Westphalian State Railroad

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Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn GmbH
Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn logo.svg
Basic information
Company headquarters Lippstadt
Web presence www.wle-online.de
Reference year 2017
owner District Soest 31.48%
District Warendorf 26.82%
Stadtwerke Münster 14.13%
City Warstein 6.71%
City Beckum 6.54%
City Ennigerloh 4.61%
City Lippstadt 4.38%
City Rüthen 1.84%
City Sendenhorst 1.76%
Wadersloh municipality 1.73%
Supervisory board Fritz Baur (Chairman)
Managing directors André Pieperjohanns
Operations management Johann Ubben
Employee 112
sales 15.1 million euros
Lines
Gauge 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
railroad Münster – Warstein , Neubeckum – Ennigerloh , Belecke – Rüthen
number of vehicles
Locomotives 19th
Length of line network
Railway lines 119 km
Operating facilities
Depots 1

The Westphalian Provincial Railroad, Inc. ( WLE ) is a railway traffic and railway infrastructure companies within the Westphalian Transport Company (WVG), based in Lippstadt . The WLE forms the railway department (operations management, operations scheduling, structural engineering, machine technology, sales, etc.) of the WVG. The sister railway companies Regionalverkehr Ruhr-Lippe (RLG) and Regionalverkehr Münsterland (RVM) are also managed from Lippstadt .

history

The WLE was founded as the Warstein-Lippstadt Railway Company on November 22, 1881, and the main line from Lippstadt to Warstein was opened on November 1, 1883. The industrialist Wilhelm Bergenthal , who initially sat on the executive board and supervisory board, played a key role in the establishment of the company .

Over the years, an approximately 265 km long railway network was built in the Prussian province of Westphalia , which consisted of three main parts:

Passenger and goods traffic was carried out on all routes; regular passenger traffic ended in 1975. Today, with the exception of a few special trips (for example with the Samba Express ) , the WLE only operates goods traffic; there are still 16 freight stations. The resumption of passenger traffic on the main route is planned for around 2023 on the section between Münster and Sendenhorst.

The current name Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn was adopted in 1896. The main shareholder - in addition to districts, cities and municipalities - was the Westphalia Provincial Association , which was replaced by the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association after the Second World War . In 1970 the newly founded Westfälische Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH took over his duties. The WLE has been a GmbH since 1980. After the departure of the Westfälisch-Lippische Vermögensverwaltungsgesellschaft in 2011, almost three quarters of the share capital is held by the Soest and Warendorf districts and the Münster municipal utilities . The remaining quarter is spread over seven neighboring communities. The shareholders participate in assuming the annual deficit according to their share .

On the route over the Haarstrang and through the Möhnetal from Soest to Belecke and from Heidberg to Brilon you will find the “ Pengel-Anton ” cycle path . On the remaining stretch from Belecke to Rüthen and a short stretch from Belecke in the direction of Soest, there is a fairly regular traffic of consumer goods. Starting in June 2007, the remainder was completely refurbished for more than one million euros. The section from Rüthen to Heidberg is no longer used; the tracks are partially dismantled and have been used for repairs in other places.

Today there is a cycle path on the Sennebahn Wiedenbrück – Sennelager.

Various clubs offer special trips on the WLE network several times a year for leisure purposes.

Route network

The freight yard in Warstein at night

Today, the WLE still operates and uses a 119-kilometer route network in rail freight transport that connects the cities of Warstein, Belecke, Rüthen, Erwitte, Lippstadt and Beckum. The individual routes with their opening and closing dates are listed below:

Main line 170 km:

  • November 1, 1883 Warstein – Belecke – Lippstadt, passenger traffic ceased on September 27, 1975
  • October 20, 1898 Lippstadt – Beckum, passenger traffic ceased on May 31, 1975
  • September 30, 1903 Neubeckum – Münster, passenger traffic ceased on September 27, 1975; the 5.9 km long intermediate section Beckum – Neubeckum was opened on September 21, 1879 as a state railway and belongs to today's Deutsche Bahn
  • April 15, 1899 Neubeckum – Ennigerloh, passenger traffic ceased on September 27, 1970
  • July 22, 1899 Ennigerloh – Freckenhorst, passenger traffic ceased on June 3, 1956
  • April 1, 1901 Freckenhorst – Warendorf, closed on June 3, 1956
  • December 1, 1898 Brilon Stadt – Belecke, passenger traffic ceased on September 26, 1958, except for express railcars; May 28, 1960 express railcar discontinued; on February 28, 1979 goods traffic to Heidberg, on December 31, 1994 to Rüthen suspended
  • December 1, 1899 Belecke – Soest, passenger traffic stopped on May 28, 1960, shut down on April 17, 1970, dismantled

In spring 2005, a 4.5 kilometer long siding to the Warsteiner Brewery with a container terminal was put into operation.

Northern runway 64 km:

  • October 1, 1902 opening; Passenger traffic between Stadtlohn and Vreden ceased on May 31, 1958; suspended on September 30, 1962 between Burgsteinfurt and Borken except for express trains; on September 27, 1975 passenger traffic completely stopped; Freight traffic on December 31, 1972 between Burgsteinfurt and Ahaus, suspended on September 27, 1975 between Ahaus and Stadtlohn; In 1984 the line was operated by the Federal Railroad. However, the line itself remained in the possession of the WLE; on March 31, 1988 goods traffic Vreden – Stadtlohn – Borken shut down by the DB and immediate dismantling of the entire route.

Sennebahn 32 km:

  • September 1, 1902 opening; Passenger traffic ceased on March 31, 1958; on May 21, 1966 freight traffic Delbrück – Sennelager, on May 25, 1990 Wiedenbrück – Delbrück discontinued and shut down; Today there is a cycle path on the route between Wiedenbrück and Delbrück.

Rail freight transport

Locomotive 53 of the WLE

Freight traffic is primarily carried out on the company's own route network to serve the connections there and to serve the stations with goods loading (partly with ramps that can still be used). The WLE has 15 locomotives and 64 special wagons (mainly for transporting limestone and cement to the cement works in the Erwitte to Ennigerloh area ) available for this purpose. In 2008, 1.55 million tons were transported over an average distance of 114 kilometers.

Since the rail reform , the WLE has also been increasingly operating outside of its own route network. This mainly concerns the supply of the cement works with high-purity limestone and the removal of the cement. After the connection to the Warsteiner Brewery , the weekly transport of beer in container block trains ("Warsteiner train") to Munich and on to Verona was added from 2005 to 2018 . Since March, the Warsteiner wagons have only formed one group of wagons on the Dörpen – Lippstadt – Munich container train. There has also been a daily connection from Warstein to Oberhausen since 2007 and a weekly connection to Berlin since mid-February 2009 ( Großbeeren freight center ).

literature

  • Josef Kückmann and Burkhard Beyer: From Warstein to the Münsterland. The history of the Westphalian State Railroad. DGEG-Medien, Hövelhof 2008, ISBN 3-937189-39-4
  • Friedrich Risse, Günter Krause: Vehicles and systems of the Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn / Bd. 1. The steam locomotives of the WLE . DGEG-Medien, Hövelhof 2006, ISBN 3-937189-25-4
  • Karlheinz Haucke: The Westphalian State Railway . transpress Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-613-71120-6
  • Josef Högemann: Westphalian State Railway . in: Wolf-Dietger Machel (Ed.): secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany, Munich 2002, pp. 1–52.
  • Ulrich Rockelmann (Ed.) (2004): The great archive of the railway lines in Germany . Loose-leaf collection. Line (9212) Lippstadt – Neubeckum – Münster; Line (9214) Neubeckum – Anneliese cement works; Line (9216) Lippstadt – Warstein; Line (9217) Belecke – Rüthen.
  • Westf. Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH Münster (ed.): Full steam ahead into the 20th century. 100 Years of the Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn 2 volumes, Münster undated

Web links

Commons : Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Museums dealing with the history of the WLE:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See annual financial statements for the financial year from 01/01/2017 to 12/31/2017. In: bundesanzeiger.de. Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn GmbH, November 23, 2018, accessed on July 22, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b See Bahn-Report , issue 4/2011, p. 35, editor: Interest group rail transport e. V., Rohr, ISSN  0178-4528
  3. ^ Economic archives NRW: Franz Anton Wilhelm Bergenthal (N 3) . Retrieved May 14, 2009.
  4. ↑ Local transport: Clear the way for new train connections. Retrieved July 8, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Pengel-Anton-Radweg on Outdooractive.com
  6. ↑ Cf. Warsteiner Brewery, "Sustainable investments pay off". (PDF) (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 19, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / warsteiner-gruppe.de
  7. ↑ Cf. Frank Bachmann, photo of the map of the siding to the Warsteiner brewery. Retrieved April 19, 2009 .
  8. ↑ See annual financial statements for the financial year from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn GmbH, March 27, 2009, accessed on November 11, 2009 .
  9. ↑ Cf. Frank Bachmann, "Westfälische Landes-Eisenbahn: The Warstein Beer Train - Munich Riem", photo report. Retrieved April 19, 2009 .
  10. ↑ End of the Warsteiner train . In: railway magazine . No. 6 , 2018, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 31 .
  11. ↑ See Märkische Allgemeine: "" Löschzug "from the Sauerland delivers 12,800 liters of beer a week". (No longer available online.) February 21, 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 19, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.maerkischeallgemeine.de