When the railway line from Murnau to Oberammergau was opened on April 4, 1900, just in time for the start of the Passion Play, it was one of the most modern in the world with its electric catenary and railcars. The alternating current system, which went into operation five years later, was technically pioneering for the European railway network. The Ammergau Railway is now only high in one ranking: With an average speed of 35 kilometers per hour, it is the second slowest railway in Bavaria. In the town of Altenau, the trains feel their way forward at walking pace, but otherwise it hardly ever exceeds 60 km/h. The train therefore needs 40 minutes for the 23 kilometers between Murnau and Oberammergau – if it runs at all.
In time for the 2022 Passion Play, the Ammergaubahn initially adjusted its timetable so that visitors would still have had a connection to Munich in the evening. And then she shut down the business altogether. If you currently want to travel from Murnau to Oberammergau, you have to take a curious detour via Oberau and change to the bus from there – 1:32 hours travel time. “A repair on the route affects the train traffic between Bad Kohlgrub and Oberammergau,” says the website.
Broken tracks
The reason for the closure is subsidence in the track bed, Rupert Speer, the mayor of Saulgrub, can say that with some certainty. But the company doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to fix it. “I haven’t seen anyone there yet,” is Speer’s interim summary, and his inquiry in the anteroom also reveals: not a construction crew far and wide. “We don’t know anything,” he replies when asked when operations should resume. The Bavarian railway company assumed last week that the route would remain closed until Sunday, June 26th. Of course, the date has passed, and a request from the SZ to the Bahn remained unanswered until Tuesday.
At least theoretically, the railway could have done good business with its 500,000 visitors at the Passion Play. The suspicion is that the closure between Murnau and Oberammergau is related to the serious train accident near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in which technical defects on the track are among the probable causes of the accident. Possibly they took a closer look at the bumpy branch line afterwards – and stopped the operation as a precaution.
The branch line has long since ceased to be suitable for commuters and people who depend on it, especially since its unreliability is downright legendary. “In the years 2021 and 2022, there were several train cancellations lasting several days,” writes the Bavarian Railway Company, which orders traffic on the route. The BEG listed 17 days with total closures between January 2021 and April 2022 – not counting the current failure. Sometimes there was a lack of staff, sometimes a train broke down or there was a strike.
“You have to do something,” says Speer, sounding a little resigned. Because of the unsecured level crossing near Altenau, one of the railways was there a few years ago, but nothing happened after that.
Breakpoints instead of train stations
In the meantime, it has been almost 20 years since the route was modernized and also permanently ruined on the occasion. In order to save costs, the railways dismantled passing tracks and downgraded stations to stopping points. One of the consequences of this was that no special trains can run between Murnau and Oberammergau because the only crossing is used for regular operations. Since then, the route has ended in Oberammergau with a track – and without a toilet. The passengers therefore peed in the neighbors’ garden, says Mayor Andreas Rödl. Now the community has set up at least one portable toilet.
“I’m afraid that the railways need to take action,” says Rödl. He himself takes the train every now and then, “when it’s not urgent.” But the temptation is great to take the car down to Oberau and from there quickly take the autobahn to Munich, especially since the new super tunnel has only just opened. The state invested one billion euros in the roads in the Loisach Valley, and the railway has also been considered a dismantling project here in recent decades. The route between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Oberau was also closed on Tuesday, as it had been since the accident on June 3rd. “It is not advisable to take trains in the Werdenfels area that are not absolutely necessary,” wrote the railway.