Breisacher Bahn

The Breisacher Bahn is a regional railway running from Freiburg im Breisgau to Breisach am Rhein, skirting the southern flank of the Kaiserstuhl through the Upper Rhine plain. Opened in two stages in 1871 and 1878 as a privately operated but state-supervised line, it was nationalised as early as 1881. The line was once part of a continuous cross-border connection reaching Colmar in Alsace, severed in 1945 when the Rhine railway bridge at Breisach was destroyed — and never rebuilt. Today DB InfraGO operates the German section as a local commuter service, while the missing Rhine crossing quietly marks where wartime destruction permanently redrew the rail map of the Upper Rhine.