Siegen-Wittgenstein circuit
| KSW Kreisbahn Siegen-Wittgenstein GmbH | |
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| Basic information | |
| Company headquarters | Wins |
| Web presence | www.ksw-siegen.de |
| owner | * District of Siegen-Wittgenstein (96.8%)
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| Managing directors | Christian Betchen |
| Railway operations management | Kristopher Aurand |
| Lines | |
| Gauge | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| railroad | * Kreuztal - bush huts |
| number of vehicles | |
| Locomotives | 2 Vossloh G1000 BB 1 MAK G1204 |
| Length of line network | |
| Railway lines | 31 km |
| Operating facilities | |
| Depots | Eintracht operations center |
| Other operating facilities | Kreuztal container terminal , Herdorf site |
The KSW circular path Siegen-Wittgenstein GmbH is a railway company in South Westphalia , which in summer 2005 by renaming the Siegener circular path GmbH emerged. Today 96.8% of it belongs to the Siegen-Wittgenstein district and 3.2% to the city of Siegen . It consists purely as a railway undertaking further and operates non-contiguous, but through the network of five DB Netz AG related operating units freight :
- Industrial main track Kreuztal - Buschhütten
- Eintracht and Kaan-Marienborn ( Eisern-Siegener Railway )
- Herdorf –Salchendorf ( Free Grunder Railway )
- Weidenau – Deuz – Werthenbach (connection from Gräbener)
In 2006, KSW acquired the Kreuztal container station from Deutsche Bahn and now operates it under its own responsibility. It also has a third share in HellertalBahn GmbH , which operates passenger transport . It also operated the former Siegen trolleybus ; this operated from 1941 to 1969.
history
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Siegener Kreisbahn GmbH
Beginnings
The Siegen Kreisbahn was founded by the district of Siegen on March 6, 1903 as a regular gauge small railway . When the city of Siegen became a district, the municipal own operation was converted into a GmbH on January 31, 1925 , in which the district held 60% and the city of Siegen 40%. The company was run by the Kreisbahn until 1927 and by RWE from 1927 .
Efforts to set up a so-called Chausseebahn in the densely populated Siegtal between Siegen and Kreuztal go back to the 1890s. Since this project was not implemented, the district decided to set up a small train between Siegen and Kreuztal . On January 12, 1900, the city council of Siegen decided to build an electricity station. Thereupon the district council decided on April 13, 1901 to build a small railway between Siegen and Geisweid . Since one did not want to rule out later freight traffic on the route, the decision was made to use the standard gauge. On March 6, 1903, the railway received a concession for the duration of 50 years to build and operate a small electric railway. The construction was carried out by the company Siemens & Schuckert .
The route began in Siegen at the Eintracht train station and led via Kochs Ecke , Sandstrasse , Weidenau and Geisweid to Buschhütten . Since the Reichsbahn had forbidden an intersection in Geisweid, an overpass for the tram was made there. By building the new Königsstraße in Geisweid , two more bridges on the Lower and Upper Kaiserstraße could be avoided. A test drive took place on October 20, 1904, and operations began on November 12, 1904. The maiden voyage of the tram dates from November 15, 1904. After a track connection to the Eisern-Siegener Eisenbahn AG was created on November 27, 1904 , operations up to the Eintracht railway station could be started. On December 15, 1905, a connection to the Südbahnhof, today's main station , was created from the Kölner Tor . Another extension followed on November 1, 1908 from Buschhütten to Langenau .
Oberstadtbahn
In 1903 it was decided to build a route through the upper town . Since the construction turned out to be problematic due to the steep incline, this route was initially abandoned. The tracks for this route were laid from the Kölner Tor through Kölner Straße with a 9% gradient to the school square . There you turned right into Poststrasse , at the end of which you turn left again into Löhrstrasse . The Löhrstraße then hit the grain market back to the Kölner Straße . At the Kornmarkt a loop was laid around the Kaiser Wilhelm monument in front of the town hall in order to lengthen the route with this artificial S-curve, as the 12% incline of Kölner Straße could not be followed with the technology of the time. At the upper end of the Kornmarkt , the route met Kölner Strasse again , continued on Marburger Strasse , then through Giersbergstrasse and through Strasse Hohler Weg . There she found the valley again. On the route that went into operation on June 11, 1910, the speed was limited to 10 km / h. Since the utilization was very low, this line was closed again due to the shortage of personnel at the beginning of the First World War .
1919-1945
On June 11, 1926, the line from Langenau was extended by 1.1 kilometers to Kreuztal. From 1929 numerous modernizations were carried out on the railway. Completely new railcars were purchased and a new car shed was built on Emilienstraße . The speed of the cars was now 50 km / h instead of the 20 km / h of the old cars.
The air raids of the Second World War in 1944 and 1945 caused considerable damage to the tracks and overhead lines. Traffic was completely stopped on March 15, 1945. To prevent the destruction of the entire vehicle fleet, they were parked individually on the route.
After the vehicles had been pulled together by the Allies in the badly damaged depot on Emilienstraße, reconstruction began on June 25, 1945. First, the section between Weidenau and Langenau was put back into operation. On July 11, 1945, the section between Weidenau and the Siegbrücke followed at the level of the Hotel Patt . After the circular railway had rebuilt the bridge at its own expense by November 1945, the railway ran back to Eintracht station . In January 1946 the traffic to Kreuztal could be extended. When the Siegbrücke on Hindenburgstrasse was finally restored in 1947 and on Bahnhofstrasse in 1949 , the round-trip service via the main train station in Siegen was able to start operating again.
After the Second World War
On January 1, 1947, Siegener Kreisbahn GmbH leased the line from Eisern-Siegener Eisenbahn AG . After the 8.2 kilometer long line had been electrified , tram traffic between the Eintracht station and Eisern was started on October 30, 1947 .
From December 8, 1947, the 4.1 kilometer stretch between Eintracht station and Kaan-Marienborn was also served by electric passenger trains from the Siegen Kreisbahn, until October 1, 1948, electric trams could also be used here.
Towards the end of 1947, the railways were numbered for the first time. Four lines ran every 20 minutes:
- Line 1: Siegen Hauptbahnhof - Kreuztal
- Line 2: Siegen Hauptbahnhof - Geisweid
- Line 3: Siegen Hauptbahnhof - Eisern
- Line 4: Siegen main station - Kaan-Marienborn
The lines reached Siegen Central Station in a round trip via Hindenburgstrasse and left it via Bahnhofstrasse . The Siegener Kreisbahn had thus reached its maximum extent with 30.7 kilometers and 23.9 kilometers of track.
At the beginning of 1949, the Siegener Kreisbahn took over the majority of shares in Freie Grunder Eisenbahn AG (FGE) and also its management. The FGE was fully integrated into the district on January 1, 1970.
Decline of the small train
In 1950 the district of Siegen decided to expand the federal highway 54 , which was also used by the district railway. The original plan was to double-track the line. Since a separate track body was too expensive and could not be accommodated from the point of view of the district council, it was decided, after the trolleybus was seen as more economical and up to 30% faster, to convert lines 1 and 2 to the trolleybus. The changeover took place on May 29, 1952. After the track systems were largely dismantled, there was only electrical goods traffic between Langenau and Birlenbacher Hütte .
On February 27, 1953, the Eisern-Siegener Eisenbahn AG was acquired by the Siegener Kreisbahn GmbH . On April 1, 1955, the administration of Kleinbahn Weidenau – Deuz GmbH was taken over, which in 1956 passed into the possession of Siegener Kreisbahn GmbH.
After motorized individual traffic had increased more and more, lines 3 and 4 also came up for discussion. On July 28, 1956, line 4 to Kaan-Marienborn was shut down. After the overhead lines were dismantled, diesel locomotives took over freight traffic on this route. On August 31, 1956, line 3 to Eisern was closed. Thereupon the expansion of the approximately 1.4 km long through-town passage in Eisern began, with which also new tracks for the line 3 were installed. When the expansion was finished, the circular path decided on February 24, 1959 not to resume traffic.
Freight transport
After the tram was discontinued, the Siegener Kreisbahn continued to operate freight traffic between Geisweid and Buschhütten and between Kaan-Marienborn and Eisern for a few years on the remains of the rail network. While the section between Geisweid and Buschhütten was operated electrically, steam locomotives initially ran on the other section, which were gradually replaced by diesel locomotives.
On August 1, 1962, the connection to the Deutsche Bahn in Eiserfeld was shut down. However, since this led to a severe impairment of individual traffic on federal highway 62 , this siding was restored on January 29, 1964.
However, as more and more mines and steel works, which were the main customers of goods traffic on the Siegen Kreisbahn, were shut down over the years, several sections were subsequently discontinued.
- April 1, 1969: from Eisern to Kohlenbach
- December 31, 1970: from Kohlenbach to Eiserfeld
- December 31, 1971: from Eintracht train station to Eiserfeld
On December 31, 1973, the remaining sections in the south of Siegen were closed. Since the section from Siegen to Kaan-Marienborn also led over the heavily used federal highways 62 and 54 , a track connection to the federal railway line from Gießen was set up in Kaan-Marienborn, so that there was a relief on the road.
The Weidenau – Deuz railway line was interrupted by the construction of the bypass road in Netphen . This branch line now ends at the Bombardier plant in Netphen-Dreis-Tiefenbach .
Rail bus
From June 25, 1962, a rail bus replaced the steam locomotive operation on the former Weidenau – Deuz line. This drove until 1968. The reason for the discontinuation was the drop in passenger numbers. While there were still 2,500,000 passengers in 1948 and 1,850,000 in 1956, in 1968 there were only 300,000. Thus, this route was also converted to bus operation.
Bus transport
The entire bus traffic of the Siegener Kreisbahn was spun off in 1970 and brought together with Kraftverkehr Olpe into the new Verkehrsbetriebe Westfalen-Süd (VWS) . Until the sale of VWS to Stadtwerke Bonn (SWB) in 2005, Kreisbahn was co-owner of what was then VWS AG and owner of its real estate. Even today there is still a cooperation between the two companies.
Workshop
In 2008, a two-track workshop hall was built in the Eintracht train station. In 2015 it was sold to the Hessische Landesbahn for the maintenance of the railcars used on the 3-country railway . As a replacement, a single-track workshop and a single-track locomotive hall were built and put into operation in April 2015.
Today's transport services
The Siegen-Wittgenstein district railway has its own rail infrastructure, on which numerous company connections are served. Among others, Bombardier Transportation, Rudolf Flender GmbH and the Schäfer Werke . Other companies also use KSW's infrastructure, such as DB Cargo, Hessische Landesbahn and DB Regio. With the exception of the participation in the Hellertalbahn, since the closure of the Kleinbahn Weidenau-Deuz, there is currently no own passenger service.
KSW also makes its staff available to third parties for individual services, so that some KSW train drivers are currently on the move in the Hessian State Railways Eifel-Westerwald-Sieg network.
In addition to the goods services on its own route network, numerous local services are operated in close cooperation with DB Schenker Rail . Furthermore, the circular railway has a few cross-regional journeys in long-distance freight transport.
Freight traffic is operated on the following regional routes operated by DB Netz :
- Kreuztal - Erndtebrück
- Kreuztal - Siegen - Betzdorf (- Scheuerfeld )
- Betzdorf - Herdorf - Würgendorf
- ( Dillenburg - Haiger -) Siegen (East) - Kreuztal
- Siegen ( Geisweid ) / Siegen ( Weidenau ) - Kreuztal
- Siegen - Finnentrop (isolated)
Some employees and vehicles are sometimes used across the board as a result of the cooperation. For example, the maneuvering attendant is provided by Cargo AG and the driver is provided by KSW on individual services . Occasional service trips on some routes and connections to the circular path are operated by DB Cargo AG.
The majority of the freight wagons run to the Kreuztal or Betzdorf train stations, from where they are then driven on towards Cologne and Hagen. Most of the wagons pass through the Eintracht train station beforehand, as KSW owns the only working scale in the area.
Long-distance freight transport:
- Duisburg , Emden , Lippstadt , Bochum and Staufenberg - Mainzlar / Gießen (in cooperation with SBB Cargo )
With the upgrading of the container terminal in Kreuztal, KSW would like to provide more independent long-distance transport services.
All traffic is dispatched from the Eintracht operations control center, which includes dispatching and administration, a locomotive depot and the workshop. The dispatcher acts as a train conductor, unless the journey is managed as a shunting journey. The KSW has the following locations:
- Unity
- Herdorf
- Kreuztal
KV-Terminal Südwestfalen
On September 14th, a newly built terminal for combined transport was opened. It has two transshipment tracks with a length of 225 m. Approximately 45,000 loading units (containers, swap bodies and semi-trailers) can be handled annually.
vehicles
In 2017, KSW owns two Vossloh G 1000 BB locomotives along with others .
literature
- Gerd Wolff: North Rhine-Westphalia. Southern part. In: German small and private railways. Volume 4. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1997, ISBN 3-88255-660-9 .
- Andreas Christopher u. a .: Private and works railways in Siegerland. Kenning, Nordhorn 1995, ISBN 3-927587-27-3 .
- Rolf Löttgers: From the Eisern-Siegen Railway to the Siegen-Wittgenstein District Railway. Siegen, Vorländer 2009, ISBN 978-3-923483-82-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Scrolled back…. In: Siegener Zeitung. 4th December 2010.
- ↑ railway magazine . No. 6 , 2015, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 28 .
- ↑ KV-Terminal Kreuztal opened . In: railway magazine . No. 11 , 2018, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 27 .
- ↑ New acquisition GG 1000 BB . In: railway magazine . No. 2 , 2017, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 29 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 51 ′ 59.5 " N , 8 ° 0 ′ 34.8" E