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The Wiese Valley Railway is a 27.2 km long, electrified main line

Main line (railway)

The Mainline or Main line of a railway is a track that is used for through trains or is the principal artery of the system from which branch lines, yards, sidings and spurs are connected....

 in Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...

 in the triangle where Germany, Switzerland and France meet near the Swiss city of Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

. It runs alongside the Wiese

Wiese

The Wiese is a river in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and Basel-City, Switzerland, a right tributary of the Rhine. It rises in the Black Forest, on the Feldberg. The Wiese flows through Todtnau, Schönau im Schwarzwald, Schopfheim and Lörrach...

 River from Basel Badischer Bahnhof

Basel Badischer Bahnhof

Basel Badischer Bahnhof is a railway station situated in the Swiss city of Basel. Whilst the station is situated on Swiss soil, the platforms and part of the entrance hall are extraterritorial, belonging to Germany, and the station is operated by the German railway company Deutsche Bahn...

 in Basel – initially on Swiss territory – to Zell im Wiesental

Zell im Wiesental

Zell im Wiesental is a town in the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated in the Black Forest, on the river Wiese, 26 km northeast of Basel, and 32 km south of Freiburg....

.

History

The line was built as the first private railway in the Grand Duchy of Baden

Grand Duchy of Baden

The Grand Duchy of Baden was a historical state in the southwest of Germany, on the east bank of the Rhine. It existed between 1806 and 1918.-History:...

 by the Wiese Valley Railway Company (Wiesenthalbahn-Gesellschaft) and opened on 7 June 1862 to Schopfheim

Schopfheim

Schopfheim is a town in the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the river Wiese, 10 km north of Rheinfelden, and 13 km east of Lörrach.The town is the birthplace of Gisela Oeri....

 with a length of 20 km. It was continued up the valley as the Hintere Wiesenthalbahn (“rear” Wiese Valley Railway) on 5 February 1876 by the Schopfheim-Zell Railway Company (Schopfheim-Zeller Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft).

This was followed in 7 July 1889 by a narrow-gauge railway owned by the Baden railway consortium of Herrmann Bachstein, later called the South German Railway Company

South German Railway Company

The South German Railway Company or SEG was founded on 11 February 1895, in Darmstadt by the railway entrepreneur, Herrmann Bachstein, and several bank managers.- The SEG as the Bachstein Railway :...

 (Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft AG), the Zell im Wiesental–Todtnau railway, known as the Upper Wiese Valley Railway (Obere Wiesentalbahn) and also as the Todtnauerli.

Because the German Empire

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 demanded that the Grand Duchy of Baden construct an efficient railway from Weil am Rhine to Säckingen

Bad Säckingen

Bad Säckingen is a rural town in the administrative district of Waldshut in the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany. It is famous as the "Trumpeteer's City" because of the book "The Trumpeteer of Säckingen", a famous 19th century novel by German author Joseph Victor von Scheffel.- Geography :Bad...

 for military reasons (in order to avoid crossing Switzerland), including the existing Lörrach

Lörrach

Lörrach is a city in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss border. It is the capital of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. The biggest industry is the chocolate factory Milka...

–Schopfheim section, all of the line from Basel to Zell was taken over by the Baden government and incorporated it into the Grand Duchy of Baden State Railway

Grand Duchy of Baden State Railway

The Grand Duchy of Baden was an independent state in what is now southwestern Germany until the creation of the German Empire in 1871. It had its own state-owned railway company, the Grand Duchy of Baden State Railways , which was founded in 1840...

. The transfer of ownership took place to Schopfheim on 1 January 1889 and a year later to Zell. It was one of the first lines in Germany to be electrified in 1913, together with the Wehra Valley Railway (Wehratalbahn), as a result of its strategic importance and the abundant hydroelectricity

Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...

 available nearby.

The railway came to be heavily used by commuting workers, active in the factories of the Wiese Valley. Particularly high ticket sales were made at the stations of Lörrach, Stetten, Steinen and Brombach. At the latter alone 136,036 tickets were sold in 1924.

Current operations

Today, the Wiese Valley Railway is part of the network of Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

, but passenger services have been operated since 15 June 2003 by SBB GmbH, the German passenger transport subsidiary of Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). Between 2003 and 2005 massive modernisation of the line was carried out. With the exception of some residual freight transport and the carriage of cars to Lörrach, the line has changed to an almost pure S-Bahn line without freight. Passenger services on the line are now operated as line S 6 of the Basel Regional S-Bahn

Basel Regional S-Bahn

The Basel Regional S-Bahn has provided an S-Bahn-style rail service connecting the Basel metropolitan area since 1997 in Switzerland, Germany and France. It consists of five suburban train lines, including two that operate across borders. The S-Bahn is operated by the Swiss Federal Railways its...

.

In the summer of 2004, the section from Lörrach-Stetten to Haagen was duplicated so that line S 5 services on the Weil am Rhein–Lörrach railway (known as the Garden Railway, Gartenbahn) could be extended to Steinen

Steinen, Baden-Württemberg

Steinen is a municipality in the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the river Wiese, 15 km northeast of Basel, and 6 km northeast of Lörrach....

. The modernisation of the stations included the building of 55 cm high platforms (for low floor rolling stock) with a minimum length of 150 metres for coupled Stadler FLIRT

Stadler FLIRT

Stadler FLIRT is an electric multiple unit produced by Stadler Rail AG. The articulated trainset comes in units of two to six cars with two to six motorized axles. The maximum speed is 200 km/h...

 electric multiple units. With the loss of freight traffic, track work was rationalised, particularly at Schopfheim, Lörrach and Maulburg. A new electronic interlocking (ESTW) now controls the entire route of the Wiese Valley Railway from Lörrach to the Swiss border and the Garden Railway from Lörrach-Stetten to the middle of Tüllinger tunnel. Most of the changes were completed and handed over for operations by the end of 2004.

With the timetable change on 12 December 2004, line S5 was extended from Lörrach to Steinen and services on the Lörrach-Stetten-Steinen section, including S6 services, now operate at quarter hour intervals during the day. In addition, the new halt of Lörrach-Schillerstraße was opened.

Since the autumn of 2005, services on the line have be operated by trains by Stadler FLIRT electric multiple units (SBB class RABe 521), which in March 2006 replaced the last of the Neuer Pendelzug ("New Commuter Train", NPZ) train sets, which included RBDe 561 carriages

SBB-CFF-FFS RBDe 560

The RBDe 560 and its derivatives provide motive power for S-Bahn, suburban, and regional traffic on the Swiss Federal Railways network. The derivative versions belong to the SBB as well as various private railroads...

, and were modified for use in Germany as an interim solution.

On 9 December 2007, the halts of Schopfheim West and Lörrach-Schwarzwaldstraße were opened and Riehen-Niederholz halt followed on 14 December 2008.

At the timetable change of 13 December 2009, the names of the following stations were changed: Schillerstraße to Lörrach Museum/Burghof, Lörrach to Lörrach Hauptbahnhof, Haagen (Baden) to Lörrach-Haagen/Messe and Brombach (b Lörrach) to Lörrach-Brombach/Hauingen.

Lörrach Hauptbahnhof was used by around 3,500 passengers daily in 2009, making it the busiest in the Wiese valley. In 2010, it received a system for displaying dynamic passenger information. All other stations on the Wiese Valley Railway are programmed to have platforms electronic destination indicators installed.