2010 is a year to remember for German Railways. This year Deutsche Bahn celebrates 175 years of existence and becomes the biggest railway company in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The takeovers of several powerful operators in Great Britain, Italy, Spain or Poland placed DB on the first position of the best railway groups in the Old Continent. The first railway line served by steam driven trains was launched on December 7, 1835. Services on the Bavarian line were providing connection between the cities of Nuremberg and Furth. The first railway line in Germany, called Bayerische Ludwigseisenbah or Ludwigsbahn was named after the king of Bavaria, Ludwig I, who reigned during 1825-1848. However, he was an opponent of the line construction and hardly agreed that the line would be named after him. The soul project of the Bavarian king was the Ludwig Channel which linked the Main River and the Danube and which was eventually closed since it could not face railway competition.
The line development represents the outcome of the efforts made by two local engineers, Goeorg Zacharias Platner and Johannes Scharrer, who managed to collect 132,000 guilders needed in the construction for which a concession was made called Ludwigs-EisenBahn-Gesellschaft. Works on the 7.45 km long line began in April 1834, the concession contract being attributed on February 19, 1834.
The construction works have been supervised by Paul Camille von Denis, today’s father of railway engineering in Germany, at that time famous for his participation in the protest movement called Hambacher Fest, where the problem of the German states’ unification was raised for the first time and where the flag which today serves as symbol of the unified Germany was raised for the first time as well.
The first locomotive to run on the Ludwig line was the legendary Adler, manufactured in the Stephenson British facilities in Newcastle especially for the German railways. This is considered the first locomotive ever to run in Germany, despite the fact that the first locomotive on German ground was Krigar, manufactured at the Prussian Royal Steel Plants in 1816, which has never been placed into service. In 2007, DBrebuilt a replica of the Adler locomotive which is currently exhibited at the Railway Museum in Nuremberg.
The rails of the Ludwig line have been supplied by the German company Remy & Co aus Rasselstein, part of which have been conserved an displayed at the same museum in Nuremberg.
by Alin Lupulescu
Share on:
