SEH Süddeutsches Eisenbahnmuseum Heilbronn

Beschreibung

In the Böckingen district of Heilbronn, the Süddeutsche Eisenbahnmuseum Heilbronn (SEH) was located on the site of the former DB-Bahnbetriebswerk Heilbronn and presented historical railway technology within a listed historic setting. The operation aimed to preserve the buildings, vehicles and associated infrastructure and to make them accessible to the public.

The Bahnbetriebswerk itself was opened in 1893 by the Königlich Württembergischen Staats-Eisenbahnen. In 2000 a sponsoring association took over the site for museum purposes. Until its closure in 2020 the museum exhibited around 80 items of coaches and locomotives. The site includes a roundhouse with a functioning turntable and a large carriage shed; both structures are listed and enable the maintenance of steam and diesel locomotives. The last tenant was an association.

Volunteers of the sponsoring association carried out restorations on locomotives and coaches dating from roughly 1895 up to the 1950s and worked on the preserved 1893 roundhouse, one of the last original buildings from the era of the Königlich Württembergischen Staatseisenbahn.

The collection comprised steam locomotives of classes 01 (Preußische P 8, Nr. 38 3199), 44, 50 and 80 as well as several industrial steam engines. The operational P 8 (38 3199) and the 80 014 were sold in 2021 to the Bayerische Eisenbahnmuseum Nördlingen. The SEH also housed the locomotives 86 457 and 23 105, which had been damaged in the major fire of 2005; their exterior restorations were carried on until 2011. Other preserved or partially dismantled examples ranged from Preußische T 9.3 to tank locomotives, which were to be rebuilt progressively. Operational steam locomotives from other societies, based elsewhere, also used the site for maintenance.

The holdings included diesel locomotives of classes 221 and 360 as well as a MaK rod-driven diesel locomotive of a type similar to class 265, several small shunting locomotives (including two Köf from 1934) and an electric locomotive of class E 63. The carriage collection contained valuable Prussian passenger coaches that had been stored outdoors before the takeover and still required restoration; the carriage shed also housed the historic saloon coach of the last Crown Prince of Prussia.

The museum also contained a model railway in Gauge 1 (scale 1:32) with regular running days during the season. Following a ruling by the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart, the site had to be vacated and returned to the owner by 31 January 2025.