The Saal–Kelheim railway was a single-tracked
branch line
A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line.
Industrial spur
An industri ...
in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
in southern Germany.
In planning for the Danube Valley Railway there was disagreement to begin with about the precise route it should take. The towns of
Kelheim
Kelheim () is a town and municipality in Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the district Kelheim and is situated at the confluence of the rivers Altmühl and Danube. Kelheim has a population of around 16,750 (2020).
History
Kelheim is t ...
and
Abensberg
Abensberg () is a town in the Lower Bavarian district of Kelheim, in Bavaria, Germany, lying around southwest of Regensburg, east of Ingolstadt, northwest of Landshut and north of Munich. It is situated on the river Abens, a tributary of the ...
both wanted to be directly on the railway. The Kelheim option would have involved the construction of an expensive
tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...
; as a result, Abensberg eventually won the day. As compensation a 5.5 km long stub line was built between Saal and Kelheim, that was ceremoniously opened on 15 February 1875.
From the terminus at Kelheim a spur ran off to the port to a location known in the route description as ''Kelheim Donauumschlagstelle'' (Kelheim Danube transhipment point). The halt still listed in the station and route diagrams in 1938 as ''
Affecking'' had been renamed by the time of the 1944 timetable as ''Kelheim Ost''.
Traffic on the line was heavy at times. In 1944 eight pairs of trains ran daily. In 1963 there were 16 pairs of trains daily – 2nd class railbuses – four of which ran through to and from Regensburg.
Passenger services on this branch were withdrawn on 29 May 1988. Goods traffic continued until 2 January 1997.
On 28 February 1998 the line was officially closed.
External links
1944 timetable
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saal-Kelheim railway
Branch lines in Bavaria