Platinate Overland Trolleys

[Waldbahner]

Hello guys,

after finishing my N-scale Southern layout, I steped right into the the next adventure, dedicated to an old trolley line at my home area.

First : A brief history

The “Pfälzer Oberlandbahn”, or as the native called her “the snail”, was a 14 miles long trolley line between Landau and Neustadt in the southwest of Germany. It was build in 1912 and the full line opened service in January 1913.



The railroad was constructed as an overland trolley line with meter gauge and connects the small villages along the palatinate mountains with the bigger cities of Landau and Neustadt. In the other direction, she brought citizens out into the nature for relaxing. As the railroad was build, there was no major traffic on the streets and you had to walk or use an horse cart to travel to another village near by.

The trolleys were a big and important step into future for the people in that time and for the region as well.



Starting at the state railroads main station in Landau, the trolleys run through the city up to the north. Between the villages along the line, the rails were laid into the rural streets except for some short sections, where the trains had their own RoW. Passing through Nußdorf, Böchingen, Flemlingen, Hainfeld and Rhodt, the train arrvied at Edenkoben, midpoint of the line and home of the main facilities. The 5 track car shed is still in place and is used for buses today. All trains started from here in the good old days. The line continues over Maikammer, Diedesfeld and Hambach until she ends at the state railroads main station in Neustadt.

For these 14 miles long trip, the train tooks 1h45 at a top speed of 18 miles per hour. So you can imagine why the native called her “the snail”. But it was better than taking a walk and the whole trip costs 15 cents when the line was opened.



After WW2, the railroad was in a bad condition but she was back in service very quick when the war was over. Anyway, the material of the line was well done. Through the years of WW2, there was no chance to replace rails, overhead wires or to do major maintainance at all. So in the 1950th, the railroad was in a very poor condition. So the company decided to replace the trolleys with buses and the line between Landau and Edenkoben was switched to bus service in 1952. Three years later, on 30th of January 1955, the last “snail” runs between Edenkoben and Neustadt. The next day, the whole line was served by buses and the “Palatinate Overland Trolley” becomes another fallen flag in Germany narrow gauge history.



But the company itself survied until today and is an important bus service in this region and by old people, the bus line 501 is still called “snail” or “electric tram” in memory of the old days. The company still uses the old tram shed as mentioned above to store the busses at night.

In 2013, the railroad would be 100 years old and that’s the reason why I started a model building project with this therm. Another point is, that I live in Böchingen and the railroad runs direct in front of my house. There’s even a photo of the opening with my house in place (see red arrow). Not much has changed in the past 100 years. The house in front of mine is gone and at least the railroad.....



If there weren't the books written by a railroad historican, I guess the railroad would be forgotten for ever. Since non of the prototype cars survied and there's no memorial to the old trolley line, I decided to make my own ones in H0 scale.

Ant that's what I'll show you in the next posts.

Cheers, Gerd