BLEAG) on 22 December 1931. This expansion added 131 km of line and resulted in the DEBG achieving its highest network length of 264.5 km excluding the 32 km of the VEE.
At the start of the Second World War the following branch lines in Baden belonged to the DEBG:
In the north of Germany the DEBG only owned the Voldagsen-Duingen-Delligsen railway which ran through the Prussian provinces of Hanover and the neighbouring state of Brunswick. There in the Weser Uplands it also ran the Vorwohle-Emmerthal Railway Company, in which it had acquired a majority shareholding. The VEE owned the main workshop for all DEBG railways in Bodenwerder-Linse; it was also responsible for the Baden railways.
The establishment of the Inner German Border did not affect the DEBG as all its railways lay in West Germany. Nevertheless, as a result of declining demand on the DEBG's branch lines it withdrew progressively from railway operations.
In 1956/57 it sold the electrified sections of the Alb Valley Railway, that ran from Karlsruhe to the northern Black Forest, to the state of Baden-Württemberg, who transferred them to the newly founded Abtal-Verkehrs-GmbH.
After the end of 1956 passenger services on the Bühl–Oberbühlertal railway were withdrawn, goods traffic ceased in autumn 1958. The remaining ten lines in Baden-Württemberg were transferred by the DEBG on 1 May 1963 into the newly formed state-owned Südwestdeutsche Eisenbahn.
In 1968 the DEBG also got rid of the Voldagsen-Duingen-Delligsen branch line. Meanwhile, the company began to be wound up; this was concluded in 1970. Operations by the VEE were transferred on 1 May 1967 to the Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Verkehrsbetriebe.
| Authority control databases: National |
|---|
The Grand Duchy of Baden was an independent state in what is now southwestern Germany until the creation of the German Empire in 1871. It had its own state-owned railway company, the Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways, which was founded in 1840. At the time when it was integrated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920, its network had an overall length of about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi).
The South German Railway Company or SEG was founded on 11 February 1895, in Darmstadt by the railway entrepreneur, Herrmann Bachstein, and several bank managers.
The Baden main line is a German railway line that was built between 1840 and 1863. It runs through Baden, from Mannheim via Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Offenburg, Freiburg, Basle, Waldshut, Schaffhausen and Singen to Constance (Konstanz). The Baden Mainline is 412.7 kilometres long, making it the longest route in the Deutsche Bahn network and also the oldest in southwest Germany. The section between Mannheim and Basle is the most important northern approach to the Swiss Alpine passes, whilst the section between Basle and Constance is only of regional significance. The stretch from Karlsruhe to Basle is also known as the Rhine Valley Railway (Rheintalbahn) and the Basle–Constance section as the High Rhine Railway (Hochrheinstrecke).
The Alb Valley Railway is a railway line in southern Germany that runs from Karlsruhe via Ettlingen to Bad Herrenalb with a branch to Ittersbach. The line is owned and operated, as part of the Stadtbahn Karlsruhe, by the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG).
The Ulm–Friedrichshafen railway, also known as the Württembergische Südbahn, is an electrified main line in the state of Baden-Württemberg, southern Germany. It was built from 1846 to 1850 and doubled from 1905 to 1913. During that time many of the station buildings were rebuilt. Its kilometre numbering (chainage) begins as the Fils Valley Railway in Stuttgart Hbf. The line was upgraded and electrified from the spring of 2018. Electric operations commenced in December 2021.
The Enz Valley Railway is a 23.6 km (14.7 mi) long railway line in the northern part of the Black Forest in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The line runs from Pforzheim to Bad Wildbad and for its course runs close to the River Enz.
Bruchsal station is the centre of the rail transport in the city of Bruchsal in the German state of Baden-Württemberg.
The Kraich Valley Railway is a branch line in southwestern Germany running from Bruchsal to Menzingen. It is now integrated as line 32 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn.
The Katzbach Railway is a branch line in southwestern Germany from Bruchsal to Odenheim that opened in 1896, and was extended in 1900 to Hilsbach. In 1960 services between Tiefenbach and Hilsbach were withdrawn, in 1975 the section between Odenheim Ost and Tiefenbach followed and, in 1986, the 600-metre-long section from Odenheim station to Odenheim Ost was closed. Since 1994 the line has been operated by the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG), who electrified it in 1998 and integrated it into the network of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn.
The Eutingen im Gäu–Schiltach railway line is a railway line in the German state of Baden-Württemberg that runs from the cultural landscape of the Gäu to the eastern edge of the Black Forest, connecting Eutingen and Schiltach via Freudenstadt. It is a section of the Gäu Railway from Stuttgart to Freudenstadt opened on 1 September 1879.
The Bad Krozingen and Münstertal Railway, also the Münstertal Railway, is a branch line in Baden-Württemberg, in southwest Germany, running from Bad Krozingen to Münstertal (Schwarzwald) in the Black Forest. In Bad Krozingen the link has a junction with the Rhine Valley Railway. The owner and operator of the Münstertal Railway is the Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (SWEG). Its depot is located in the station at Staufen. Passenger traffic on the former branch to Sulzburg was closed in 1969.
The Teck Railway is a branch line in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, connecting Wendlingen am Neckar with Kirchheim unter Teck and Oberlenningen. In Deutsche Bahn’s timetable it has route number 761. A branch line once ran from Kirchheim to Weilheim an der Teck, but it is now closed.
The Busenbach–Ittersbach railway is a line in the northern Black Forest in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The mostly single-track and continuously electrified line branches in Waldbronn-Busenbach from the Alb Valley Railway —with which it is closely linked operationally and historically—and runs as a branch line to Ittersbach. The Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft is responsible for the railway infrastructure and is the only company operating on the 14.4 kilometre-long line. Originally the Busenbach–Ittersbach railway was operated together with the Ittersbach to Pforzheim line, which later became the Pforzheim Light Railway. The whole line from Busenbach to Pforzheim was initially built to 1,000 mmmetre gauge, later the section from Busenbach to Ittersbach was rebuilt to 1,435 mmstandard gauge and the Pforzheim Light Railway was closed. The line has been operated as part of line S 11 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn since 1994.
The Kander Valley Railway is a private heritage railway through the Kander valley in the southwest of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The 13-kilometre-long branch line links Haltingen on the Rhine Valley Railway with Kandern.
Bad Krozingen station is the most important station in the spa town of Bad Krozingen. It is located on the Rhine Valley Railway (Rheintalbahn) and the Bad Krozingen–Münstertal railway, which has started here since 1894.
Odenheim station is the station of Östringen district of the Odenheim. It is the terminus of the Katzbach Railway (Katzbachbahn) running from Bruchsal to Odenheim and is served by line S31 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn.
Achern station is the largest and most important of the four stations in the town of Achern in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located at kilometre 125.3 of the Rhine Valley Railway (Rheintalbahn), which connects Mannheim and Basel and is the starting point of the Acher Valley Railway (Achertalbahn), which runs to Ottenhöfen. The station has four platforms and it is classified by Deutsche Bahn (DB) as a category 4 station. It has also been the terminus of lines S32 and S4 of the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn since December 2004.
Müllheim (Baden) station is a small railway junction in Müllheim in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, where the Müllheim–Mulhouse railway branches off the Mannheim–Karlsruhe–Basel railway. From 1896 to 1955, the station was the terminus of the tramway-like Müllheim-Badenweiler railway.
The Hohenzollerische Landesbahn (HzL) was the largest non-federally owned railway company in the German state of Baden-Württemberg after the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft and Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft. It operated passenger and freight traffic since 1900. Its field of activity latterly extended to large parts of southern Baden-Württemberg.
The Jagst Valley Railway is a 39.1-kilometre-long, single tracked narrow gauge railway in the north of the German state of Baden-Württemberg that was closed between 1988 and 2021. It has a railway gauge of 750 millimetres.
