The Munich-Neuaubing repair plants (abbreviated to AW München-Neuaubing) was a railroad repair works in the west of the Bavarian Bavarian capital Munich in today's Aubing district.
The Königlich Bayerische Staatseisenbahnen opened the plant in 1906 as the Centralwerkstätte Aubing with two repair halls. It was extended several times in the following years. By 1927, the Deutsche Reichsbahn had built a third wagon repair workshop. While the plant was opened as a goods wagon repair workshop, it was later used primarily for the maintenance of passenger carriages. In addition, railcars and occasionally electric locomotives were repaired. The Deutsche Bahn shut it down at the end of 2001. Large parts of the former workshop buildings are now under listed building protection.
Location The Munich-Neuaubing repair plant is located in the southwest of the Neuaubing district in the Munich borough of Aubing-Lochhausen-Langwied, south of the Munich-Pasing-Herrsching railroad line and the Munich-Neuaubing railroad station and west of Brunhamstraße. The former railroad workers' housing estate, the Neuaubing Colony, is located to the northeast of the factory premises between the workshops and the railroad line on Papinstraße. To the west, the factory site is bordered by the sports facilities of the Eisenbahnersportverein Neuaubing to the north and the derelict site of a former switch depot to the south, with the Freiham district, which has been under construction since 2006, bordering to the west. To the south is a wooded area in which the Bundesautobahn 96 (A 96) runs through, adjoins the repair plant. To the east of the plant area is a residential area, the south-east corner of the plant site is directly on the city limits of the Gräfelfing district of Lochham.
About 300 meters to the east, directly south of the Munich-Pasing-Herrsching railroad line, but on the other side of Brunhamstraße, was the Ausbesserungswerk of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, which was later operated by the Deutsche Schlafwagen- und Speisewagengesellschaft and closed in 1999.
The access tracks to the Neuaubing repair works branched off from the Munich-Pasing-Herrsching railroad line east of the Brunhamstraße level crossing and crossed Brunhamstraße together with the Herrsching line. They then led south past the station building of Neuaubing station to the access gate of the plant. Directly in front of the access gate, Papinstraße crossed the access tracks.
Name During its existence, the repair plant changed names several times.Ausbesserungswerk München-Neuabing: Zeittafel. In: bahnstatistik.de, retrieved 4 March 2017.
Period Designation 1906–1915 Central workshop in Aubing 1915–1920 Central workshop Neuaubing 1920–1924 Neuaubing main workshop 1924 Neuaubing railroad repair works 1924–1942 Reichsbahn repair works Neuaubing 1942–1948 Reichsbahn repair works Munich-Neuaubing 1948–1951 Munich-Neuaubing railroad repair works 1951–2001 Munich-Neuaubing repair plant
History Construction and operation until the First World War
On February 24, 1900, the Bavarian government passed the law to establish the V. Centralwerkstätte der königlich bayerischen Staatsbahn. The construction costs were set at 5,969,000 marks. The Bavarian State Railways purchased the building land in 1901 and began construction of the workshop in Aubing on March 4, 1902. To this end, the woodland on the building site was first cleared in 1902. Extensive earthworks were necessary to level the site to the level of the Pasing-Herrsching railroad line, lowering it by up to meters. On July 1, 1903, the Bavarian State Railways opened the Pasing-Herrsching local line running north past the factory site with the Freiham station requested by Maffei. At the junction of the access tracks to the Centralwerkstätte from the Pasing-Herrsching line, the separate stop Zentralwerkstätte Aubing was opened on November 20, 1905, which was given the name Neuaubing on October 1, 1908.
On October 1, 1906, the Royal Bavarian State Railways officially put the Centralwerkstätte Aubing into operation. The repair of freight wagons was partly relocated from the Centralwerkstätte München to Aubing and from then on carried out by both workshops in a division of labor. At the time of opening, there were two wagon repair workshops with a total of 250 stalls, an administration building, a forge and a woodworking facility as well as other warehouses and a water house. The Aubing plant employed 160 workers and nine civil servants, for whom 18 workers' houses and two civil servants' houses were available in a specially built housing complex from 1902 to 1905, later known as the Neuaubing Colony. From 1907, the Centralwerkstätte Aubing took over parts of the maintenance of passenger, baggage and mail coaches as well as railcars from the Munich works. From 1907 or 1908, Postal motor vehicles were also repaired in Aubing.
As a state-owned enterprise, the Royal Bavarian State Railways had planning sovereignty and could therefore build and expand the workshop without the approval of the municipality of Aubing. The plant was also exempt from municipal taxes. However, as the municipality had to provide the necessary infrastructure for the factory workers living in Aubing, this placed a heavy burden on the municipal budget.Landeshauptstadt München (ed.): KulturGeschichtsPfad Stadtbezirk 22. 2015, p. 14–15
In 1907, construction work began on an additional switch workshop, and in 1910 Hall 11 was put into operation for switch production.Frank Zimmermann: Ausbesserungswerk München-Neuaubing. In: spurensuche-eisenbahn.de, 14 June 2015, retrieved 21 January 2018. At this time, the workshop at the Aubing plant was the only turnout workshop of the Bavarian State Railways. From 1912, the Bavarian postal administration built its own repair workshop for postal vehicles on the site of the Centralwerkstätte, which was opened in 1914.
On November 13, 1913, the Bayerische Landtag approved the construction of a new hall for the repair of passenger cars and budgeted 2,887,000 marks for it. Due to the outbreak of the World War I, however, the preparatory work was abandoned in 1914 and the plans were not realized for the time being. During the First World War, the Centralwerkstätte Aubing produced war materials; by 1918, 150,000 long grenades had been manufactured. In 1915 the name was changed to Centralwerkstätte Neuaubing. In September 1918, the construction of a training workshop for locksmith apprentices began.Landeshauptstadt München (Hrsg.): KulturGeschichtsPfad Stadtbezirk 22. 2015, p. 49–52.
Expansion measures of the German Reichsbahn and the Second World War From 1920, the Deutsche Reichsbahn referred to the Centralwerkstätte as the Hauptwerkstätte Neuaubing. In 1924, it was transferred to the Zentralmaschinenamt Munich of the Gruppenverwaltung Bayern and from then on operated under the name Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk Neuaubing (RAW Neuaubing). In the spring of 1921, the Deutsche Reichsbahn began construction of the passenger carriage hall, which had already been decided in 1913. However, strikes and workers' lockouts during the inflationary period delayed the completion of the hall. The shell of the building was completed in October 1924, and on 1 April 1927 the wagon repair shop, known as Hall 3, was finally fully opened. The expansion of the factory facilities required a higher heating capacity. As late as 1921, three of the five double-flame tube boilers were demolished and four new water tube boilers from Babcock & Wilcox were put into operation by 1922. The installation of an electric monorail for feeding coal, a traveling grate and a flue gas preheater significantly increased the amount of steam produced. With the commissioning of the passenger coach hall, RAW Neuaubing took over the entire maintenance of passenger, baggage and mail coaches from RAW München, the former Centralwerkstätte München, on April 19, 1927. Freight car repairs, on the other hand, were initially handed over completely to RAW München and transferred to the new RAW München-Freimann by 1931. As part of the National Socialist reconstruction plans for the Munich railroad facilities, the repair works were to be expanded. The first preparatory construction work took place in 1938, but after the beginning of the World War II, work was stopped again. After the start of the war, the plant resumed repairing freight wagons in 1939. From then on, RAW Neuaubing was also responsible for the construction and repair of special vehicles for the Wehrmacht and the Deutsche Reichsbahn as part of special war services. From 1940 to 1941, the Deutsche Reichsbahn built a new training workshop. In 1942 the plant was renamed Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk München-Neuaubing following the incorporation of Aubing into the city of Munich.
In 1942, RAW Neuaubing developed a new method of work organization that was intended to rationalize the entire production process. The aim was to save 90,000 production hours within six months. After testing it in Neuaubing, the Deutsche Reichsbahn introduced the so-called Munich procedure uniformly in all German repair workshops.
From 1943, the repair plant was increasingly the target of air raids by the United States Army Air Forces. After severe damage caused by air raids on July 19 and 21, 1944, the plant had to cease repairs completely for twelve days. Switch production was soon resumed, but wagon production was restricted for some time due to the severe damage to halls 1 and 2. After a makeshift repair, the factory was able to resume full operations in September 1944. During another air raid on April 19, 1945, the plant was hit by 20 explosive bombs, damaging two halls. On April 30, 1945, the Munich-Neuaubing RAW was captured by American troops.
Rationalization and modernization by the Deutsche Bundesbahn Just a few days after the surrender of the German troops, repair work was resumed in May 1945. Initially, however, only the most urgent damage could be repaired due to the poor supply of materials and spare parts. During this time, the RAW was a stronghold of communist protests in southern Germany. The works council member Karl Reisinger was persecuted during the Third Reich because of his illegal work for the Socialist Workers' Party and was convicted of preparation for high treason. After the war, he became a member and cadre of the KPD and led a strike in the RAW on November 7, 1947, over food rations. The cuts in rations were then suspended for railroad workers. Further communist-organized strikes took place in January and February 1948 at RAW Neuaubing. Reisinger was dismissed without notice in 1952.Günter Gerstenberg: Armut, Mangelwirtschaft – Im Winter 1946/47 ... In: Protest in München seit 1945, auf sub-bavaria.de, retrieved 26 May 2017.
In 1948, the name was changed to Eisenbahnausbesserungswerk (EAW) München-Neuaubing and in 1951 to Ausbesserungswerk (AW) München-Neuaubing. In 1950, the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) was able to complete the reconstruction of the damaged workshops and fully resume passenger coach repairs. At this time, the plant consisted of 34 individual Meistereien, which were housed in 34 halls and buildings.