The Ludwig South–North Railway (Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn), built between 1843 and 1854, was the first railway line to be constructed by Royal Bavarian State Railways. It was named after the king, Ludwig I, whose infrastructure priorities had earlier been focused less on railway development than on his Main-Danube canal project.
The railway ran from Lindau on Lake Constance via Kempten, Augsburg, Nuremberg and Bamberg to Hof where it linked up with the Saxon-Bavarian Railway Company.
Background
Following the successful experiment involving the construction of a railway connecting Munich to Augsburg, which had opened on 4 October 1840, committees sprang up in many parts of Bavaria to plan private railways. The government determined that the building of further railways should become a state responsibility, however. On 14 January 1841 Bavaria concluded with Saxony and Saxe-Altenburg an agreement to build a railway connecting Leipzig with Nuremberg, which would cross into Bavaria at Hof. The parties committed to have the railway ready for operation within six years.
The Bavarian government decided to extend the railway past Augsburg (already connected by rail to Munich, the capital city) through the Allgäu as far as Lake Constance. The necessary legislation was passed in Munich on 25 August 1843. With a budgeted cost of 51.5 million Guilders, it was planned that the entire length would be ready within ten years. The section between Augsburg and Hof would account for 33 million guilders. Space for two tracks would be prepared, but initially only a single track would be laid. Responsibility for the construction would be given to Chief Engineer, August Pauli and, initially, the French-born railroad pioneer Paul Camille von Denis, though Denis had been taken off the project in 1842 in order to take over the construction of a line connecting Ludwigshafen (at the time also ruled by Bavaria) with Saarbrücken (subsequently named the Palatine Ludwig Railway (Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn).
Construction and subsequent development
Northern section – Hof to Nuremberg
The privately owned Saxony-Bavaria Railway Company, in which the governments of Saxony and Saxe-Altenburg held a minority stake, started work on the Saxon end of the railway line in 1841.
In Bavaria, following the establishment in 1841 of the Nuremberg-based Royal Railway Building Commission, work began on ground preparation in 1842, but due to topographical challenges of the kind familiar to later generations of railway builders, serious construction began only in 1843. Sometimes-conflicting objectives included the avoidance of over-steep sections while nonetheless connecting as many towns and cities as possible with the railway. Nevertheless, on the slopes of the Fichtel Mountains between Neuenmarkt and Wirsberg, the route incorporates a stretch with an average gradient of 23‰.
The first stretch of line, between Nuremberg and Bamberg, was opened to passengers in October 1844. The full 203 kilometers of the northern section were opened in five successive stages, the fifth, between Hof and the frontier with Saxony, opening in November 1848. A celebration of the opening of the first sections of the line took place at Nuremberg on 25 August 1848, which was the king's birthday, by when the line already extended north as far as Neuenmarkt.
Although the Bavarian part of the project had overshot the agreed six-year time line, it was still ready ahead of the Saxon part, full opening of which was delayed by topographical challenges until 1851.
To the north of Nuremberg, at Erlangen where the line ran parallel to the Ludwigs canal (the Rhine-Main-Danube canal of that time), the railway incorporated the 306-meter-long Burgberg tunnel, Bavaria's oldest railway tunnel.
From 1852 there was a connection at Bamberg with the new Ludwig's Western Railway towards Würzburg, Aschaffenburg and, by 1854, the Hessean frontier at Kahl.