Schlebusch-Harkorter coal railway

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Schlebusch-Harkorter coal railway
The Harkort coal railway at Silschede station around 1900
The Harkort coal railway at Silschede station around 1900
Route of the Schlebusch-Harkorter coal railway
Map of the Schlebusch-Harkort coal railway
Route length: 9 km
Gauge : 900 mm ( narrow gauge )
Legend
   
 0.0 Trappe colliery formerly Schlebusch colliery
   
 0.5 Silschede railway line Schee – Silschede
   
 1.0 Friederika shaft / Trappe colliery
   
 3.0 Hinnenbeck tunnel
   
 4.6 Knorr brake
   
 5.1 Enerke slag dump
   
 5.2 A 1
   
 7.0 Harkort factory
   
 8.0 Rhenish Railway
   
 Ennepe
   
 8.2 B 7 , tram Hagen
   
 8.3 Ennepetalbahn to Altenvoerde
   
 9.0 Hasper hut
   
 Elberfeld – Dortmund railway line
Locomotive 20 that used to run on the coal railway and the Hasper hut. Today owned by the Selfkantbahn
Reconstructed portal of the underpass under the Harkorten station to Hasper Hütte
An underpass in the course of the coal railway
Memorial plaque on the coal railway in Silschede
Tracks and wagons of the Schlebusch-Harkorter Railway
Sign indicating the route of industrial culture
Viaduct of the Rheinische Bahn over the Hasper coal railway in Westerbauer

The Schlebusch-Harkorter coal railway was a narrow-gauge railway in Westphalia that connected Silschede (now a district of Gevelsberg ) and Haspe (now a district of Hagen ). It was one of the first horse-drawn railways and one of the first railways in Germany.

The railway was also known as Schlebusch-Harkort'sche Bahn , Harkort'sche Kohlenbahn , Silscheder Kohlenbahn and Hasper Kohlenbahn .

The stretch of 8 km (over 1 Prussian mile ) built in the first half of the 19th century as a horse-drawn tram ran from the Trappe and St. Peter collieries first to the Harkortschen factory and later to the Hasper hut . It supplied the industry on the Ennepe with hard coal from the Schlebusch mining area .

history

The Harkort family operated in the pre-industrial area of Enneperstrasse, manufacturing and trading scythes and sickles as well as weapons and kitchen utensils ( Harkort factory ). To supply these businesses, Johann Caspar Harkort IV had already built several coal routes from the coal mine into the Ennepe Valley and from Witten to Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal ). In the years 1818/1819 Friedrich Harkort bought the Kupferhammer am Deilbach and the mechanical workshops Harkort & Co. He later retired from these businesses. In order to cope with the growing sales difficulties of the collieries and not least to supply the family businesses with coal, a consortium (comparable to a stock corporation) was founded on July 14, 1820 to establish the Schlebusch-Harkorter railway project on Haus Crengeldanz in Witten, from which Friedrich Harkort was a leader. The partners initially had to raise 10 shares of 1550 thalers each. In the course of the project, these shares had to be increased by 3850 thalers each to a total of 54,000 thalers. Today that corresponds to an amount of around 1 million euros. The partners were:

The brothers Johann Caspar and Christian Harkort each held only half a share, Justice Councilor Heintzmann two shares. The route ran partly through farms, the contracts were laid out in the manner of a lease . Along the route there were several coal sales outlets for selling house fuel to the population.

Track and vehicles

The superstructure was like the Deilthaler Railway also oak sleepers, were nailed to the Iron Bound Strasbourg trees. The wood was treated with tar or wood vinegar . However, the cars were smaller than those of the Deilthal Railway. One car had a capacity of six bushels (about 300 liters). A horse could drive about 90 quintals of cargo down to the coal store on the Ennepe and 15 empty containers up. The transport from Schlebusch to Haspe and back took around half a day in 1836. The price per car was around 20 to 22 thalers. About halfway there was a changing station for the horses.

Despite its early construction period, the line already had many elements of modern railway lines:

  • an even gradient ,
  • Adaptation to the shape of the terrain through curves with large curve radii ,
  • several dams and cuts,
  • an underpass that is still visible today, as well as culverts for the discharge of surface water,
  • a tunnel .

One of the bridges was 350 feet (1 ft = 0.31385 m) long and built on stilts, and another 400 feet spanned a valley 60 feet deep. The 75 m long tunnel near Steinhausen was later uncovered due to the operation with steam locomotives .

The line was initially operated as a horse-drawn railway and had iron-shod wooden rails, later rolled iron rails, with a gauge of ≈25 inches (655 mm). In 1856 the gauge was changed to 34 Prussian inches (889 mm). In 1877 two steam locomotives took over the task of the horses. Around 1898 the track width was widened to 900 mm.

The first section over a Prussian Mile was put into operation as a horse-drawn railway as early as 1828, a further section at the end of 1829, seven years before the Ludwig Railway from Nuremberg to Fürth and three years before the Deilthaler Railway. It was the first railway to start operating over a Prussian mile. It took another two years to build up to the coal storage facility on the Ennepe, below the Harkort factory. The connection to the Hasper Hütte took place in 1858. The economic success of the railway can be disputed in view of the low sales price of around 6,600 thalers in 1846.

From 1877 the horse-drawn tram was converted to run with steam locomotives . In the first years of steam operation, these were adapted to the needs of the route. The locomotives for transporting slag to the hut had additional water tanks. Two cubic meters of water were used on the 4 km long route to the slag dump. Later B-couplers and mainly Cn2t machines from Henschel were used, these differ in the different axis sequences and their drive.

With the acquisition and operation of the coal railway by Hasper Eisen- und Stahlwerk, their vehicle fleets were partially mixed. Narrow-gauge locomotives also ran on parts of the steelworks (to the blast furnaces). In the 1960s, the steelworks purchased two diesel locomotives, which were also used for a while on the coal railway. Parts of the vehicle inventory of the Hasper Hütte and the coal railway were sold to the Small Railway Museum Selfkantbahn when the hut was closed (as early as 1970) .

Operating phases of the coal railway

1820-1828 / 29

The consortium to build the railway was founded on July 14th, 1820. The construction took place from 1820 to 1829. The planned construction costs were initially 15,500 thalers, later of 54,000 thalers. In the end, more than 180,000 thalers were needed.

1828 / 29-1846

From 1828 to the end of 1829, operations began in several stages as well as operation as a horse-drawn railway by the consortium of the Schlebusch-Harkorter Bahn for the transport of coal from the Frederika mine of the Trappe mine in the Schlebusch district to the Harkort factory in Haspe , on the north bank of the Ennepe . In 1833 a bridge was built over the Ennepe

1846-1877

Due to inefficiency, the consortium sold the major part of the railway for 6,625 Thaler to the Trappe colliery in 1846, which continued to operate as a horse-drawn railway to transport coal from Schlebusch to Ennepe. West to the newly sunk shaft of the coal mine Voerster Trappe the railway was extended. 1851 From 1855 the Markana hut (a forerunner of the Hasper hut) was supplied with coal and iron stone. The line was extended in 1858 to the Hasper iron and steel works and Haspe station of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn . From this point on, the transport of mining supplies and other goods from Haspe towards Schlebusch (in 1855 approx. 1/3 of the goods transported were other than coal). The Harkort factory was relocated in the years 1860–1863 so that these transports were omitted. As a result, the last remaining shares were sold to the Trappe colliery in 1864.

1877-1911

From 1877 operation as a steam train through the Trappe colliery and the Hasper iron and steel works for the transport of coal from Schlebusch to Haspe. The Trappe colliery was connected to the Schee – Silschede railway in 1889 , and in 1890 the coal railway was also connected to the state railway in Silschede. Hasper Hütte's need for coal exceeded the capacities of the Trappe colliery, so that the hut also used other suppliers. The capacity problems and the relocation of coal transports via the state railway meant that operations were initially temporarily suspended in 1900. The railway was leased from Hasper Hütte in 1905. But coal deliveries continued. From 1906 the section Enerke – Haspe was operated by the Hasper iron and steel works for slag transport, which later bought this section.

1911-1921

Operation as a steam train through the Hasper iron and steel works on the Haspe-Enerke section for slag transport. The narrow-gauge steam locomotives used were considered by experts to be the most polluted in Germany. The axle bearing and brake manufacturer Peyinghaus (later Knorr-Bremse ) signed a joint use agreement in 1921 in order to be able to sell its products via Silschede. For this purpose, a rail connection to the plant was built. The two sections were also called Knorrbahn and Schlackenbahn . Occasionally coal was also transported from the Trappe colliery to the Hasper plant.

1921-1960

During the occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, coal transport was sporadically resumed on the entire Schlebusch – Haspe route. The unused track section between Enerke and Steveling (connection to Peyinghaus) was dismantled in the period up to the Second World War. With the construction of the A1 motorway in 1960, operations on the Knorrbahn ceased. The slag track was run on a shared bridge for rail and road traffic over the motorway.

1960-1966

Hasper Hütte gave up its slag transport via the coal railway in 1965. The rest of the operation only served to dismantle its own tracks. In May 1966, Grundschöttler Strasse, on the edge of which the railway ran, was widened and the track in this area was removed. With this dismantling , the coal and slag railway ceased to exist.

Remnants of the coal track in the Stork forest in Wetter

present

Horse-drawn tram in a Spanish mine. The Silscheder coal railway was operated in this way until it was operated with steam locomotives

Today only remnants of the former railway can be found.

  • To the north of the B 234 , it is used as a cycling and hiking trail for around 2.5 km
  • The siding to the United Trappe colliery can still be seen
  • The underpass from the pictures near the former colliery is still there
  • Remnants are still present in the Stork forest in Wetter
  • The viaduct under the Rheinische Bahn , only a few meters from the Ennepe and the Harkort factory, is still in use
  • The reconstructed portal for crossing under the Ennepetalbahn in the urban area of ​​Hagen-Haspe can be visited
  • In Hagen-Haspe and Wetter there is a street on the former route that bears the name An der Kohlenbahn

See also

literature

  • Michael Schenk: The Harkort coal railway and the Hasper Hütte works railway. Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-86680-466-1 .

Web links

Commons : Schlebusch-Harkorter Kohlenbahn  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ According to a court ruling of March 17, 1889, railways are “wagons, moved by human, animal or machine power, run on iron rails” - printed in Busch / Deilmann, Prinz-Wilhelm-Bahn, Essen, 1992, p. 138.
  2. ↑ Dam of the former Harkort coal railway , accessed on February 5, 2011
  3. ↑ Key paths in German history: Capital and trade between Schmandbruch and Loh ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / schluesselwege.lima-city.de
  4. ↑ Report on the project and preliminary work on the installation of a railway from Elberfeld via Hagen to Witten , accessed on February 5, 2011
  5. ↑ Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thiel, TU Cottbus: Data on the history of the railway system and railway technology ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 196 kB), accessed on June 2, 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www-docs.tu-cottbus.de
  6. ↑ Harkort, Friedrich: The Railway from Minden to Cöln (PDF 340 kB) in the LWL portal , accessed on February 5, 2011.
  7. ↑ According to the delivery note, the two steam locomotives were delivered by the manufacturer Krauss-Maffei to the Trappe mine on January 11, 1877 - according to a copy of the delivery note in the archive of the Haspe Working Group.
  8. ↑ Die Hasper Kohlenbahn, private website, http://home.arcor.de/kladili/kladili/heim8.html (page no longer available), accessed in November 2010
  9. ↑ These diesel locomotives were from Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz, had 230 HP and converted chassis (Fbr.-Nr. 57161 and 57850) - according to the list "Narrow gauge locomotives of Klöckner-Werke AG, Hut Haspe, Hagen-Haspe" in the archive of the working group Hasp.
  10. ↑ selfkantbahn.de: Dampflok 19 Dampflok 20 Dampflok 21 , accessed on August 29, 2011
  11. ^ Journal of mining, metallurgy and saltworks in the Prussian State, Volume 7, 1859, A. Administration and statistics, p. 64.
  12. ↑ Letters from the plant management from 1905 mention "coal trains arriving and departing from the colliery". City Archives Hagen - Stock X 26
  13. ↑ According to a letter from the Dortmund Oberbergamt to the Elberfeld Railway Directorate of June 17, 1919, quoted in: Paul Hilgenstock, Origin, Development and Purpose of the Schlebusch-Harkorter Coal Railway , Bochum, 1931 (Bergbau-Verein Essen)

Coordinates: 51 ° 22 ′  N , 7 ° 20 ′  E