Altona-Kiel Railway Company

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AKE route network in 1884

The Altona-Kieler Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft ( AKE ) was a joint stock company in the Duchy of Holstein , which was linked to the Kingdom of Denmark in personal union and built and operated the railway between Altona / Elbe and the Baltic port city of Kiel . At that time Altona was the second largest city and the railway line from Altona to Kiel, opened in 1844, was the first under Danish sovereignty.

Emergence

Alternative routes: via Segeberg or Neumünster

prehistory

The AG was founded in December 1840 at the instigation of merchants from Altona and Kiel, who promised to improve the transport and sales opportunities for their goods through the connection of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and who had come together to promote this goal in the Altona-Kiel Railway Committee . Georg Hanssen and Johann Christian Kruse were among the initiators from Kiel .

A railway connection between the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg and Lübeck , which had already been suggested by Friedrich List , had the Royal Railway Commission , which was established in 1835 by Denmark's King Friedrich VI. had been used, the concession was refused because the heir to the throne Christian VIII wanted to tolerate a rail link between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea for fiscal reasons only on Danish territory.

Title page of the "Indispensable companion for rail travelers on King Christian VIII. Baltic Sea Railway between Altona and Kiel"

financing

In 1844, the share capital was distributed as follows (in percent):

  • 27.0%: total Danish state
  • 21.6%: City of Altona
  • 19.2%: private free float
  • 16.2%: City of Kiel
  • 13.1%: shares owned by the company
  • 01.1%: City of Neumünster
  • 01.1%: Altona support institute
  • 00.4%: City of Elmshorn
  • 00.3%: City of Pinneberg

Route determination

The English engineer Geo W. Buck was commissioned to plan the route . He came to the conclusion that because of the smaller difference in relief, the route should not be led via Segeberg , but via Barmstedt and Neumünster . After Klaus Panje, a citizen of Elmshorn, was offered a higher stake in the share capital and it was possible to develop a further West Holstein route from there, the company's general assembly in May 1842 decided on this westernmost route variant. Christian VIII granted the concession to build and operate the agent Carl Theodor Arnemann and the lawyer Friedrich Otto Theodor Lübbes on June 28, 1842. The terminal stations were to be built in the immediate vicinity of the respective port.

Other train stations were in Pinneberg , Tornesch , Elmshorn, Wrist , Neumünster and Bordesholm , as well as stopping points in Stellingen, Eidelstedt , Halstenbeck , Priesdorf , Horst , Dauenhof, Siebenecksknöll, Brockstedt, Pahdenstedt, Fohrde and Meimersdorf ( in the spelling from 1844 ).

Construction and opening

Site plan of the Altona train station with a connecting railway around 1890

Construction of the 105 kilometer long line, which was initially single-tracked except in Kiel, Neumünster and Altona, was in March 1843; Chief engineer (promoted to executive director of the company from 1845) was Eduard Dietz , who had previously worked for the Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company . It was opened under the name Christian VIII. Østersø Jernbane ( King Christian VIII. Baltic Sea Railway ) on September 18, 1844, the king's birthday. There was a party in the car hall of the not yet completed Altona train station and the first trip to Kiel in a journey time of three hours. This was the first railway line in the entire Danish state . Initially, ten locomotives, eight tenders, 37 passenger cars and 50 freight cars were available for operation. The maximum permissible speed was 45 km / h in daylight and 30 km / h in the dark.

Signal flags were used to signal train movements: if the flag was pointing in the direction of travel, "free travel" was required. If the flag was stuck in the ground, this signaled “caution is required”. The signaling guards were posted so close to the route that each guard could watch the next. At the beginning of the runway, 112 out of 226 men were deployed as signal keepers. The position of the switches was signaled to the “steam car driver” by switch discs in vertical or inclined positions at the switches.

Locomotive HORST , taken over in 1885 as Altona 5 from the Altona management

The rolling stock was ordered after an international tender: five steam locomotives each with the wheel arrangement "1A1" came from Kitson, Thompson & Lewison from Leeds and Hawthorn from Newcastle , the associated tenders from Wöhlert in Berlin , the passenger cars from Röhe & Wienbarg ( Altona), packing and freight wagons from Meyer ( Uetersen ), Knupper (Altona) and Schweffel & Howaldt (Kiel).

Timetable and time

  • The first train station in Altona with side extensions around 1890, seen from the south.

  • The passenger platforms behind the building were covered. After a daguerreotype by Carl Ferdinand Stelzner around 1844.

  • Railway station in Altona 1844, reversed daguerreotype in the Altona Museum by Carl Ferdinand Stelzner. around 1844 (late summer)

The geographical location of the route endpoints Altona and Kiel resulted in a difference of about 40 seconds with regard to the precise astronomical local time. Depending on the local time taken as a basis, a train between Altona and Kiel would have arrived “too early” or “too late” by almost a minute. In order to counter this problem, an artificial mean time was determined for the information in the timetable in cooperation with the Altona observatory and its director Heinrich Christian Schumacher . The remaining maximum time difference of 20 seconds to the local clocks was no longer perceived as noticeably as an apparent delay.

This problem, which also occurred with other railroads with increasing distances and traveling speeds, was incidentally the reason for the convening of the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC in October 1884 , at which it was agreed to divide the earth into 24  time zones , each of which was independent From the actual local time, a "standard time" applicable to all locations in this zone should be used. After the appropriate preparations, the " Central European Time " was introduced in Germany in 1893 , which enabled correct time information in the timetables across all locations and countries.

  • The train station in Kiel 1844

  • Elmshorn station in 1844

  • The train station in Tornesch 1850

Expansion of the railway network

Immediately after the completion of the main line, the construction of a connection from the lower bank of the Elbe to the Altona train station began, in which the freight wagons overcame the height difference of 30 meters by cable lift over a 210 meter long inclined plane ( see Schellfisch Tunnel / Altona port railway ). The commissioning took place in 1845. The port railway in Kiel, on the other hand, where the station is not so high above the harbor, had already started traffic on September 1, 1844.

The company also expanded its network in 1845 when it took over management of the 34-kilometer route of the Rendsburg-Neumünster Railway Company , which ran via Nortorf and Bokelholm. The English railway entrepreneur Sir Samuel Morton Peto tried to bring this railway into his sphere of influence by buying it; however, the AKE managed to acquire this valuable part from him on January 1, 1864. From then on, Peto withdrew more and more from Schleswig-Holstein, and the AKE became the most important railway company here.

The construction of the Hamburg-Altona connection line and the Klosterthor station , carried out together with the Senate of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg, led the AKE line to the vicinity of the Berlin station of the Berlin-Hamburg railway and the "Lübeck station" of the Lübeck-Büchener railway . At this end point, the Venlo train station on Grasbrookinsel was added in 1872 after the Hamburg Elbe bridges had been completed . Freight traffic began on September 30, 1865 and passenger traffic on July 16, 1866.

From the Neumünster junction, almost 90 kilometers of routes were opened in Ostholstein on May 31, 1866, namely Neumünster – Ascheberg – Eutin – Neustadt in Holstein, including a port railway there, and the cross-connection from Kiel via Preetz to Ascheberg. On December 10, 1875, the 45 kilometer Neumünster – Segeberg – Oldesloe route was added.

The railway line from Altona to Blankenese was opened on May 19, 1867 and its 18-kilometer extension to Wedel on December 2, 1883. This route became part of the Hamburg-Altonaer Stadt- und Vorortbahn from 1907 and, in addition to freight traffic (until 1997), part of the Hamburg S-Bahn from 1934 .

Company tours and investments

The AKE operated the railway line from Elmshorn to Glückstadt until December 31, 1862 , which the Glückstadt-Elmshorn Railway Company founded in March 1844 opened on July 20, 1845. The route was extended to Itzehoe twelve years later, on October 15, 1857.

From 1870 to 1884 the AKE ran the Schleswig Railways , in which it also had a capital stake.

AKE was also significantly involved in the Oldenburger Eisenbahn AG district . She has been in business since the first line Neustadt - Oldenburg in Holstein was opened on September 30, 1881.

The AKE also owned shares in the West Holstein Railway Company and the Wesselburen-Heider Railway Company which was later acquired .

nationalization

As a result of the German-Danish War , the Duchy of Holstein became part of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein in 1867 . From 1883, negotiations began on the purchase of the Altona-Kieler Eisenbahn by the Kingdom of Prussia , which took over the administration and management of the railway by the Royal Altona Railway Directorate on March 1, 1884, and moved into the provisional premises of the city of Altona. The Prussian State Railways became the owners of the AKE on January 1, 1887 (or July 1, 1887) for a purchase price of 70.65 million marks . The corporation was dissolved.

The current Hamburg-Altona-Kiel railway line is owned by DB Netz , a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG (as of 2009).

Members of the management

literature

  • Altonaer Museum (Ed.): Rails to Progress. 150 years of the railways in Schleswig-Holstein . tape 38 . Publ. D. of the Schleswig-Holstein State Archives, Hamburg 1994.
  • Hajo Brandenburg: The Altonaer Bahnhof through the ages . Ed .: Altonaer Museum. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg / Munich 2001, ISBN 3-933374-98-7 .
  • Christian L. Küster: A unique case - the town hall was initially a train station . In: Uwe Hornauer, Gerd Kaufmann (ed.): The Altona town hall 1898–1998 . Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-930802-94-5 .
  • Erich Staisch : The train to the north. 150 years of rail traffic in Schleswig-Holstein from the Christianbahn to electrification . E. Kabel, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-8225-0298-7 .
  • Indispensable companion for travelers on King Christian VIII. Baltic Sea Railway between Altona and Kiel . Altona 1844 (reprinted 1994).
  • Hans Bock: The march from Altona to Westerland . Boyens, Heide 1989, ISBN 3-8042-0458-9 .
  • Kiel-Altona Railway in Friedrich Wilhelm Frhr. von Reden : Die Eisenbahnen Deutschlands , statistical-historical presentation, 1st section, 2nd section, Ernst Siegfried Mittler, Berlin, Posen, Bromberg, 1845 pp. 1824–1870, ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the biography of Georg Hanssen as an honorary citizen of the city of Kiel, his role as a supporter of the railway line from Altona to Kiel is described in detail: Christa Geckeler: Georg Hanssen (1809-1894). In: Honorary Citizens of Kiel. State capital Kiel, accessed on September 10, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Oberpostamtszeitung , No. 186 of July 8, 1842, p. 1598 (Altona, July 2), online .
  3. ^ Heinrich Christian Schumacher, the Altona astronomer. (PDF; 2.49 MiB) In: GV aktuell special edition 2009. Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg • Landesbetrieb Geoinformation und Vermessung, 2009, p. 5 , accessed on May 16, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Erich Staisch : The Christian-VIII.-Ostseebahn , in: Hamburger Blätter für alle Freunde der Eisenbahn , 11th vol. Issue 4.
  5. ↑ a b Danske Jernbaner in Den Store Danske Lexikon.
  6. ↑ Erich Staisch: Hamburg Central Station , Hamburg, 1st edition 1981 ISBN 3-455-08768-X p. 22.
  7. ↑ a b Rüdiger Articus: From the early history of photography in Altona . In: Writings of the Schleswig-Holstein State Library . tape 18 . Heide / Holstein 1994, p. 52-59 .
  8. ↑ Railway time, introduction of time zones , in: Victor Frhr. von Röll : Enzyklopädie des Eisenbahnwesens , Volume 4. Berlin, Vienna 1913, pp. 149–152, online .
  9. ↑ (February 8, 1809 - August 12, 1870), Knight of the Danebrog Order since September 12, 1845 (1847, p. 77).
  10. ↑ (November 22, 1824 - July 29, 1862), lawyer in Kiel; Member from 1856 - 1862
  11. ↑ Proof of the royal. Danish court and state calendar (digitized editions) Ravit was a “member of the management”, but not its “director”.
  12. ↑ Officials at the roadside . In: Royal. Danish court and state calendar for the year 1846 , Altona, p. 461; last (verifiable!) entry as director in the court and state calendar for 1863, p. 646. Semper was also a woolen yarn manufacturer, a member of the Holstein congress and knight of the Danebrog order since September 12, 1845 (1847, p. 77).
  13. ↑ (September 14, 1795 - September 2, 1879), lawyer and notary in Altona
  14. ^ Merchant in Altona, Knight of the Danebrog Order (1856)