Bavarian Ludwig Railway

After a discussion of this topic in the Bavarian parliament in 1825, it authorised the king to build an experimental railway in the Nymphenburg Palace park.

Within six months the two main instigators from Nuremberg, the merchant and market chief, George Zacharias Platner, and the head of the poly-technical school, Johannes Scharrer, had successfully raised the planned share capital of 132,000 guilders.

Ludwig allowed the railway company to use his name and authorized his government to buy a token two shares in it.

Von Denis adopted the English rail gauge of 1435 mm for the nearly dead-straight 6.04 km-long single-track line next to the Fürth-Nuremberg road.

On 7 December 1835 the company opened the first German steam-powered railway line for passenger and freight traffic before a large public gathering.

The steam locomotive Adler ("eagle") had been supplied with its driver by Stephenson’s company from Newcastle.

The Remy & Co aus Rasselstein company of Neuwied, supplied only the 15-foot (4.6 m)-long rails of rolled wrought iron.

The high cost of importing hard coal from Saxony, which in the beginning still had to be brought by horse cart, prevented in the early years regular use of the Adler or the Pfeil ("arrow").

In 1935 a replica of the Adler was constructed on old plans for the 100-year anniversary of the German railways, but it was seriously damaged on 17 October 2005 together with many other preserved locomotives in the great fire at the Nuremberg shed.