Waiblingen–Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental railway orMurr Railway
Overview
Native name	Murrbahn
Line number	4930
Locale	Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Service
Route number	785(784 until 2007) 790.3(S-Bahn)
Technical
Line length	60.696 km (37.715 mi)
Number of tracks	2(Waiblingen–Backnang)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in)standard gauge
Electrification	15 kV/16.7 HzAC Overhead catenary
Route map Legend km elev (M) or length (m) inmetres Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt–Aalen railway toStuttgartS 2S 3 0.00 Waiblingen Rems Railway toAalenS 2 Rems 239 m 4.3 Neustadt-Hohenacker (formerly Neustadt (Württ)) 5.9 Schwaikheim tunnel 308 m 6.8 Schwaikheim 289 M 9.9 Winnenden 284 M 13.0 Nellmersbach 307 M 15.9 Maubach 290 M Backnang–Ludwigsburg railway toLudwigsburgS 4 18.5 Backnang ↑S 3S 4 278 M Weißach 20.8 Backnang (Spinnerei) 22.4 Backnang-Steinbach 24.9 Oppenweiler (Württ) 28.4 Sulzbach (Murr) 268 M 31.4 Schleißweiler Murr 34.6 Murrhardt 39.3 Fornsbach 42.3 Schanz tunnel 860 m 44.2 Fichtenberg 348 M 46.9 Mittelrot 48.3 Kappelesberg tunnel 415 m Upper Kocher Valley Railway to Untergröningen 49.1 Gaildorf West 348 M Kocher 52.2 Ottendorf 56.7 Wilhelmsglück salt mine [de] Hohenlohe Railway toHeilbronn 60.7 Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental 371 M Hohenlohe Railway toCrailsheim Source: German railway atlas.[1] This diagram: view talk edit

TheWaiblingen–Schwäbisch Hall railway (also known inGerman as theMurrbahn—Murr Railway—or theMurrtalbahn—Murr Valley Railway) is a major railway in the German state ofBaden-Württemberg and the shortest rail link betweenStuttgart andNuremberg.

It starts atWaiblingen and runs betweenBacknang and Fornsbach through the upper valley of theMurr. TheBacknang–Ludwigsburg railway, known as theKleine Murrbahn ("Little Murr Railway"), runs through the lower part of the Murr valley. The Murr Railway continues toGaildorf on theRot river, then toSchwäbisch Hall on theKocher. There it connects with theHohenlohe Railway fromCrailsheim toHeilbronn.

The first section of the Murr Railway to Backnang is integrated with theStuttgart S-Bahn as line S3. The section to Backnang is double track and the remaining line to Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental is single track.

TheRoyal Württemberg State Railways built the Murr Valley Railway (Murrtalbahn) and theGäu Railway (Gäubahn) from Stuttgart toFreudenstadt simultaneously, creating a diagonal line throughWürttemberg. Construction supervisor (Oberbaurat) Carl Julius Abel was responsible for planning and construction of the line. With it, the existing routes between Nuremberg and Stuttgart viaAalen orHeilbronn were shortened.

On 26 October 1876, the Waiblingen–Backnang section was opened, followed by the section Backnang–Murrhardt section on 11 April 1878 and the Hessental–Gaildorf section on 1 December 1879. On 15 May 1880, the gap between Murrhardt and Gaildorf was closed,^[2] which required the construction of two tunnels.

The original station in Waiblingen on the Murr line was closed and replaced by one just to the west as a junction station. The chosen route had a disadvantage for the city of Schwäbisch Hall, since the connection for the line between Stuttgart and Nuremberg had to be made at Hessental, now a suburb of Schwäbisch Hall, on the Hessental–Crailsheim section of the Hohenlohe Railway (then called theKocherbahn), which opened in 1867. The majority of trains running from Crailsheim to Hessental proceed to Backnang and Stuttgart, missing the lower part of the Hohenlohe line through Schwäbisch Hall.

A branch line was built from Backnang via Marbach to Bietigheim in 1879 in order to provide a bypass of the Stuttgart node for long-distance transport. It is sometimes called the Little Murr Railway (Kleine Murrbahn).

The line was single track and after theFirst World War France prohibited its duplication for strategic reasons under theTreaty of Versailles. On theRems Railway, in contrast, the line had been duplicated by 1910 toGmünd. In 1926, its duplication was completed toAalen andGoldshöfe.

Trains on the Murr line were mainly hauled after the First World War, with the establishment ofDeutsche Reichsbahn, until 1975, by the famousPrussian P 8 locomotives, which had replaced the Royal Württemberg State Railways's class 38 locomotives.

On 22 December 1934 there was a major accident caused by a signalling error between Murrhardt and Sulzbach on the ridge at Schleißweiler. Two trains collided on the single track and ten people died.

In 1937 the Flying Stuttgart (Fliegende Stuttgarter), which was similar to theFlying Hamburger, ran on the line.

At the end ofWorld War II theSS intended to blow up the Schanz Tunnel between Fornsbach and Fichtenberg. This plan was prevented just before its execution, however, by the courageous intervention of the mayor ofGaildorf, who feared the economic isolation of his region.

The Waiblingen–Backnang section was electrified and duplicated from 1962 to 1965. This included the duplication of the viaduct over the Rems. A new two-way tunnel was built next to the old single-track Schwaikheim Tunnel. This was lined completely with concrete rather than brick and was the first tunnel in Germany to be built this way. At first electrification only benefited local trains, which were mainly operated aspush-pull trains, hauled byclass 141 locomotives. Long-distance trains and most regional trains to Stuttgart continued to be hauled by steam and later diesel locomotives, since a change of locomotive in Backnang would have largely negated any saving in travel time.

In 1976 the era of steam ended on the line and diesel locomotives were used, withclass 211/212 hauling local services. In the case of long-distance and regional services,class 220, laterclass 221 were used for long-distance trains andclass 215 for regional trains. Laterclass 218 locomotives were used both for long-distance and regional trains, sometimes usingdouble header operation before long trains.

In the 1970s, various restoration measures began to be carried out on the Murr line, as on other German lines. Sidings for freight were built at several stations on the section between Backnang and Crailsheim. At the same time local services were thinned out, so that it was served almost exclusively by regional trains. With the electrification of the line from Goldshöfe via Crailsheim toAnsbach in 1985, the Murr line also lost all of its long-distance services, which now ran via the longer Rems line via Aalen.

In the autumn of 1981, Stuttgart S-Bahn services on line S3 began between Backnang and Stuttgart. This was accompanied by the introduction of a regular interval service to Backnang and extra services.

In 1996, the Marbach–Backnang line, the Backnang–Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental section of the Murr line and the Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental–Crailsheim section of the Hohenlohe line were electrified. Subsequently, all platforms at Fornsbach station were renovated.^[3] Since the upgrading of the line for regional services, long-distance services occasionally operate on the line.

In 2004,Deutsche Bahn announced that there would be further upgrading of the line with an additional track on the Oppenweiler–Sulzbach section, a section of double track at Fornsbach and the upgrading of signalling. This would have shortened the travel time between Schwäbisch Hall and Stuttgart by 10 minutes (especially by eliminating waiting time in Murrhardt). As a result of the reduction in funding for regional rail services in response to theKoch-Steinbrück Report, the proposed upgrade between Oppenweiler and Sulzbach was withdrawn at the end of 2004.^[4]

The Verband Region Stuttgart, which coordinates public transport investment in the Stuttgart regions, is examining the idea of extending S-Bahn operations toMurrhardt. This proposal is in competition with a proposal to improveRegional-Express andRegionalbahn services on this route.^[5]

The upgrade at Fornsbach station to improve passing opportunity involves a shift in the location of the platform 120 m closer to the town, two new platforms outside the tracks with an underpass and the installation of a passing track. The aim is that the single track line from Backnang to Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental with passing places at Murrhardt and Fornsbach would save about 10 minutes of waiting time and allow a coordinated timetable.^[6] The hearing procedures for the planning approval has been completed^[7] and construction of the €12 million project began in the summer of 2011. The project was commissioned on 9 December 2012, as expected.^[8]

• Rems Viaduct at Neustadt
• Schwaikheim Tunnel atSchwaikheim: built for the duplication and the electrification of the Waiblingen–Backnang section for the S-Bahn, replacing a single-track tunnel. It was built between 1963 and 1964 and was the first application of theNew Austrian Tunnelling method on a railway in Germany. The old tunnel still exists and is walled up.^[9]
• Viaduct over the Weißach in Backnang
• Schanz Tunnel atFichtenberg, 860 m long. The Schanz tunnel was the third longest tunnel in the network of the Royal Württemberg State Railways after the Hochdorf Tunnel on theNagold Valley Railway and the Weinberg Tunnel on theHohenlohe Railway.^[10] Because the inside of the mountain is composed ofGipskeuper rock containinganhydrite, which swells strongly when in contact with water, the tunnel floor has lifted by about four metres.^[11]
• Kappelesberg Tunnel at Gaildorf
• Viaduct over the Bühler atVellberg

The following types of rail services currently operate on the Murr Railway on working days:

• S-Bahn services on line S3 fromStuttgart Airport via Stuttgart and Waiblingen to Backnang
• hourlyRegional-Express (RE) services from Stuttgart to Backnang, stopping only at Bad Cannstatt, Waiblingen and Winnenden. Their final destination alternates between Hessental or Nuremberg via Crailsheim.
• a pair ofInterregio-Express (IRE) services between Stuttgart and Crailsheim via Backnang

The IRE and RE services useSilberling carriages, exclusively of the oldest build.

On the weekendRegionalbahn traffic between Backnang and Schwäbisch Hall is operated withclass ET 425 electrical multiple units.

On 9 December 2006 the last long-distance train ran on the Murr line (with the exception of diverted traffic): an express from Nuremberg to Stuttgart (with coaches fromDresden andPrague).

• "Line information and photographs" (in German). Schienenstraenge.de. Retrieved4 April 2011, private Website{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• "Photographs" (in German). Murrbahn-Online. Retrieved4 April 2011, private Website{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• "Schwaikheim rail history" (in German). Heimatvereins Schwaikheim. Retrieved4 April 2011.
• "Die Seite rund um die Murrbahn" (in German). Retrieved4 April 2011, private Website with photographs{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• "Tunnel portals on the Murr Railway" (in German). Tunnelportale. Retrieved4 April 2011.
• "Freight timetable on the Murr Railway" (in German). Retrieved4 April 2011.
• "Timetable from 1944" (in German). Retrieved4 April 2011.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toBahnstrecke Waiblingen–Schwäbisch Hall-Hessental.

• Railway lines in Baden-Württemberg
• Railway lines opened in 1876
• 1876 establishments in Germany
• Buildings and structures in Schwäbisch Hall (district)
• Buildings and structures in Rems-Murr-Kreis
• Stuttgart S-Bahn

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