Allgemeine Lokalbahn- und Kraftwerke AG
The Allgemeine Lokalbahn- und Kraftwerke AG ( ALOKA ) was founded on November 18, 1881 in Dortmund as the German Local and Tram Company . From October 15, 1890 to April 11, 1923, it operated as the Allgemeine Lokal- und Straßenbahngesellschaft ( ALSAG ) in Berlin and moved its headquarters to Hanover on May 28, 1949. The Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft was and remained the founder and main shareholder .
Task
The purpose of the company was to build and operate local and trams as well as power plants through their acquisition, leasing or participation. This is how the most important tram company in Germany came into being, which also dealt intensively with power supply systems. There were close ties with the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG).
Chemnitz
On April 15, 1882, the Deutsche Lokal- und Straßenbahngesellschaft, founded in Dortmund in 1881, took over the Chemnitzer horse-drawn railway, which had been operated since April 22, 1880 by an English company owned by the English engineer W. Roebuck with a track width of 3 feet (915 mm) . The number of wagons and horses was increased significantly to cope with the growing volume of traffic. At that time there were no fixed stops, but the passengers waved to indicate that they wanted a ride. However, the spaces between the rails and the edge strips were already paved for horse operation.
On December 19 and 23, 1893, after the merger with the Allgemeine Elektricitätsgesellschaft (AEG), electric tram operations began on the lines that were now electrified between Altendorf-Markt-Bahnhof and Holzmarkt-Rosenplatz.
Dortmund
In September 1892, the newly founded General Local and Tram Company took over the German Local and Tram Company, founded on October 4, 1881, and its predecessor, the Dortmunder Straßenbahn AG for horses and steam operations , which had already ceased steam operations by this time. In and around Hörde, the lines were now used due to the gradient of steam locomotives. In the city center of Dortmund horse trams continued to run in the narrow streets, but they were soon no longer suitable for the increasingly growing traffic. Therefore, on March 1, 1894, the horse-drawn railway lines and, from 1896, also the steam line were electrified.
After the Dortmund-based German Local and Tram Company had merged into the General Local and Tram Company from Berlin, the construction of a circular railway around the city center was tackled in 1896. Most of the route was along the historic ramparts. In 1898 further routes were laid. From the Funkenburg to Körne, from the train station via Hansastraße and Hohe Straße to the Friedrich-Wilhelm block (now Westfalenhalle train station), from Steinplatz via Steinstraße, Roßstraße, Schützenstraße and Mallinckrodtstraße to the harbor and from Steinplatz via Rolandstraße, the Oestermarschstraße and Borsigplatz to the Westfalenhütte.
The tracks of the Cologne-Mindener Railway, however, formed a problematic obstacle and separated the network into two parts, between which no lines ran. There was only one connection via the railroad tracks, which could only be used by empty cars. Therefore, the lines of the two networks each ended in front of a gated level crossing, at which the passengers had to change to the other line. Because the barriers were often closed for a long time, there were always unpredictable delays for passengers.
Duisburg
From the last quarter of the 19th century, the general local and tram company carried out local transport in Duisburg .
The first plans for local public transport in the area of today's city of Duisburg date back to 1875. Two horse-drawn tram lines were planned from Duisburg to Ruhrort and from Duisburg to Hochfeld. The implementation began on April 1, 1881, when the banker Lübke from Berlin received a concession to build and operate a railway line between Duisburg and Ruhrort. On December 24, 1881, the line from Duisburg to Ruhrort was opened. In October 1886 the line in Duisburg was extended to the central station. A steam-powered line was opened on July 22, 1882 between Duisburg and the city limits of Mülheim . On December 31, 1886, the German local and tram company from Dortmund took over operations. The line opened in 1882 was extended to Mülheim-Broich in 1886. The German Local and Tram Company was transferred to the General Local and Tram Company from Berlin on January 1, 1891. This company electrified the routes between October 31, 1897 and July 31, 1898. This gave the General Local and Tram Company in Duisburg and the surrounding area a route network of 21 kilometers in length.
Other routes followed:
Opening date |
route
|
| October 31, 1900 | Duisburg Mülheimer Str. – Neudorf – New Cemetery (today: Old Cemetery) |
| 1904 | Mülheim Broich – Mülheim Chain Bridge |
| March 24, 1907 | Duisburg Burgplatz – Schnabelhuck – Meiderich Süd-Bf. |
| February 24, 1911 | Mülheim Chain Bridge – Mülheim Town Hall |
| May 25, 1912 | Duisburg Schwanentor – Essenberger ferry |
| 1914 | Neudorf Koloniestr. – Steinbruchstr. |
Thus, the general local and tram company in Duisburg and the surrounding area had 5 lines at the beginning of the First World War . After the war in 1923, the trams were transferred to the Duisburger Straßenbahnen GmbH, which was newly founded by the city of Duisburg . The city of Duisburg owned 51 percent and Allgemeine Lokalbahn- und Kraftwerke-AG held 49 percent.
Other places
In addition to tram traffic in Chemnitz, Dortmund and Duisburg, the Allgemeine Lokal- und Straßenbahngesellschaft also operated the Hörder Kreisbahn in Hörde and, from 1893 to 1909, the Lübeck tram . The acquis was often changed by buying and selling railways. Even before the First World War, shares in the trams in Chemnitz , Dortmund, Gladbach - Rheydt and Lübeck were sold again.
In 1915 the company owned the trams in Bromberg , Duisburg , Frankfurt an der Oder , Görlitz , Hörde and Kiel (Kieler Verkehrs-AG) with a total length of 150 km. She was also involved in the trams in Braunschweig , Brüx , Danzig (Verkehrsbetriebe Danzig-Gotenhafen), Halle-Merseburg , Kattowitz and Gleiwitz (Verkehrsbetriebe Oberschlesien AG), Linz (Linzer Elektrizitäts- und Straßenbahn-AG), Saarbrücken, Sosnowitz, Strasbourg and Wiborg . In 1925 the tram was added in Rostock .
From April 1923 the company traded as Allgemeine Lokalbahn- und Kraftwerke AG (ALOKA) and developed into one of the most important German holding companies in the energy and transport sector.
The participation in railways included the Halberstadt-Blankenburg Railway (1925) and the Bavarian Zugspitzbahn (1928) and temporarily on the Drachenfelsbahn (1883-1913) and the Petersbergbahn (1909-1913) in the Siebengebirge. In addition, she was involved in companies such as Frankfurter Elektrizitätswerke GmbH (FEW) in Frankfurt (Oder) , Württembergische Elektrizitäts-AG (WEAG) in Stuttgart, Elektrizitätswerke GmbH in Warnsdorf ( Sudetenland ), Kraftanlagen AG Heidelberg and many others.
The heavy losses in East Germany and abroad that ALOKA suffered during World War II made it necessary to restructure the group in the following period. In 1949 the company headquarters were relocated to Hanover and in 1954 to Frankfurt.
In rail traffic, only the Bavarian Zugspitzbahn remained as an active transport company. The name was changed in 1972 to ALOKA Allgemeine Organizations- und Kapitalbeteiligungs-AG.
After ALOKA had already acquired a 25% stake in the AG for Transport in Frankfurt am Main in 1959 , it took over this group on November 28, 1973 and merged on January 1, 1974 to form the stock corporation for industry and transport (from 1987 AGIV). The AGIV had four main activities: construction, engineering, transportation and asset management. In the 1990s, AGIV focused on mechanical engineering and measurement technology in a multi-year restructuring process and gave up transport, construction and services. Most recently, it merged with HBAG Real Estate AG to form the real estate finance holding AGIV Real Estate AG, Hamburg, which had to file for bankruptcy in 2004.
literature
- Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 4 Ruhrgebiet EK-Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 1994, ISBN 3-8825-5334-0 .
- Wolf-Rüdiger Saager, Lutz Bartoschek, Thomas Saager: 125 years of local transport in Lübeck: a journey through history . Stadtverkehr Lübeck GmbH, Lübeck 2006 (without ISBN)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The Chemnitz tram.
- ↑ a b c History of the tram in Dortmund ( Memento from November 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Festschrift of the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft 2006 [1] , accessed on May 12, 2019
- ↑ a b c d General Local Railway and Power Plants AG - AGIV, Berlin.
- ↑ Nonvaleurs Blog: General Lokalbahn- and Kraftwerke AG
- ↑ Company history. ( Memento from May 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive )