Transportation Deployment Casebook/2023/Germany

630Introduction

Germany's modern history is marked by key periods with changes in its territory and land. Briefly, the German Confederation (1815-1866, with a brief period in 1848-1850 when the German Empire existed) was an alliance of 39 German-speaking sovereign states a result of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Following this, the German Empire existed as a unified German monarchist state which lasted until the November Revolution in 1918 which resulted in a republic Germany. Following the end of World War II, Germany was divided into East Germany and West Germany until finally being unified in 1990.

This case study on the passenger railways of Germany focuses on the lifecycle of the German railways, from the commencement of what is the modern railway system in Germany from 1835 until the end of the German Empire in 1918.

The Historical Development and Lifecyle of Railways in Germany

The Birth of Railways in Germany

The predecessor to the modern railway system in Germany were mining carts used to transport goods from mines. In Ruhr, tracks were also built above ground to enable the movement of coal from the mines to the River Ruhr to be loaded into vessels.

However, with the development of locomotives in England in 1805 and the advent of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825, this helped to shift people away from the construction of canals, which were costly and inefficient. Early German railway lines were adopted based off existing technological developments within the railway industry.

Despite this, in this period the majority of early railways were primarily used to transport coal, rather the passengers. It wasn't until the opening of the Bavarian Ludwig Railway in 1835 that passenger railways began to be constructed.

The Bavarian Ludwig Railway

Based on the English railways, the Bavarian Ludwig Railway was constructed by the Ludwig Railway Company and operated its first trip from Nurnberg to Furth on December 7, 1835. What is perhaps the most important aspect to note is that this railway adopted much of the English railway's features such as track gauge, which meant that future lines also were built to English railway standards. Unfortunately, subsequent rail lines which were built never connected to the Bavarian Ludwig line and it was eventually converted into a tramway.

Early development

While canals were originally the favoured form of transportation infrastructure, by the 1820s there had been a shift towards railways, despite previous views that railways would contribute to increased smoke and fumes and threaten the industries which benefitted from canal building. As Germany transitioned from being a primarily agricultural economy, the German population began realise the benefits of the railway as a way to encourage economic development within their cities and help to bring unity to the various German states through connectivity.

While initially engineering and hardware was brought in from England, the Germans were quick to learn how to build and operate railways. Educational policy reforms resulted in many cities establishing technical and training facilities to allow Germany to be able to meet the demands of rail building within the country in 1850. Consequently, this also resulted in the rise of the steel industry.

Following the Bavarian Ludwig Railway, the Berlin - Potsdam Railway was constructed in what was then Prussia. This line was constructed and opened in two stages - Zehlendorf to Potsdam in September 1838 and Zehlendorf to Berlin the following month. The Duchy of Brunswick State Railway, the first state owned railway in Germany, opened the same year facilitating trips between Brunswick and Wolfenbuttel.

Growth and Expansion

Passenger railway construction began to grow after the 1840s after the creation of the Zollverein. The Zollverein was a group of German states which way in which tariffs and economic polices was managed. This made it especially important to ensure transport infrastructure was aligned within the union. Prior to the establishment of the Zollverein in 1834, the lack of unity between the German states as well as resistance to new technologies hindered the growth of rail in Germany. However, its growing importance helped to further encourage the construction of railways in Germany and railway lines began to be built, with railway lines linking German cities and the German states having responsibility for the railway lines within their jurisdiction. Increased railway construction lead to an increase of economic development for Germany, opening up new markets, creating demand for skilled workers and further helped to benefit the coal and iron industries.

The first railway linking two German cities opened in 1839, connecting Leipzig to Dresden. This was the first of numerous other long distance train routes which were constructed during the growth era, namely:

• Berlin to Anhalt,1841
• Berlin to Frankfurt, 1842
• Cologne to Herbesthal, 1843
• Cologne to Minden, 1845, and
• Berlin to Hamburg, 1846.

These long distance railways opened up improvements in travel between larger German cities and contributed to making the German railway system polycentric. Railway hubs began to be form, with Kothen being the first railway hub when the Berlin to Anhalt line connected with the Berlin to Potsdam line at Kothen. Passenger numbers exceeded expectations due to the overall time-savings due to the speed of travelling by train as well as the lower cost of travelling by rail compared the associated costs of walking the same distance.

As the state governments became more open to railway construction, this lead to more railway lines being constructed. Isolated railway lines began to connect to other cities, closing gaps in the network and resulting in a more extensive railway network, with continuous tracks. This was facilitated by the German states realising the importance of being connected by rail and thus being more receptive to signing treaties which would allow for railway lines to be built across German state boundaries. This in turn meant that there were new connections to major towns, capital cities and important trading centres. When the Cologne Minden Railway Company opened a rail bridge in Cologne in 1859, the German network was connected to the French, Belgian, Hungarian and Mediterranean rail networks.

Maturation and decline

New railways constructed in this era were railway lines which provided more direct services between major cities, rather than the circuitous rail links which were constructed previously and connected larger cities via the smaller towns along its alignment. Rail lines were also constructed to more rural towns to provide greater rail accessibility.

Changes in the political landscape, this time the establishment of the German Empire, lead to changes in the direction of the Germany railways. Following the unification of the German states to become the German Empire, there was a move towards having railway system as a state owned entity. Up until now, the various railway lines were built by private companies, or through state-owned companies. This meant that there was a mixture of different types of operators and operating and funding models. This was a result of the different German states each having different approaches to railway building. In particular, the states in southern Germany which built railway lines through their state-owned companies, while Prussia initially preferred private companies to construct their railways. However despite this, by 1871, several German states had started to operate their own railways. This included the Royal Bavarian State Railways, the Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways and the Royal Saxon State Railways. These state-owned railways were known as Landerbahnen. Following the end of World War I and Germany's defeat, the various state-owned railways were officially amalgamated to form the Deutsche Reichsbahn, a national state run railway company. This also lead to the consolidation of rolling stock and locomotives.

With the rising popularity of the automobile, like many railways around the world, the German railway system started to enter a period of decline. Construction rates for new railroads begin to fall and by the 1930s, railway lines which were unprofitable start to be closed. This trend continues until the end of World War II, where new railway technology aids in the revival of railways in Germany.

Today the German passenger railway system is widely successful, with 33 331 kilometres (2015) of railway line and carrying 200.6 billion passengers. Deutsche Bahn operates the majority of Germany's railways, with a variety of service offerings including InterCity Express trains, long distance high speed rail services, and the S-Bahn, its suburban train services.

Technological advances continues to provide opportunities for the reinvention of the German railway network. As high speed trains continues to increase in popularity as an alternative method of travel, Deutsche Bahn and their InterCity and InterCity Express trains offer options for high speed rail services between German cities as well as countries such as the Netherlands, Austria and France.

A Quantitative Analysis of the Lifecycle of German Railways

The lifecycle of the German Railways follows an S-Curve, similar to most other modes of transportation. The lifecycle of transportation follows three phases - a birthing phase, a growth phase and then a maturity and decline phase. Numerically, the lifecycle model can be represented by the following a three-point parameter logistic equation:

S(t)=K/(1+e(-b(t-t0))

Where:
S(t)= the predicted system size in year, t
t = time (years)
t0 = inflection point (midpoint) year
K = saturation status level, and
b = coefficient

Using this equation, as well as data collected of the length of railway track built in Germany from the period of 1835 to 1918, a lifecycle curve was graphed. Linear regression was used to find the value of K.

Variable	Value
Saturation status level, K	63075
Rsq	0.884
Time of inflection, T0	1880
Coefficient, b	0.112

Lifecycle of German Railways from 1835 to 1918

Lifecycle of German Railways from 1835 to 1918

The S-curve shows a comparison of the predicted kilometres of track built to the length of track actually constructed. While at first track length exceeds predictions, it starts to taper off around the midpoint. The S-curve shows the growth of railway track building since its birth, and has a similar inflection point to the actual data. It also heads into decline around 1918 which is consistent to what happened in real life, where the advent of new technologies and the automobile lead to decline in railway construction.

Because transport construction and growth is affected by the economy and economic policies of the time, an analysis of this S-curve is able to show the time period when economic policies were in favour of railway building and when this started to shift.

It should also be noted that the land boundaries of Germany at the time is different to modern day Germany, and the Germany at in 1918. Nevertheless, the data source for this lifecycle analysis has tried to keep the land boundaries consistent.