Royal Saxon State Railways
The Royal Saxon State Railways (German: Königlich Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen) were the state-owned railways operating in the Kingdom of Saxony from 1869 to 1918. From 1918 until their merger into the Deutsche Reichsbahn the title 'Royal' was dropped and they were just called the Saxon State Railways (Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen).
History
En route to a state railway
After the completion of the privately financed
At the same time the Royal Saxon-Bavarian State Railway Division (Königlichen Direction der Sächsisch-Bayerischen Staatseisenbahn) in Leipzig began work. Specific regulations were laid down by the state parliament. The board of directors was accordingly given the appropriate powers and was assigned directly to a state ministry. The payroll of the officials was to be approved by the state parliament and railway fares by the provincial legislature. In addition to funding for the construction of the line, in particular the
Because no suitable private company had been found to build the
On 24 July 1843 a treaty was concluded with the
On 1 September 1847, the 102 km long route from Dresden to Görlitz was opened by the
On 1 October 1853 the 'Royal Chemnitz-Riesa State Railway Division' (Königliche Direktion der Chemnitzer-Riesaer Staatseisenbahn) was established. It had the task of completing the construction of the Riesa–Chemnitz railway and running the line subsequently. This had been necessary, after the private firm, the Chemnitz-Riesa Railway Company, had gone bankrupt due to the cost of structures needed between Waldheim und Döbeln.
Unlike Prussia, Saxony never issued a railway law. This meant that every railway proposal had to be agreed in the state parliament. In spite of the negative experiences of the past, the next ten years saw an increase in the construction of state railways. The work was not without problems, due to geographical difficulties. The extension of the route between Chemnitz and Riesa as well as the line from Freiberg to Tharandt were technically challenging and correspondingly expensive.
On 15 November 1858 the line from Chemnitz to Zwickau was completed. That meant there was now a link from Riesa to the Saxon-Bavarian Railway over the line from Zwickau that had been built in 1845. As a result, the Chemnitz Division was disbanded and the management of its routes transferred to the Leipzig Division, which was given the title of "Royal Division of the State's Western Railways" (Königliche Direktion der westlichen Staatseisenbahn). At the same time the Dresden Division was renamed the "Royal Division of the State's Eastern Railways" (Königliche Direktion der östlichen Staatseisenbahnen).
In 1862 the state railways had an overall length of 525 km. In addition to the
By 1865 links from Leipzig to
One crucial event in the history of Saxon railway operations turned out to be the
In the following years the railway network was further expanded. Lines in the upper Ore Mountains appeared after
As a result, on 1 July 1869, the Leipzig and Dresden divisions were merged into the new "Royal General Division of the Saxon State Railways" (Königlichen Generaldirection der sächsischen Staatseisenbahnen), abbreviated to K. Sächs. Sts. E. B. “, in Dresden.
One of the managing directors of the Saxon state railways was the privy councillor, Otto von Tschirschky and Bögendorff, the father-in-law of the later General Paul von der Planitz.
Further expansion
The years after the foundation of the Reich in 1871 were also marked, in Saxony, by a large number of private railway construction projects. However, in most cases the state had to come to their aid in order to complete the planned routes and to continue to run them. In addition, further building work was carried out in order to expand the network. The construction of railways made it possible to site industry even in the villages of the
Because the construction and operations of lines was not always covered by the profits, ways to simplify things began to be investigated. As early as 1865 the engineer's forum of the Union of German Railway Administrations (Verein Deutscher Eisenbahnverwaltungen) set out principles for secondary lines. These were legally implemented in 1878 as part of the 'Railway Regulations for German Railways of Lower Importance' (Bahnordnung für deutsche Eisenbahnen untergeordneter Bedeutung). The routes built to these simpler regulations were known in Saxony as 'secondary lines' or Sekundärbahnen (Singular: Sekundärbahn). Twenty-six routes totalling 453 km were immediately run as Sekundärbahnen and in 1879 the first newly built Sekundärbahn, the suburban route from Leipzig to Gaschwitz via Plagwitz.
Because even Sekundärbahnen did not produce the desired savings in every case, in 1881 the construction of the first
The most important railway structures were the Dresden Hauptbahnhof built from 1891 to 1901 and the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof which was finished in 1915. Both were linked to the cities with extensive modifications to the railway yards.
On the abdication of King Friedrich August III in 1918 and the transformation of the kingdom to a free state, the appellation 'Royal' (Königlich) was dropped and the railway administration in Saxony called itself the 'Saxon State Railways' (Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen or Sächs. Sts. E.B.). The Saxon State Railways brought 3370 km of track into the Deutsche Reichsbahn network in 1920.
Railway network
The railway network included, for one, the north–south links from Leipzig via Plauen to Hof, from Riesa to Chemnitz and from Elsterwerda to Dresden and Schöna as well as the east–west links from Plauen via Chemnitz to Dresden, from Leipzig to Dresden and from Dresden to Görlitz. The industrialised Ore Mountains were especially well linked by several stub lines along the river valleys. In places these routes crossed the watershed of the Ore Mountains and joined up with the Bohemian railway network.
An overview of the individual routes may be found in the German List of railway lines in Saxony.
Motive power
Steam locomotives
The first locomotives that were procured were from proven classes built in England. These were four-coupled
These classes were deployed on the main lines for a relatively long time; it was not until 1870 that 4-4-0 locomotives (
From that time, locomotives began to be matched more closely to their various tasks (goods, passenger and express train duties). Even the different route profiles (flat in the north and northeast, hilly in the south and southwest) led to increasingly different designs. From the turn of the century faster and faster classes were introduced. After the 4-6-0 locomotives followed classes with 4-6-2 (XVIII H) and 2-8-2 (XX HV) arrangements for express train services; 2-6-2 (XIV HT) for local traffic and 2-8-0 (IX H) and E (IX V and XI HT) for goods train duties.
The development of
Whislst the private Leipzig-Dresden Railway bought its engines from several German locomotive manufacturers, the state locomotives were almost exclusively developed and supplied by the Chemnitz-based Sächsischen Maschinenfabrik locomotive factory.
Railcars
An overview of the individual locomotive classes is given in the
Wagons
In addition to their own designs, Saxony also used only slightly modified Prussian goods wagon designs. After the foundation of the German State Railway Wagon Association in 1909 the standardised goods wagons were procured, that were defined in 11 goods wagon templates.
Literature
- Arthur von Mayer: Geschichte und Geographie der Deutschen Eisenbahnen., Berlin 1894 (Nachdruck Moers 1984)
- Fritz Näbrich, Günter Meyer, Reiner Preuß: Lokomotiv-Archiv Sachsen, transpress, Berlin 1984
- Erich und Reiner Preuß: Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen., transpress, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-344-70700-0
- Johann Ferdinand Ulbricht: Geschichte der Königlich Sächsischen Staatseisenbahnen., Leipzig 1889, Reprint Leipzig 1989, )
- Manfred Weisbrod: Sachsen-Report Bd. 1 + 2 Sächsische Eisenbahngeschichte., Hermann Merker Verlag, Fürstenfeldbruck 1993+1995, ISBN 3-922404-71-5
See also
- Kingdom of Saxony
- List of Saxon locomotives and railbuses