The Odenwald Railway () is a mainly single-tracked main line from Darmstadt and Hanau to Eberbach on the River Neckar, which crosses the Odenwald mountains in the German states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg. Since 1882 the route has been operated throughout as a standard gauge line and since 2005 has been worked by diesel multiples owned by the VIAS private railway company.
The line is timetable no. KBS 641. To distinguish it from the Odenwald Railway in Baden from Heidelberg to Würzburg it is also known as the Hessian Odenwald Railway (Hessische Odenwaldbahn) and occasionally as the Mümling Railway (Mümlingbahn), because it follows the valley of the same name from Beerfelden Hetzbach to Höchst im Odenwald.
History
Planning and construction
During the 1860s there were many years of controversy over the route. Darmstadt, the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Hesse-Darmstadt) supported a route through the Gersprenz valley through Reinheim, Brensbach, Hollerbach and the Kinzig and the Mümling valleys. Frankfurt instead supported route through Dieburg. As a compromise, the route as later built was chosen. It runs from Eberbach through the Odenwald via Wiebelbach-Heubach, where it branches, with one branch running to Babenhausen and Hanau Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) and the other branch to Reinheim and Darmstadt. This meant that traffic from the Odenwald ran to Darmstadt rather than bypassing it.
The Hessian Ludwig Railway (Hessische Ludwigsbahn) received the concession for the Odenwald Railway in the summer of 1868 and financed its construction by raising public debt of over 4 million thalers. It was constructed as a single-track main-line railway of standard gauge, crossing the Odenwald in southern Hesse and northern Baden-Württemberg. In September 1868, construction began on the 1,205 m long tunnel near Frau-Nauses between Wiebelbach and Höchst im Odenwald in the Mümling valley. This cost the life of eleven people and was finished at the Christmas of 1870. In Darmstadt, work began on 1 February 1869 and progressed quickly towards Reinheim. The line was opened to Ober-Ramstadt on 28 December 1870, to Reinheim on 15 May 1871 and to Wiebelbach-Heubach two months later. On 23 December 1871 the section to Erbach was opened, having been delayed by a collapse in the Frau-Nauses tunnel.
The branch line between Hanau and Wiebelbach-Heubach was opened between Babenhausen and Wiebelbach-Heubach in two sections in 1870 and between Hanau and Babenhausen in 1882. The Odenwald Railway crosses the Rhine-Main Railway in Babenhausen.
The Hessian Ludwig Railway received a concession from the Grand Duchy of Hesse to build the 31 km southern section of the line through the Grand Duchy of Baden on 3 August 1875; the Baden section of the line was authorised by a treaty between the two grand duchies that had been signed on 3 August 1874. Because the line had to overcome the topography over the watershed between the Main and Neckar, many engineering structures were required between Erbach and Eberbach, including the Himbächel Viaduct and the Krähberg Tunnel, as well as gradients of 1 in 70. On 1 March 1882, the 23 km long Erbach–Hetzbach section running through the Krähberg Tunnel was opened. On 27 May, this was followed by the opening of the last section from Eberbach to Hetzbach, first for passenger traffic and five days later for freight, making the Odenwald Railway operable along its entire length. Originally, it had been planned to complete the line in 1879, coinciding with the opening of the Neckar Valley Railway from Neckargemünd to the Jagst river, but due to the stretched financial situation of the Hessian Ludwig Railway Company, this schedule could not be met. Passenger trains took two hours to run over the 56 km route between Darmstadt and Erbach in 1871.