Post photo: old railway line (2021)
Even if I would have preferred to see the one that had been shut down for decades Bottwartalbahn reactivated, and this time normal gauge over the former Sudbahnhof, the former Karlstor train station and Sülmertor train station up to Heilbronner Central Station continues, so I now support the project Lerchenberg tunnel as a kind Adventure trail for cyclists and pedestrians to prepare.
According to the vision of Heilbronn ClubAdventure trail Lerchenberg Tunnel e. V", the former "connecting railway" - the railway line from the former Südbahnhof (terminus of the Bottwartalbahn) in the direction of Heilbronn Hauptbahnhof (Pfühlpark junction) - is to be redesigned into an inner-city footpath and cycle path. Also the first section of the Bottwartalbahn from the current residential area Südbahnhof to the Sontheimer Landwehr. This would also link the school center, Sontheim-Ost and the Neckar cycle path.
It is still very unfortunate how in Heilbronn fundamental traffic infrastructure areas, especially the inner-city areas, are being abandoned or further reduced, although at the same time Heilbronn is being densified and additional new development areas are being developed.
This has delayed the expansion of a viable tram network or the expansion of the road infrastructure, which was once planned in the 1950s, for decades to come.
The Bottwartalbahn, which was also known as the "duck killer", was a narrow-gauge railway and almost 35 kilometers long. Since the end of 1900, it has led from Marbach am Neckar along the Murr, the Bottwar and the Schozach via Sontheim to Heilbronn (Südbahnhof). In 1901, under pressure from some companies located in the southern part of the city (e.g. Knorr), the Lerchenberg tunnel built and thus made a direct rail connection to the main station possible, which, however, was expanded to standard gauge and was only used for freight traffic. Therefore, the southern station had extensive track systems in standard and narrow gauge. In 2000, the last section of the Bottwartalbahn was shut down, and efforts to reactivate the railway as a whole were abandoned.
But it still runs under the Heilbronn main cemetery and is a good 350 meters long Lerchenberg tunnel could now, if the above petition is successful, become a pedestrian and cyclist tunnel, which at least allows them a new and certainly very attractive connection within Heilbronn; the preparation of the route at the former southern station shows that this is definitely within the realm of possibility.
"Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes. Any help we can give you must be different from that you can give yourselves, and perhaps the value of that help may lie in the fact of that difference."
Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1938: 18)
