Höllental Railway (Lower Austria)

The Lower Austrian Höllentalbahn is a narrow-gauge, electric local train with a track width of 760 mm, which results in a 5- km stretch on Reichenau an der Rax to Hirschwang by Payer -Reichenau ÖBB railway station on the Semmering Railway to the beginning of Höllentales.

History

The train took in 1918 to operate as a material web in a paper mill and was expanded after the granting of the concession period in 1922 as well as several extensions to 1926 transported to a local train passengers and freight. [Note 1]

Besides local commuter traffic was the, on the basis of the concession granted in 1927, by a continuation line [note 2] extended path also trippers as a feeder to also opened in 1926 Raxseilbahn, the first cable car in Austria. [Note 3 ] At the beginning of the 60s would have been necessary, which is why in 1963, passenger services were discontinued and replaced by post buses for the continued existence of major investments. The freight sector, especially the paper mill in Hirschwang could be further operated until 1982.

In 1977 the club Austrian Society for Local Railways ( ÖGLB ) of the Höllentalbahn project Ges.mbH was founded, ( HPG ) since 1979, operates a museum operating on weekends in the summer and also ensures the preservation of distance since the setting of the total traffic. The original railway operators, the local railway Payer Bach Hirschwang GmbH is still existent defined in commercial law, also appears in the 2007 Austrian companies, and shall have an annual balance sheet.

47.6980515.839363Koordinaten: 47 ° 41 ' 53 " N, 15 ° 50' 22" E

Route

The Höllentalbahn has its starting point at the Payer -Reichenau the Semmering railway station. Former departure platform was located opposite the ÖBB station building and was walking through an underpass. Towards the west, then the transfer of goods was where it was transhipped between standard gauge and narrow gauge. Next, the stop Payerbach- place was reached, now called Payerbach local railway is the starting point of the museum railway. After the stop of the route with 25 ‰ begins to rise. A piece follows the yield nor the Semmering railway and then branch off to the right. After a short kilometer slope of the highest point of the track is reached at Artzberg. Then it's back to 25 ‰ downhill through the forest. At mile 2 the train reached the station Kurhaus and then passes through a 270 ° arc to Thalhofgraben to lose more altitude.

The web of material before 1926 had two hairpins at this point. Subsequently, the Kurhaus bridge over the First Vienna Mountain Spring Pipeline and a footpath leads.

Soon after, the three-track station Reichenau is achieved. Here in a mid-span and the electrical transformer system that supplies the line with electricity. Next Hirschwang direction it goes slightly uphill along the Schwarza. First, the route passes through built-up area, and later between river and forest. The stop Haaberg is reached at 4.3 miles, the bus stop Hirschwang is at kilometer 5 The latter was built at the turn for the coach house in 2006 and has since endpoint of the museum trains. The 200 meter distance to Hirschwang station as the station buildings are in poor condition and are only rarely used. At times the local railway station of Hirschwang had four tracks, two each for passenger and freight transport. The freight railroad led to the connection path of the paper mill. Following the passenger train tracks, the route went further along the factory floor in the direction Höllentalstraße. Before this was crossed kept the trains stop in the factory. Furthermore followed the route of the Höllentalstraße and ended just before the road crosses the Schwarza about wind bridge. The terminus Wind bridge - Raxbahn was single track, the falls of the trains had to be pushed into the passing loop 100 meters before the bus stop.

Rolling stock

As a symbol of the path, the electric locomotives are E1 - E3, Originally they were with several sister locomotives the construction of the railway tunnel Karavanken used. After several conversions they received their distinctive appearance, them the nickname " propelled garden house" earned. With built in 1903, are among the oldest operational electric locomotives in the world. Another E -Lok (E4 ) was delivered in 1927 by AEG Vienna, but this was only used for the Werksverschub Hirschwang.

For passenger railcars in 1926 two (No. 1 and 2) and four sidecar (No. 11 to 14) were built by the Graz wagon factory. These cars were very generously sized and at that time the largest narrow-gauge vehicles of Austria. By the year 1963, she contributed the total passenger. After the setting they were sold to the Zillertal Railway. The trailers were there continue to be used with various modifications as passenger cars, the bodies of the railcars were scrapped, however, and built on the framework of freight cars. The trailers were brought back to their old home in 1986. Two of them ( No. 11 and No. 12) were painted in original colors and used in the museum traffic. The re- establishment of a rail car, it would take a little longer. Only in 1999 was begun to reconstruct a railcar faithfully from the still existing bogies and a wagon to a sidecar. At the opening of the 2005 season this was put into operation. Since 2003, the former Badnerbahn sidecar is 270 ( as of 1971 he wore the number 74, after leaving the control operation was outside again the # 270 written ), built by Ringhoffer in Prague on the Höllentalbahn go. He was umgespurt by bogie exchange and taken with the number 21 in the Hell Valley in operation.

Having got worse in the 1970s, the conservation status of electrical equipment they managed a total of two Army Field Railroad diesel locomotives of type HF 130 C. These were sold on the setting of freight again, and since 1997 is on the museum train again a machine of this type go ( called V2). Furthermore, smaller diesel locomotives were used for the Werksverschub for work trains and over again. Since 1986, a Jenbacher Diesel Locomotive at the Höllentalbahn is (referred to as V10) which originally stood at the Böhler works in Kapfenberg in use.

Steam locomotives did not come until the museum train on this route. In addition to some factory track and field track - two couplers ( Floriana, built in 1913 and Boehler 17, built in 1943) sailed a short time, the U1 (ÖBB 298.51 ) and the " Molln " (ÖBB 298 104 ) the route. In 1990, the club has taken the ÖGLB Ybbstalbahn mountain route as a second car and transferred the great steam locomotives there.