Alsenz Valley Railway

Alsenz Valley Railway was operated by the Palatine Northern Railway Company (Gesellschaft der Pfälzischen Nordbahnen) and functioned as its main line.

The Bad Münster–Enkenbach section was frequented by the 1920s by long-distance trains on the Cologne–Bingen–Neustadt–Landau–Wissembourg–Strasbourg route. However, after Alsace was ceded to France after the First World War, the line lost much of its traffic towards Neustadt. Since the Enkenbach–Eselsfürth–Kaiserslautern route is shorter than the route via Hochspeyer, most trains approach Kaiserslautern via Eselsfürth.

After the Zeller Valley Railway (Zellertalbahn) was completed from Langmeil to Monsheim) in 1873 and the Donnersberg Railway (Donnersbergbahn) was completed from Alzey to Marnheim in 1874, the section between Kaiserslautern and Langmeil also carried long-distance trains to the Rhine-Main area via Worms to Frankfurt or via Alzey to Mainz. The Eis Valley Railway (Eistalbahn) was opened in 1876 from Grünstadt to Eisenberg and connected to Enkenbach in 1932. Some of its services connected with Kaiserslautern.

In 1942, during the Second World War, a major accident occurred on the line: in the morning a military train and a freight train collided with each other in Enkenbach. The incident killed two people and wounded many others. A greater tragedy was avoided because the first two carriages of the military train were only lightly occupied.[2]

After the Second World War, several intermediate stops (Neuhemsbach, Dielkirchen, Bayerfeld-Colln, Mannweiler, Ebernburg) were abandoned due to low patronage. After all the connecting lines, the Eis Valley Railway, the Zeller Valley Railway and the Donnersberg Railway, had been closed for passenger services between 1983 and 1994, the Alsenz Valley Railway was the only line that was in full operation in the Donnersbergkreis. The narrow-gauge railway to Obermoschel had already been closed in the 1930s.

In 1970, the Hochstein tunnel, also called the Eisenschmelz tunnel, located at kilometre 19, was converted into a cutting.[3][4] Until 1990 the line was also served by a Schnellzug (express) on the Paris Est–Metz–Saarbrücken–Kaiserslautern–Bad Kreuznach–Mainz–Frankfurt am Main route, which was operated until the mid-1970s with SNCF DEV Inox cars and then by Corail cars. Between 1988 and 1990 they were partially replaced by express services from Pirmasens via Kaiserslautern and Bingen to Cologne. Since then, these trains have been abandoned and the Alsenz Valley Railway has lost all long-distance services.

In 1999, a new station was set up in Münchweiler an der Alsenz between Langmeil and the abandoned station of Neuhemsbach. Consequently, the Langmeil station, which had previously been used by Münchweiler's population, lost its importance, which led to it being abandoned in late 2006. Even with the recommencement of services on Sundays and public holidays in 2001 on the now reactivated Zeller Valley Railway, trains no longer serve this once important junction station.

As part of the expanded Rhineland-Palatinate integrated regular-interval timetable being introduced from 2015, new Regional-Express services will be introduced on the Koblenz–Bingen–Bad Kreuznach–Kaiserslautern route (from December 2016) and the Mainz–Bad Kreuznach–Kaiserslautern route (from December 2014). They will both run on the Alsenz Valley Railway and be operated by Netinera.[5]

In 2000, 628 diesel multiple units were replaced by modern Talent railcars of class 643. Since the timetable change in December 2008, Desiro trains of class 642 also operate. Previously, local services were mostly operated with Silberling carriages. These were hauled diesel locomotives of class 218; in the winter coupled French locomotives were also sometimes used.