The story
The HzL was founded in 1899 as the Actiengesellschaft Hohenzollern’sche Kleinbahngesellschaft (Hohenzollern light railway company) in order to build Kleinbahn (light railways as authorised by a Prussian law of 1892) in the Prussian region of Sigmaringen (part of the Province of Hohenzollern).
Since the Province of Hohenzollern was an elongated territory partly surrounded by the Kingdom of Württemberg, the Royal Württemberg State Railways's railway at this time only used the shortest route through this "foreign" area and only served the two district towns of Hechingen (from 1869) and Sigmaringen (from 1878).
As the founder of Hohenzollerischen Landesbahn, the government of Prussia took over 50 percent of the capital, and the Landeskommunalverband der Hohenzollerischen Lande (a collective local government body of the Province of Hohenzollern) and the Westdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (West German Railway Company) took about 25 percent each. Since 1972, the majority shareholder has been the state of Baden-Württemberg with 71.934%, while Zollernalbkreis and Sigmaringen district each have 14.033%. The HZL in turn holds 7.5% of the share capital of the Verkehrsverbund Neckar-Alb-Donau (Neckar-Alb-Donau transport association, naldo).
The HzL began to build branches from the lines of the Württemberg State Railways to develop the Prussian territory. The first was opened on 28 March 1900 in the Danube Valley, running upstream of Sigmaringendorf through the Lauchert valley to the Laucherthal goods yard at the Fürstlichen steelworks and continuing to Bingen. The following year the HzL brought three more branch lines into operation:
on 18 March 1901 from Hechingen to Burladingen,
on 7 June 1901 from Eyach via Haigerloch to Stetten and the Stetten salt mine and
on 7 November 1901 branching off the Reutlingen–Schelklingen railway at Kleinengstingen and running to Gammertingen.
After a break of several years, during which the company was renamed Hohenzollerische Landesbahn AG on 18 June 1907, four lines were selected for extension as a connected network.
Read the full text
On 6 December 1908, the railway was extended from Burladingen to Gammertingen, which is still the location of the HzL's operating center with its main workshop, and it continued to the southeast via Hanfertal to Bingen, where it connected with the existing line to Sigmaringendorf on the Ulm–Sigmaringen railway.
On 5 October 1910, a shortcut was completed from Hanfertal to Sigmaringen state railway station. At Christmas 1912 (24 December) the last gap was closed between Stetten and Hechingen, providing a continuous line from Eyach via Hechingen–Gammertingen–Hanfertal to Sigmaringendorf with a length of 86 km. With the branches to Kleinengstingen (20 km) and to Sigmaringen (2 km), the HzL network comprised a total length of almost 107.4 km, including 15 km of lines in Württemberg.
It was managed by the operations branch, based in Stuttgart, of the Westdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (WeEG) of Cologne until 1928 and following the WeEG’s merger with Aktiengesellschaft für Verkehrswesen, it was managed by the Vereinigte Kleinbahnen. From 1 July 1933, the HzL has managed its operation itself. Its seat of administration is Hechingen.
On 24 July 2017, a merger between the HzL and Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (SWEG) was approved by the Sigmaringen and Zollernalbkreis district authorities which each hold 14% stakes in HzL. The merger has already been approved by the state of Baden-Württemberg, which owns 100% of SWEG and 72% of HzL. The merger tppk effect on 1 January 2018.
Development of HzL network
The main line network of the HzL, which was completed almost a hundred years ago, is still in operation today. Passenger services are operated between Hechingen and Sigmaringen, continuing to Eyach on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. The rest of the network was converted to bus operations between 1968 and 1973 section by section:
29 September 1968: Sigmaringendorf–Bingen–Hanfertal (school trains continued until 30 May 1991)
1 June 1969: Kleinengstingen–Trochtelfingen
28 May 1972: Trochtelfingen–Gammertingen
1 October 1972: Eyach–Haigerloch
3 June 1973: Haigerloch–Hechingen
The HzL bus services launched in 1947 today cover an 800-km route network with hubs in Reutlingen, Horb, Sigmaringen and Riedlingen.
In 2000, the Gammertingen–Kleinengstingen railway was reactivated for excursion trips of the Rad-Wander-Shuttle, running from May to October, supporting cycling tourism.
The 107.5 km long main line of the HzL was extended in January 2001 by the leasing of the 12.9 km-long non-dismantled section of the DB-owned Balingen–Rottweil railway between Balingen and Schomberg. This line is used by HzL freight traffic and is also served by the Rad-Wander-Shuttle during the summer. In addition, the HzL operates on behalf of the Ringzug the 2.8 km-long Bräunlingen–Hüfingen section of the Breg Valley Railway, which was originally owned by the Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hohenzollerische Landesbahn, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4