The Neckar Valley Railway, or Neckar Valley Main Line () is a railway line from Heidelberg via Eberbach and Mosbach to Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld in southwestern Germany. Today it is administered by the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar (Rhine-Neckar Transport Authority) and is partly worked by the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn.
History
The Heidelberg–Neckargemünd section of the line was built in 1862 as part of the Baden Odenwald Railway (Baden Odenwaldbahn), running from the Heidelberg via Neckargemünd, Meckenheim, Neckarbischofsheim, Aglasterhausen, Obrigheim, Neckarelz, Mosbach, Oberschefflenz, Seckach, Osterburken, Königshofen and Lauda to Würzburg. Construction of the line was authorised by a law of 27 April 1860. The Heidelberg–Neckargemünd section was opened on 23 October 1862.
Although the most obvious option for the route between Neckargemünd and Neckarelz would have been to build the line along the Neckar, this would have meant running through Neckarsteinach and Hirschhorn, which were on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, so a hillier and longer route to the south was selected.
About ten years later, as a result of the Franco-Prussian War, the affected states became part of the German Empire, so it was agreed to build the Neckargemünd–Neckarsteinach–Eberbach–Neckarelz–Jagstfeld line, which was opened on 24 May 1879. Trains between Heidelberg and Würzburg now run over this line.
Further development until 2003
Through trains ran from Heidelberg via the Neckar Valley Railway both towards Würzburg and towards Heilbronn.
A second track was built on the line from Heidelberg to Neckarelz between 1907 and 1914. The line was opened through the Königstuhl tunnel to the new marshalling yard on 2 March 1914.
Between 1920 and 1930, the line was upgraded for higher axle loads.
After the Neckar bridge was blown up in 1945 at the end of World War II, the halt of Neckarbrücke was established near Kleingemünd on 9 March, allowing trains to run to the east. On 23 June 1946 continuous operations were resumed, but initially only over a single track; this meant that trains had to cross at Kleingemünd. Double track was restored on this section on 15 September 1958.
Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof was moved from the city centre to its current location in 1955, which also the course of the Neckar Valley Railway was changed between Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof and Karlstor station. Since then, the Neckar Valley Railway has used the route through the 2487-meter-long Königstuhl Tunnel, which had previously only used freight trains to the Heidelberg marshalling yard. The old tunnels on the outskirts of Heidelberg's Old Town are now used by road traffic (Adenauerplatz–Karlstor); The reconstruction of the Schlossberg and Spital tunnels cost Deutsche Mark (DM) 11.5 million and was approved on 13 September 1968.
From the 1950, many of Deutsche Bundesbahn's main lines were electrified including the Neckar Valley Railway between Heidelberg and Heilbronn. The section to Heidelberg Karlstor was electrified on 22 May 1955. Electrification was completed on 14 September 1972. The first electric services ran from Heidelberg to Stuttgart on 21 September and regular electrical services commenced on 1 October 1972.
The Neckarsteinach signal box was taken out of service on 1 October 1986. On 5 March 1990, Neckarsteinach station was downgraded from a Bahnhof (station) of class 3 to a Haltepunkt (halt).
Until the mid-nineties there was long-distance services on the Neckar Valley Railway, but these have since been completely abandoned. This rail service was last operated as an InterRegio pair between Emden and Stuttgart, after D-Züg services like Amsterdam–Munich or Wilhelmshaven–Lindau had disappeared from the timetable.
In 1983 and 1984, a portion of the Rheingold ran from Mannheim via Heidelberg, Heilbronn and Stuttgart, over the Stuttgart–Nördlingen and Nördlingen–Augsburg lines to Munich. This route was chosen despite the longer times for touristic reasons. The service was cancelled due to low utilisation and the lack of compatibility with the Intercity network.
In early 1996, the track was adapted for DM 18 million for the use of tilting Regional-Express services and equipped with the Geschwindigkeitsüberwachung Neigetechnik (GNT) system. This reduced the travel time from 103 minutes to 68 minutes.
