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.
Development Additional infrastructure A number of additions and connections to different lines were connected to the Odenwald Railway over the years: • On 10 October 1887 the
Gersprenz Valley Railway (
Gersprenztalbahn) to
Reichelsheim connected to the Odenwald Railway in Reinheim. • On 1 October 1896, the Rodgau Railway (
Rodgaubahn) was opened from Reinheim via Dieburg to
Offenbach. • The
Überwald Railway ("upper forest railway" or
Überwaldbahn) was an attempt to create a lateral connection between the
Bergstraße Route and the Odenwald Railway. The Überwald Railway was opened in 1901 from
Weinheim to Wahlen (now in the municipality of
Grasellenbach), where this ambitious attempt ended because of the cost of crossing the mountains and eventually reaching the Odenwald Railway could not be financed. • On 1 May 1904, the branch line
to Beerfelden was opened. • On 1 October 1908, Zellhausen station, which was not originally planned, opened after the local community had asked for a connection to the network. • On 1 December 1912 the
Bachgau Railway (
Bachgaubahn) was opened between Höchst and
Aschaffenburg.
Traffic From 1925 the Odenwald Railway was served by local services as well as three “hedgerow expresses” (
Heckeneilzug), from Frankfurt via Hanau, Erbach and Eberbach, connecting with Stuttgart and during some timetable periods in the 1980s even
corridor express (
D-Zug) trains. These changed from electric to diesel locomotives originally in
Heilbronn and later in Eberbach. The travel time between Frankfurt and Stuttgart was 3.5 hours and between Frankfurt and Erbach about 85 minutes.
Dismantling of the infrastructure In the 1970s, the Odenwald Railway began large scale closures. Zeilhard, Richen, Etzen-Gesäß, Schönnen, Ebersberg and Gaimühle stations were closed and Hetzbach, Kailbach, Klein-Umstadt and Langstadt stations were rebuilt as halts (
Haltepunkten, that is they now had all
sets of points removed). In the 30 kilometres between Erbach and Eberbach there are now no junctions. The branch lines were partly closed: • Gersprenz Valley Railway in May 1964 • the Hetzbach–Beerfelden line on 23 June 1964 • the southern section of the Rodgau Railway on 20 July 1965 • The Bachgau Railway on 26 May 1974, although the first section of track continued to be used as a siding for the local industry, especially to the
Pirelli tyre factory. At times, it was even considered abandoning the mountainous line between Erbach and Eberbach completely. This did not happen, however, and the services began stopping at Kailbach and Schöllenbach stations again from 1994, after they had been closed in 1977.
Operations After the Second World War,
class 65 steam locomotive were used on almost all trains. They were used because their technical characteristics (tensile strength) was very suitable for the Odenwald line. Passengers trains were mostly composed of three-axle carriages rebuilt from compartmentised carriages. Freight trains were often hauled by
class 50 locomotives; in some cases freight traffic was carried between Hanau and Wiebelbach in
railbus sets. All locomotives were based in Darmstadt. In 1970, steam operations ended on the Odenwald line and train services were hauled by diesel locomotives of
class 212. At the beginning of the 1990s,
class 628 diesel multiple units were increasingly operated on the line, while the remaining locomotive-hauled trains, which had been hauled by class 212 diesel locomotives, was gradually replaced by
class 216 hauled trains. In the late nineties, these were replaced first by
class 215 locomotives, which after a short time were transferred to other regions, and then by
class 218 locomotives. The locomotive-hauled trains often ran as
push-pull trains.
Deutsche Bahn abandoned freight services in 2001. Through passenger services between Frankfurt and Stuttgart were terminated in December 2004 when Baden-Württemberg refused to support them. Passenger trains on the 56 km route between Darmstadt and Erbach took 1 hour and 17 minutes in 1982; in 2004 they took 1 hour and 10 minutes, which corresponded to an average speed of 48 km/h. == Current railway ==