The Palatinate Railway or Pfalzbahn was an early German railway company in the period of 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...

 prior to the First World War. It was formed on 1 January 1870, as the United Palatinate Railway based in Ludwigshafen, by the amalgamation of the following railway companies:

• The Palatine Ludwig Railway Company
  Palatine Ludwig Railway Company
  The Palatine Ludwigsbahn Company was a German railway concern that was founded to operate the Palatine Ludwig Railway in the Palatinate, a region of southwest Germany that was once part of the Kingdom of Bavaria within the German Empire.On 1 January 1870, the Palatine Ludwigsbahn Company, the...
  
   (Pfälzische Ludwigsbahn) with 181 km (112.5 mi) of line
• The Palatine Maximilian Railway Company
  Palatine Maximilian Railway Company
  The Palatine Maximilian Railway Company was a German railway enterprise that acted as the railway operator when the Palatine Maximilian Railway was built....
  
   (Pfälzische Maximiliansbahn) with 70 km (43.5 mi) of line
• The Palatine Northern Railway Company
  Palatine Northern Railway Company
  The Palatine Northern Railways Company – abbreviated to Palatine Northern Railway - was founded on 17 April 1866 as the last of the three major private railway companies in the Bavarian province of the Palatinate.From the outset it left the management and running of its railways to the...
  
   (Gesellschaft der Pfälzischen Nordbahnen) with 42 km (26.1 mi) of route: this included the line belonging to the Neustadt - Dürkheim Railway Company (Neustadt-Dürkheimer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft)
  Neustadt - Dürkheim Railway Company
  The Neustadt–Dürkheim Railway Company or NDE was an early German railway company dating from the final decade of Bavarian independence. It was founded on 22 October 1862, by a committee of leading citizens from Deidesheim and Bad Dürkheim...
  
   whose shares had been taken over by the North Palatinate Railway.

By Spring 1889, the railway network had grown to 664 km (412.6 mi); of which 12 km (7.5 mi) was in Alsace-Lorraine

Alsace-Lorraine

The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...

 and 8 km (5 mi) in Prussian Rhineland

Rhineland

Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

. It handled through traffic from north and south Germany into the southern Rhineland, to Lorraine

Lorraine (région)

Lorraine is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, as well as from north Germany into Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 and to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

.

The three united private railways remained officially independent until they were nationalised on 1 January 1909, and merged into the Royal Bavarian State Railways

Royal Bavarian State Railways

As a nation-state, Germany did not come into being until the creation of the German Empire in 1871 from the various German-speaking states such as Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Baden and Württemberg. By then each of the major states had formed its own state railway and these continued to remain...

.

See also

• Palatinate (region)
• List of Bavarian locomotives and railbuses
• List of Palatine locomotives and railbuses

External links

• There is an English-language discussion forum at Railways of Germany