Aar-Salzböde Railway
| Niederwalgern – Herborn (Dillkr) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number (DB) : | 3953 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 624 (1992-2001) 368 (until 1992) |
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| Route length: | 43.0 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Aar-Salzböde-Bahn was a single-track, non-electrified branch line in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and in the Lahn-Dill district .
Regular operation on the last remaining stretch was discontinued in 2001, which is why the Pro Bahn passenger association described the route as the “first victim of Hessian public transport legislation”. Since 2018 there has been public discussion about reactivating the Hartenrod – Niederwalgern line. The starting point for this is an initiative by RNV Marburg-Biedenkopf, the Rhein-Main transport association and the neighboring communities.
route
The route ran from Niederwalgern via Gladenbach and Bad Endbach to Herborn . It branched off from the Main-Weser Railway in Niederwalgern and merged with the Dill route in Herborn .
The structurally important railway line connected the hinterland with the national rail traffic on the Main-Weser-Bahn and the Dill line . She crossed the varied low mountain range of the Gladenbacher Bergland east of the Westerwald and southeast of the Rothaargebirge .
history
Emergence
Work began on the new line from 1890, and on May 12, 1894, the first section of the Aar-Salzböde Railway from Niederwalgern to Weidenhausen was put into operation. The opening of the second section between Weidenhausen and Hartenrod took place seven years later on July 15, 1901.
After the tunnel and the viaduct over the Schlierbach Valley in Hartenrod were completed a short time later, the last section between Hartenrod and Herborn was also put into operation on August 1, 1902. The section from Wommelshausen to Eisemroth was very complex because of the three viaducts at Wommelshausen-Hütte, Endbach and in Hartenrod. On July 24, 1899, the foundation stone was laid for the so-called Salzbödeviadukt near Endbach. “The entrepreneur had almost only Polish workers for the excavation work, while almost only Italian workers for the masonry and other work. Despite the different languages spoken by the workers, the work has so far proceeded consistently and without interference ”.
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The viaduct near Endbach has nine arches, is 175 meters long and 18 meters high. The stone viaduct, which lies in a curve, was planned by the iron construction inspectors Hentzen and Pietig. Today the viaduct is a landmark for Bad Endbach. The slightly higher bridge over the Schlierbachtal in Hartenrod was built in the same way. Another larger structure on the route is the 700-meter-long tunnel below the Aar-Salzböde watershed between Hartenrod and Eisemroth. Until the 1950s there were plans to connect the line with the Scheldal Railway .
Blasting chambers were built into the two bridge piers on both sides of the country road that runs under the Endbach Viaduct in the 1950s. By blowing up the bridge during the "Cold War" during a military attack from the east, a rapid advance of the opposing troops was to be prevented. No explosive chambers were built into the Hartenroder Viaduct because of its location in the residential area.
1945: "rocket train"
In the early morning of March 22, 1945, an extra-long V2 battery train from a German special unit , coming from Driedorf (Westerwald), turned into the Aar-Salzböde-Bahn via Herborn . It was over a kilometer long and was pulled by two heavy locomotives ( Prussian G 8 ), another was in the middle, a fourth pushed from behind. He was attacked by American fighter-bombers near Bicken around eight o'clock and later at Bischoffs and damaged a locomotive (through the boiler), with heavy resistance from the four-in-one flaks . The village gendarme was killed in the attack . The train was then divided into two parts in Bischoffen and reached the 700 meter long tunnel near Hartenrod late in the evening , where it protruded at the back and front. On the ascent to the tunnel, in order to prevent the locomotives from spinning, the population had to scatter sand on the rails and bring in beech logs to fire the locomotives; There was no longer any coal.
Two days later the train to Marburg was left. It was supposed to be brought into a new position via Cölbe to the west in the direction of Biedenkopf , was diverted to the north and stopped by the Americans on March 29, 1945 at the Bromskirchen train station . The unexpected, spectacular spoils of war, consisting of ten complete V2 rockets, were then shipped to the USA. (See also: Bromskirchen # train with V2 rockets )
Decline
Freight traffic was stopped first: on January 1, 1992 on the Hartenrod – Niederwalgern section, on December 31, 1995 between Burg and Hartenrod and one year later between Herborn and Burg, among other things because the Burger Hütte was no longer a customer.
On May 27, 1995, passenger traffic on the Niederwalgern – Hartenrod section was suspended with the support of local politicians, and passenger traffic was completely suspended on June 9, 2001. In addition to the low number of passengers, the route was in great need of renovation, which is why continued operation did not make economic sense. Another aspect was the consideration of running the Herborn-Burg / Herborn-Seelbach bypass over the railway line.
In 2003 there was a discussion about reactivating the Niederwalgern – Hartenrod section for local passenger transport. Even a re-dedication of the Gladenbach – Hartenrod – Bischoffen section as a trolley for tourist purposes, suggested by all responsible politicians between 2001 and 2003, found no support.
Dismantling
At the beginning of 2006, several kilometers of the route were illegally dismantled and taken to Kassel and Koblenz for scrap recycling . With the help of falsified orders from Deutsche Bahn AG, the perpetrators commissioned several companies located on the route to dismantle them, while the DB was unsuspecting. The damage was around 200,000 euros.
In November 2006, Deutsche Bahn AG began to gradually dismantle the remaining line. The beginning of the work was accompanied by numerous inquiries from concerned citizens who suspected illegal activities again. However, the DB announced to the former neighboring communities and the federal police that this work was official.
Possible reactivation
The regional transport association Marburg-Biedenkopf has 2,018 awarded in late October the creation of a preliminary study on the reactivation of the section Niederwalgern-Hartenrod at an engineering company. The study by the Ederlog office was presented in September 2019 and confirms great potential for the Niederwalgern – Hartenrod route: the study assumes a passenger potential of around 2,200 passengers and an additional traffic rate of 97%. Initially, the planning-based route protection and an in-depth cost-benefit analysis are recommended. The district council decided on November 14, 2019 to prepare a feasibility study with a cost-benefit analysis. This could be the prelude to a restart of at least the eastern section of the railway line.
traffic
The reason for the sometimes complex construction of the line was a better connection to the coal and steel industry in the Lahn-Dill area , especially in the Salzbödetal . Ores, pig iron, coke and coal should be delivered more cheaply and, conversely, the products of the foundries should be able to be shipped. With the decline of this industry, important goods customers also disappeared.
The passenger traffic was rather moderate. For a long time it consisted of about five pairs of trains a day over the entire route, plus a few pairs of trains that only ran over parts of the route. In the last few years there was mainly school traffic. In 1995 the number of trips was increased again; Hourly intervals between Herborn and Hartenrod were introduced from Monday to Friday. Mostly class 628 railcars were used for this ; Before that, like on many branch lines , there were rail buses , but also locomotive hauled trains with modernized local transport wagons '' Silberlinge ''.
A special feature is that some trains ran continuously to Dillenburg. The Sinn station had a daily train connection as the departure station.
Operating points
| Train station or stop | local community | Platform tracks |
Distances - kilometers |
annotation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Niederwalgern | Weimar | 3 (formerly 5) |
0.0 | Wedge train station , transfer hub in the direction of Frankfurt am Main , Kassel , ... |
| Dam (district of Marburg) | Lohra | 1 | 4.1 | Halting point Damm, popularly also called “Lager Damm”, located in the middle between Damm and Stedebach, abandoned in 1978 |
| Dam village | Lohra | 1 | 5.1 | since 1955, breakpoint |
| Lohra | Lohra | 1 (formerly 2) |
6.8 | Stop, formerly a train station |
| Mornshausen | Gladenbach | 1 | 9.8 | Breakpoint, renovated in 1992 |
| Gladenbach | Gladenbach | 2 (formerly 3) |
10.8 | Largest and most important station on the line, served as a locomotive station for maintenance work, etc. |
| Erdhausen | Gladenbach | 1 | 12.0 | Breakpoint |
| Weidenhausen (Kr Biedenkopf) | Gladenbach | 1 (formerly 2) |
13.3 | last stop, 1894 to 1901 end point, until 1971 station, then stop |
| Wommelshausen | Bad Endbach | 1 | 16.2 | Stop, located in the Hut district, formerly a stop |
| Endbach | Bad Endbach | 1 | 17.8 | Breakpoint |
| Hartenrod | Bad Endbach | 2 (formerly 3) |
19.3 | Railway station, end point from 1995 to 2001, operational center in passenger traffic |
| Oberndorf | Siegbach | 1 | 23.1 | Halt until 1978 |
| Eisemroth | Siegbach | 1 (formerly 2) |
24.7 | Stop, formerly a train station, until at least 1988 a train was used here at lunchtime in the direction of Herborn |
| Überthal | Siegbach | 1 | 27.6 | Breakpoint |
| Bischoffen | Bischoffen | 2 | 30.8 | Railway station, until the end there were regular train crossings here |
| Offenbach | Mittenaar | 1 | 33.1 | Stop, formerly a stop |
| Bend | Mittenaar | 1 | 35.1 | Stop, formerly a stop |
| Ballersbach | Mittenaar | 1 | 36.7 | Stop, formerly a stop |
| Herbornseelbach | Herborn | 1 (formerly 2) |
39.0 | Stop, formerly a train station |
| Castle (Dillkr.) | Herborn | 1 (formerly 2) |
40.9 | Stop, formerly a train station |
| Herborn | Herborn | 3 (formerly 5) |
43.0 | Connection station , transfer point towards Siegen , Gießen , ... |
literature
- Markus Hemberger: Memories of the Aar-Salzböde Railway. Self-published, Lohra, 2006
- Urs Kramer: Niederwalgern – Herborn branch line: rail line through the mountains between Lahn and Dill. Verlag Bleiweis, Schweinfurt 1994, ISBN 3-928786-29-6
- Heinz Schomann: Railway buildings and routes 1839–1939 . Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (= cultural monuments in Hesse - railway in Hesse . Volume II, 2nd volume). Konrad Theiss Verlag, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , p. 739-746 (Volume 2.2, Section 059).
Web links
- Photo gallery of the railway line
- The Aar-Salzböde-Bahn by Johann Schön ( Memento from August 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (archived on August 13, 2008)
- The Aar-Salzböde-Bahn - from Herborn to Niederwalgern
- Course book from 1914, table 1219
- Course book summer 1939, table 166b
- Course book summer 1941, table 194b
- Course book annual timetable 1943, table 194b
- Disused railway lines around Korbach and Marburg ( Memento from June 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- Aar-Salzböde-Bahn Niederwalgern-Herborn Part 1 (youtube)
- Rail bus on the Aar-Salzböde-Bahn part 2 (youtube)
Individual evidence
- ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
- ↑ Brief description of the Aar-Salzböde-Bahn by Pro-Bahn ( memento from September 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (archived on September 21, 2008)
- ↑ from the certificate of laying the foundation stone of July 24, 1899
- ↑ | Information and pictures about the tunnels on route 3953 on eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de by Lothar Brill
- ↑ Horst W. Müller: “A mysterious train crossed the hinterland in 1945”, Hinterländer Geschichtsblätter No. 1, March 2005, page 12
- ↑ Inventory of disused railway lines for passenger traffic in Hessen , Hessen mobil, as of June 30, 2016, p. 34 (accessed on January 13, 2019)
- ↑ " Hinterländer Anzeiger " from June 5, 2003
- ↑ Thieves steal railway line on hr-online.de (depublished), February 2, 2006
- ↑ Route report . In: Bahn-Report . No. 1/2019 , p. 59 .
- ↑ District council application "Commissioning a feasibility study with cost-benefit analysis (NKU) to reactivate the former branch line Niederwalgern - Hartenrod (Salzbödebahn)"
- ↑ Preliminary study sees great potential
- ↑ "Dream" Salzbödebahn lives
- ↑ Bornsbach water provides steam ; Part 14 of the series "The Railway in the Hinterland" of the Upper Hessian Press
- ↑ Hemberger, Memories of the Aar-Salzbödebahn , Lohra 2006, p. 21
- ↑ The station was in the Herborn district of Seelbach , which was called Herbornseelbach until it was incorporated into Herborn in 1977 . However, the train station or halt has kept the name Herbornseelbach until the end of operations on the Aar-Salzbödebahn .