Lokalbahn AG (Lokalbahn Aktien-Gesellschaft, abbreviated LAG) was a private railway company based in Munich, Bavaria, founded on 9 February 1887. Its business was the construction and operation of branch lines (Lokalbahnen or Sekundärbahnen) in Germany and Austria-Hungary. The company existed from 1887 until 1938.
History
The company was founded by the locomotive manufacturer Lokomotivfabrik Krauss & Co. together with the Lechner & Krüzner Branch Line Construction and Operating Company. Krauss contributed the narrow-gauge Feldabahn in Saxony-Weimar, built in 1879/80, to the new enterprise.
The LAG grew rapidly into a significant transportation organisation. Between 1889 and 1891 alone, its routes expanded to a total length of 430 kilometres, though these did not form a single connected network. Routes were built where tourism, mineral resources, industry, agriculture, or forestry promised sufficient traffic volume. The company operated both steam and electrical traction, standard gauge and narrow gauge, and both dedicated tracks and shared road use. It also briefly operated a rack railway (the Schafbergbahn), steamship services on the Wolfgangsee, and horse-drawn and motorised transport.
The LAG was progressive in introducing electric train operations. The line from Meckenbeuren to Tettnang (Württemberg) was the first electrically operated standard-gauge railway in Germany. The Ammergaubahn from Murnau to Oberammergau became Germany's first single-phase AC line.
Beyond its own routes in southern Germany, the LAG held a majority of shares in the Lausitz Railway Company and had stakes in the Salzkammergut Lokalbahn AG and the Central Bank for Railway Stocks. Through the latter, it influenced numerous railway routes in Hungary totalling over 700 kilometres.
During the First World War and the post-war years, the company faced major difficulties, particularly from the loss of its Hungarian routes. After recovering from hyperinflation, the worldwide economic crisis and growing competition from road transport brought the company to the brink of ruin by the early 1930s. Loans from the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, capital reductions, and write-offs by the states of Bavaria and Württemberg restored profitability in 1934, but this only postponed the end. With effect from 1 August 1938, all assets were transferred to the Deutsches Reich under a Reich law.
Railway lines in Germany
Standard-gauge lines
- Sonthofen–Oberstdorf (13 km, steam)
- Marktoberdorf–Füssen (31 km, steam)
- Murnau–Garmisch-Partenkirchen (26 km, steam; taken over by Bavarian state railway in 1908)
- Rangaubahn (Fürth–Zirndorf–Cadolzburg, 13 km, steam)
- Lusatian Railway Company (80.9 km, steam; in Lower Silesia, present-day Poland)
- Isartalbahn (Munich–Schäftlarn–Bichl, 50.5 km, steam; partially electrified 600 V DC from 1900)
- Türkheim–Bad Wörishofen (5.3 km, electric 550 V DC)
- Bad Aibling–Feilnbach (12 km, electric 550 V DC)
- Murnau–Oberammergau (Ammergau Railway, 24 km, electric 5.5 kV 16 Hz AC)
- Meckenbeuren–Tettnang (4.3 km, electric 650 V DC)
Narrow-gauge lines (1,000 mm / 3 ft 3⅜ in)
- Feldabahn (Saxony-Weimar, 44 km, steam; taken over by Prussian state railways in 1902)
- Ravensburg–Weingarten–Baienfurt (4.1 km initially, extended to 6.6 km; steam, later electric 700 V DC)
- Walhalla Line (Stadtamhof/Regensburg–Donaustauf–Wörth/Donau, 23.4 km, steam)
- Forst Town Railway (Lausitz, 14 km, steam)
Rolling stock
The LAG acquired a total of 84 tank locomotives from Lokomotivfabrik Krauss & Co., of which 53 went to the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1938. The standard-gauge engines were mainly classified as DRG Class 98. Additionally, five electric locomotives, fourteen standard-gauge railbuses, and six narrow-gauge railbuses were transferred to the DR, along with 133 standard-gauge and 34 narrow-gauge passenger coaches, 228 standard-gauge and 40 narrow-gauge goods wagons, and 74 rollbocks. The tank engine Füssen from 1889 has been preserved in running condition.
