The Palatine Ludwig Railway Company (''Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn-Gesellschaft'') was a German railway concern that was founded to operate the

Palatine Ludwig Railway A palatine or palatinus (in Latin; plural ''palatini''; cf. derivative spellings below) is a high-level official attached to imperial or royal courts in Europe since Roman times.

(''Ludwigsbahn'') in the Palatinate, a region of southwest Germany that was once part of the Kingdom of Bavaria within the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

. On 1 January 1870, the Palatine Ludwig Railway Company, the

Palatine Maximilian Railway Company The Palatine Maximilian Railway Company (''Pfälzische Maximiliansbahn-Gesellschaft'') was a German railway enterprise that acted as the railway operator when the Palatine Maximilian Railway was built. It managed and ran operations jointly from t ...

and the Palatine Northern Railway (with which the Neustadt-Dürkheim Railway Company had amalgamated) had formed a management and operational association under the name "United Palatine Railways" (''Vereinigte Pfälzische Eisenbahnen'') or

Palatinate Railway The Palatine Railways (german: Pfälzische Eisenbahnen), often abbreviated to Palatinate Railway (''Pfalzbahn'') was the name of the railway division and administration responsible for all private railway companies in the Bavarian Palatinate fro ...

(''Pfalzbahn'') for short, with its headquarters in Ludwigshafen. Nevertheless, Palatine Ludwig Railway was responsible for the subsequent opening of the following railway lines: * Ludwigshafen–Frankenthal–Bobenheim, , on 15 November 1853 * Speyer–Germersheim, , on 14 March 1864 * Speyer–Rhein station – towards Schwetzingen, , on 10 December 1873 * Landau–Annweiler, , on 12 September 1874 * Annweiler–Biebermühle–Zweibrücken, , (

Queich Valley Railway The Queich is a tributary of the Rhine, which rises in the southern part of the Palatinate Forest, and flows through the Upper Rhine valley to its confluence with the Rhine in Germersheim. It is long and is one of the four major drainage syste ...

) and * Biebermühle–Pirmasens, , on 25 November 1875 * Einöd–Bierbach–Reinheim–Saargemünd, , on 1 April 1879 ( Blies valley line) * Biebermühle–Waldfischbach, , on 1 June 1904 ( Biebermühl Railway) In addition the following narrow gauge routes belonging to the Palatine Ludwig Railway should be mentioned: * Ludwigshafen–Dannstadt, , and Ludwigshafen–Frankenthal, , on 15 October 1890 * Frankenthal–Großkarlbach, 13 km, on 1 July 1891 * Speyer Lokalbahnhof– Geinsheim, , on 26 August 1905 ( Pfefferminzbähnel/ Gäubähnel) * Geinsheim–Neustadt branch line station, , on 31 October 1908 (Pfefferminzbähnel/Gäubähnel) On 1 January 1909, the Ludwigsbahn was transferred into the ownership of the

Royal Bavarian State Railways The Royal Bavarian State Railways (''Königliche Bayerische Staats-Eisenbahnen'' or ''K.Bay.Sts.B.'') was the state railway company for the Kingdom of Bavaria. It was founded in 1844. The organisation grew into the second largest of the German ...

along with the other companies belonging to the Palatinate Railway.

See also