The first attempts to build a railway in the area of today's route stem from 1838, soon after the floating of the
Palatine Ludwig Railway Company (
Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn-Gesellschaft). In this context, a proposal was made for a route from
Zweibrücken along the
Schwarzbach and via
Rodalben,
Annweiler and
Langenkandel (later: Kandel) on the
Rhine, which was not accepted. In the period from 1847 to 1849, the east–west aligned
Palatine Ludwig Railway (
Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn) was built from
Ludwigshafen to
Bexbach. This line was mainly used for the transport of coal. In 1855, the
Palatine Maximilian Railway (
Pfälzische Maximiliansbahn) was opened between Neustadt and Wissembourg to carry coal from Saargegend and
Palatine agricultural produce to
France. However, the Palatine Maximilian Railway did not meet expectations in the first few years of its existence. In particular, the French railway company
Chemins de fer de l'Est succeeded in blocking the competitiveness of all links to areas of France near the Rhine from outside of France through various measures such as the manipulation of tariffs. In addition, it supplied a large part of the demand for coal within the department of
Haut-Rhin via the
Rémilly–Saarbrücken railway to
Frouard. This traffic continued over the railway to
Strasbourg or along rivers to
Mulhouse. Against this background, the Palatinate was forced to look for other markets, preferably on the other side of the Rhine. As a result, the
Palatine Maximilian Railway Company (
Pfälzische Maximiliansbahn-Gesellschaft), which had built the line from Neustadt to Wissembourg, planned to build a railway branching off in Winden to Karlsruhe, especially as it had to increase its financial returns. It was hoped that the planned route would transport coal to better markets in the southern German countries of
Baden,
Württemberg and the main part of
Bavaria, which was geographically separated from the
Circle of the Rhine (
Rheinpfalz). Initially, the planners considered a route possibly branching off in
Rohrbach. However, taking note of the interests of
Bergzabern, which also required a connection to the rail network, the company refrained from it.
Planning The municipality of Kandel, in particular, fought strongly for such a line, referring in this context to the large number of inhabitants in its area and the creation of jobs in the construction of the railway. In 1859, the Palatine Maximilian Railway Company received a concession for the line from the Ministry of Trade and Public Works. In the summer of the following year, the route and the design of the project were determined accordingly. However, there was resistance from the town of
Germersheim, which instead supported the construction of a railway line through its territory and from there to
Bruchsal. In a memorandum, the town of Germersheim and the commander of the Germersheim fortress also argued that a line from Winden to Karlsruhe, as opposed to a line though the territory of the fortress would not be military secure and that it was strategically important to establish a connection with the other fortresses like
Koblenz,
Landau,
Mainz and
Rastatt. The Palatinate government however rejected the Germersheim proposal.
Construction, opening and first years Bavaria passed a law on 10 November 1861 that guaranteed the company a grant of interest for a total investment of one and a half million
gulden. The concession followed on 28 June of the following year. Already the Maxau Railway had been opened on the Baden side from Karlsruhe to the right (eastern) bank of the Rhine near the hamlet of Maxau on 5 August 1862. The Winden–Maximiliansau section was approved on 14 March 1864. Although it ran through
Minfeld, a district to the south-east of Winden, it did not have a station, because a cattle trough had had to be relocated for the track construction and this had led to conflicts.
Further development Although the line was used to carry passengers, the change of locomotive required to cross the Rhine prevented significant through traffic. Subsequently, a second track was installed between Winden and Wörth. From 1 January 1870, the management of the section of the line to the west of the Rhine was taken over by the newly founded
Palatinate Railway (
Pfälzische Eisenbahnen), which had been created by the merger of the Palatine railway companies, although the Maximilian Railway was still formally the owner and possessed the concession for its construction and operation. The Maximilian Railway was always responsible for the transfer of trains across the Rhine. The operator of the east-bank section was the
Grand Duchy of Baden State Railway (
Großherzoglich Badische Staatseisenbahnen). From 1895 onwards the
freight bypass railway branched off between the stations of Mühlburg and Knielingen; this carried a large part of the freight traffic. Telephone wires were installed along the Winden–Wörth section in 1907.
Ticket barriers were installed at stations along the line from Winden to Maxau. On 1 January 1909, the Winden–Rheinbrücke section of the line together with the other lines in the Palatinate were taken over by the
Royal Bavarian State Railways (
Königlich Bayerische Staatseisenbahnen). As early as 1900, the Baden Ministry of the Interior had approved the relocation of the
Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof, since on the one hand it had reached the limits of its capacity and, on the other hand, the many level crossings in the urban area were increasingly an obstacle for pedestrians and trams. The new location was on the southern outskirts. As a result, the section of railway to the east of Knielingen had to be relocated. This would circumnavigate the city in a large semicircular arc. It was conceived as running from the western part of the
freight bypass railway built in 1895 to just before the West station (
Westbahnhof), which was also built in 1895 at the same time as the marshalling yard. On 23 October 1913, the new Hauptbahnhof and the relocated Maxau Railway were opened. At the same time, Mühlburg received
a new station, which also serves as a junction station for the
line that passed through Eggenstein and Linkenheim to Graben-Neudorf. The southern part of Eggenstein also had to be rebuilt. Until then, Mühlburger Tor station, which has since been abandoned, occupied this function. A few years later,
Karlsruhe Zeppelinstraße (later called
Karlsruhe West) station was added in the vicinity of the West station between Mühlburg and Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof.
Weimar Republic and the Third Reich (1920–1945) In 1920, the line became part of the newly founded
Deutsche Reichsbahn. In 1922, the Palatinate section was integrated into the newly founded
Reichsbahndirektion Ludwigshafen (
railway division of
Ludwigshafen) and the Baden section became part of the
Reichsbahndirektion Karlsruhe. After the First World War, France occupied the
Palatinate and the railways in the Palatinate were operated by the French military from 1923 to 1924. Over the decades, traffic had been steadily increasing. Since the railways had to comply with a timetable, these services had priority over the barge traffic. This caused congestion of the traffic on the Rhine. This situation was even worse for road traffic, which was only allowed to cross the bridge once the shipping traffic had cleared. The political and economic situation of the 1920s frustrated the plans for a permanent Rhine bridge. Baden and Bavaria provided money for the construction of such a bridge from 1934, after which work began. With the dissolution of the Ludwigshafen railway division in 1937 all of the line came within the jurisdiction of Karlsruhe from 1 February 1937. The local
Reichsbahn-Betriebsamt (Deutsche Reichsbahn operations office, RBA) was also based in Karlsruhe. On 4 April of the following year,
a fixed Rhine bridge was opened near Maxau and the dismantling of the pontoon bridge followed. The former Maximiliansau station lost its function as a result. Instead, the locality was given a new station immediately to the west of the new bridge. At the same time, a new Mühlburg–Maxau section of the line was built. The route, which had previously passed through Knielingen, now ran along the south-western edge of the village, so Knielingen also received a new station. In addition, the Wörth–Karlsruhe section was subsequently rebuilt with two tracks. Due to the new Rhine bridge, the main traffic flows, which had previously been on the
Landau–Bruchsal and the Neustadt–Wissembourg axes, were now aligned towards Karlsruhe. Similarly, express trains on the
Saarbrücken–
Munich route from then on ran via Winden and Karlsruhe. In 1944, a connection was established from Karlsruhe West station to the
Rhine Railway towards
Rastatt for strategic reasons. At the beginning of 1945, rail traffic on the line came to a standstill as a result of the Second World War. In the same year, the bridge across the Rhine was destroyed in air raids.
Postwar and Deutsche Bundesbahn (1945–1993) As a result of the division of Germany into occupation zones, the section on the line to the west of the Rhine became responsible on 31 August 1945 to the
Eisenbahndirektion Mainz (railway division of Mainz), the legal successor of the Reichsbahn railway division of the same name. The railway division of Mainz became responsible for all railway lines that became part of the state of
Rhineland-Palatinate, which was founded one year later. The railway division of Karlsruhe continued to be responsible for the Baden section of the line. As a result of the disruption of the Rhine crossing, the trains on the western section of the line were only operated as far as Wörth. As a substitute for the damaged Rhine bridge, a new prefabricated military-style bridge was commissioned in 1947; this was originally intended as be temporary, but it became permanent. Since 2001, there has been a transition fare of the
Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar (Rhine-Neckar transport association, VRN) on the Winden-Maximiliansau section. In the mid-1990s, two tracks were restored on the Wörth–Maximiliansau section for Stadtbahn operations. In 1997, the Maxau–Wörth section was integrated in the network of the
Karlsruhe Stadtbahn and a line that had been built to the Wörth town centre starting to the west of the
Wörth station began to be operated under the
Karlsruhe model, especially Stadtbahn line S 5. To the east of Maxau, the Stadtbahn route is approximately the same as the old line used until 1938, and then, within Knielingen, uses a
tram line from the 1950s. In 1999, construction work began on a second bridge for a second track immediately adjacent to the existing Rhine crossing, as the bridge commissioned in 1991 had turned out to be a bottleneck. Double-track operations began on 12 May 2000. Operations were commissioned on Stadtbahn line S 51 and S 52 to Germersheim in 2010. While the S 52 service, like the S 5, only used the section between Wörth and the
Betriebsbahnhof Rheinbrücke (Rhine bridge yard), the S 51 runs from Wörth on the Winden–Karlsruhe line to just before Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof and then turns onto the connecting ramp to the
Albtalbahnhof. == Operations ==