Worms–Rosengarten train ferry

Worms-Rosengarten Train Ferry
Overview
Locale	Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Operation
Opened	1870
Closed	1901
Technical
Line length	11 km (6.8 mi)
Route map
	Legend

Last updated February 24, 2019

The Worms–Rosengarten train ferry was a train ferry that operated from 1870 to 1900 between Rosengarten station, a former station on the eastern bank of the Rhine opposite Worms, and the city of Worms.

A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ferries are sometimes referred to as "car ferries", as distinguished from "auto ferries" used to transport automobiles. The wharf has a ramp, and a linkspan or "apron", balanced by weights, that connects the railway proper to the ship, allowing for the water level to rise and fall with the tides.

The Rhine is a European river that begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps, forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German and then the Franco-German border, then flows through the German Rhineland and the Netherlands and eventually empties into the North Sea.

Worms is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about 60 kilometres south-southwest of Frankfurt-am-Main. It had approximately 82,000 inhabitants as of 2015.

History

The Main-Neckar Railway opened its railway on the eastern side of the Rhine from Heidelberg to Frankfurt via Darmstadt in 1846. In 1853, the Hessian Ludwig Railway opened its line on the west bank from Mainz to Worms, connecting in Ludwigshafen with the Palatine Ludwig Railway Company's line to Kaiserslautern and Bexbach. The first rail link in Mainz between the two sides of the Rhine was built in 1858 on the Rhine-Main Railway to Darmstadt, the capital of Grand Duchy of Hesse. This initially used a train ferry, which was replaced in 1862 by the South Bridge. To the south of Worms, the stations of Ludwigshafen and Mannheim were connected by a train ferry in 1863, which was replaced by a fixed bridge in 1867.

The Main-Neckar Railway is a main line railway west of the Odenwald in the Upper Rhine Plain of Germany that connects Frankfurt am Main to Heidelberg via Darmstadt, Bensheim and Weinheim. It was opened in 1846 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.

Heidelberg is a university town in Baden-Württemberg situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. In the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, with roughly a quarter of its population being students.

Frankfurt is a metropolis and the largest city of the German federal state of Hesse, and its 746,878 (2017) inhabitants make it the fifth-largest city of Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne. On the River Main, it forms a continuous conurbation with the neighbouring city of Offenbach am Main, and its urban area has a population of 2.3 million. The city is at the centre of the larger Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, which has a population of 5.5 million and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr Region. Since the enlargement of the European Union in 2013, the geographic centre of the EU is about 40 km (25 mi) to the east of Frankfurt's central business district. Like France and Franconia, the city is named after the Franks. Frankfurt is the largest city in the Rhine Franconian dialect area.

Construction of the project

To close the approximately 66-kilometre gap between these Rhine crossings, a concession was issued to the Hessian Ludwig Railway for the construction of the Darmstadt–Worms railway (known as the Riedbahn) on 28 February 1868. It ran originally from Darmstadt, via Gernsheim, Biblis, Hofheim and Rosengarten to Worms. A branch from Frankfurt (also known as the Riedbahn and now part of the Mannheim–Frankfurt railway) was opened in 1879. The construction cost of the line was estimated at 1 million Vereinsthalers. While the railway was to be completed by August 1871, no date was set for the construction of the bridge over the Rhine, as the railway company lacked sufficient funds. Therefore, a ferry would be installed to provide the initial connection across the Rhine.

The Darmstadt–Worms railway is a standard-gauge railway that is now partially closed. It runs through southern Hesse through the Hessian Ried and so it is also called the Riedbahn.

Gernsheim is a town in Groß-Gerau district and Darmstadt region in Hesse, Germany, lying on the Rhine.

Biblis station is the only station of the town of Biblis in the German state of Hesse. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 4 station. The station is located on the Mannheim–Frankfurt railway, where the Worms–Biblis railway branches off to Worms. Both lines developed from the Riedbahn.

The line from Darmstadt to Rosengarten was opened on 1 June 1869. On the eastern side of the Rhine, the Nibelung Railway was opened from Bensheim to Hofheim on the Mannheim–Frankfurt railway on 1 November 1869. The west bank line from the Rhine to Worms Hauptbahnhof was opened together with the ferry operation on 12 August 1870. The opening of the Rosengarten–Lampertheim line followed on 15 October 1877.

The Nibelung Railway is a 23.9 km long electrified line between Worms in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and Bensheim in Hesse. Its name refers to the fact that the line connects several places that play an important role in the Nibelung legend.

Bensheim is a town in the Bergstraße district in southern Hesse, Germany. Bensheim lies on the Bergstraße and at the edge of the Odenwald mountains while at the same time having an open view over the Rhine plain. With about 40,000 inhabitants (2016), it is the district's biggest town.

The Weinheim–Worms railway is a non-electrified standard-gauge railway that formerly connected Weinheim, Viernheim, Lampertheim and Worms. Freight is operated on an approximately 4 km long section from Lampertheim towards Worms.

Ferry operations

At first only the paddle steamer Ludwigsbahn I and three barges were available. The Ludwigsbahn I was built specifically for ferry traffic at the shipyard in Duisburg-Ruhrort in 1869. While passengers used the steamer as a ferry and boarded a stationary train on the other side, freight wagons were loaded onto the barges. This had a device on the bow to connect the tracks on the ferry with the track on land. The ferry could accommodate three wagons. The barges were coupled alongside the steamer for the crossing. It was not necessary to support the track from the shore to the barge with piers; loading involved a sharp bend in the track that could be handled only by two-axle wagons, which were usual for freight wagons at the time. The ferry operations had to be suspended at extremely low water levels.

A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.

Duisburg is a city of about 500,000 inhabitants in Germany’s Rhineland, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr. In medieval times, it was a member of the powerful Hanseatic League, and later became a major centre of iron, steel, and chemicals. For this reason, it was heavily bombed in World War II. Today it boasts the world's largest inland port, with 21 docks and 40 kilometres of wharf. The city supports a large Turkish community.

Ruhrort is a district within the German city of Duisburg situated north of the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine, in the western part of the Ruhr area. Ruhrort has the largest river harbour in the World, with quays extending nearly 40 kilometres along the river, and it is the principal inland shipping port in Germany.

The ferry was very important for freight traffic. It carried 39,537 wagons in 1886. On average, it carried 108 wagons each day. It could transfer a maximum of 150 wagons per day. Three steamers and three barges were available for this traffic.^[1]

Passenger traffic on the ferry was high. Two pairs of trains ran to Rosengarten each day in 1880 and there were 15 pairs in 1897. The time between the train arriving on one bank and departing on the other bank is shown as seven minutes in the timetables. The elaborate ferry operations of the Hessian Ludwig Railway was financed by a fare surcharge equivalent to an additional 8.4 kilometres. This meant that a passenger who wanted to travel from Worms to Bensheim had to pay the fare for a 32.5 km for a 24.1 km long route. Similalr fare regulations at that time applied in some other cases, for example, in relation to the pontoon bridge in Speyer and the Wesel Railway Bridge.

As part of the straightening of the Rhine between 1817 and 1876 and as a result of military considerations, the planning of a bridge over the Rhine at Worms was undertaken from 1890. A new line on the west bank connected Worms to the new Rhine Bridge at Hofheim, which was opened on 1 December 1900. This enabled the uninterrupted movement of trains and allowed the ferry to be closed immediately.

Notes

↑ Magistrat der Stadt Lampertheim, ed. (1977). Rosengarten. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Gemeinde Rosengarten – Zum 40jährigen Bestehen der Gemeinde Rosengarten (in German). Lampertheim. p. 92.

Related Research Articles

Mainz Hauptbahnhof, is a railway station for the city of Mainz in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is used by about 60,000 travelers and visitors each day and is therefore by far the busiest station in Rhineland-Palatinate. The station was a trial area for a CCTV scheme using automated face recognition.

Mannheim–Frankfurt railway German rail line

Mannheim–Frankfurt railway is a German standard gauge, electrified railway line and runs in southern Hesse and northern Baden-Württemberg between Frankfurt and Mannheim. It is also called the Riedbahn. The line runs through an area called the Hessische Ried, hence the name. The term Riedbahn was originally used for the Darmstadt–Worms railway and the two lines share the central section between Groß-Gerau and Biblis.

The Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn forms the backbone of the urban rail transport network of the Rhine Neckar Area, including the cities of Mannheim, Heidelberg and Ludwigshafen.

The Taunus Railway is a double-track electrified railway line, which connects Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, Germany. It is 41.2 km long and follows the course of the Main on its north side, running quite close to it in some places. Its first stage was opened in September 1839 and is thus the oldest railway line in the German state of Hesse and one of the oldest in Germany. Today it is used by Regional-Express trains between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden and the trains of line S1 of the Rhine-Main S-Bahn between Frankfurt-Höchst and Wiesbaden. Between Frankfurt Hbf and Frankfurt-Höchst, they run on the line of the former Hessian Ludwig Railway.

The Main Railway is a 37.5 km-long double-track electrified railway line, which runs on the south side of the Main River from Mainz to Frankfurt central station.

The Hessian Ludwig Railway or HLB with its network of 697 kilometres of railway was one of the largest privately owned railway companies in Germany.

The Rhine-Main Railway, is a railway line in southern Germany from Mainz via Darmstadt to Aschaffenburg. It was built by the Hessian Ludwig Railway and opened on 1 August 1858 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany. Until 1862, when the railway bridge over the Rhine river constructed and assembled by MAN-Werk Gustavsburg was finished, a train ferry operated on the river.

Bensheim station is in the town of Bensheim on the Main-Neckar Railway, connecting Frankfurt and Heidelberg, in the German state of Hesse. The station is also the beginning and end of the single-track non-electrified Worms–Bensheim line. 114 trains stop at Bensheim station every day, of which about one-third are long-distance services. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 3 station. Bensheim station is protected as a cultural monument under the Hessian heritage legislation.

Weinheim (Bergstraße) station is a station in the town of Weinheim in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is served by Intercity services on the Main-Neckar Railway between Frankfurt and Heidelberg/Mannheim. The Weschnitz Valley Railway (Weschnitztalbahn) to Furth in the Odenwald starts at Weinheim station. There is also a freight railway to Viernheim, the last remaining section of the former Weinheim–Worms railway.

Riedstadt-Goddelau station, along with Riedstadt Wolfskehlen station, serves the town of Riedstadt in the south of the German state of Hesse on the Mannheim–Frankfurt railway and the Darmstadt–Worms railway. The station is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 4 station. It is served by local and S-Bahn trains.

The Worms–Bingen Stadt railway or Rheinhessenbahn is a non-electrified line that links Worms via Alzey to Bingen Stadt in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Hessian Ried is a low-lying, agricultural region that forms part of the northeastern area of the Upper Rhine Plain. It is situated in South Hesse in west central Germany.

The Western Entrance to the Riedbahn is a 9.5 km-long line in the Germany state of Baden-Württemberg, which was opened in 1985. It gives direct access from the Mannheim–Frankfurt railway from the north to the western end of Mannheim Hauptbahnhof, allowing trains to the east and the south to continue without reversal.

The Worms Rhine Bridge is a two-track railway bridge that spans the Rhine river to the north of Worms, Germany, forming part of the Worms–Biblis railway.

References

Ralph Häussler (2003). "Von der Ludwigsbahn zum Rheinland-Pfalz-Takt". Eisenbahn Magazin (in German). Düsseldorf (9).
Ralph Häussler (2003). Eisenbahnen in Worms (in German). Hamm/Rheinhessen.
Magistrat der Stadt Lampertheim, ed. (1977). Rosengarten. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Gemeinde Rosengarten – Zum 40jährigen Bestehen der Gemeinde Rosengarten (in German). Lampertheim.
Fritz Paetz (1985). Datensammlung zur Geschichte der Eisenbahnen an Main, Rhein und Neckar (in German). Bensheim-Auerbach. pp. 47ff.
H.W. Scharf (2003). Eisenbahn–Rheinbrücken in Deutschland (in German). Freiburg.
Hans Schlieper (2009). Eisenbahntrajekte über Rhein und Bodensee (in German). Düsseldorf. pp. 86–94. ISBN 978-3-87094-369-1.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Magistrat der Stadt Lampertheim, ed. (1977). Rosengarten. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Gemeinde Rosengarten – Zum 40jährigen Bestehen der Gemeinde Rosengarten (in German). Lampertheim. p. 92.