Angertal Railway

Route number (DB) :

2404

Course book section (DB) :

formerly 228 f

Route length:

17.2 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Legend

		Line from Duisburg-Wedau
		Lintorf
		Tiefenbroich ( Abzw )
	0.8	Anger (Abzw)
	0.0	Ratingen West
		Route to Düsseldorf-Rath
	1.1	Cromford ( Anst )
	1.6	Brügelmann (Anst)
		Ruhr Valley Railway Düsseldorf – Kettwig
		Angerbach
	3.1	Bagel AG (Anst)
		Angerbach
		A 3
		Angerbach
	6.4	Steinkothen 1911–1926 letter
		Angerbach
	9.3	Hofermühle
		Angerbach
		Angerbach
	10.6	Petersberg (Anst)
		Angerbach
	12.6	Flandersbach

	13.5	Rohdenhaus ( Awanst ) to the Rohdenhaus / Flandersbach lime works

	14.2	Rohdenhaus (old establishment)
	15.0	Flandersbach RKW (Anst)
		Rheinkalk works railway
	15.6	Wülfrath RWE (Anst)
	15.8	Prangenhaus (Anst)
		former Niederbergbahn from Velbert
	17.2	Wuelfrath
		former Niederbergbahn to Wuppertal

The Angertalbahn , also known as the Kalkbahn because of the lime transport, runs largely along the Angerbach between Ratingen West and Wülfrath . The 17.22-kilometer route was opened in 1903. The large limestone quarries around Wülfrath and on the upper Düssel could only be opened up after the railway was completed . Lime is transported on it from Wülfrath to the iron and steel works on the Rhine and Ruhr.

prehistory

The first plans for the Angertal Railway are said to have been developed as early as the early 19th century by the Ruhr industrialist Friedrich Harkort and the economist Friedrich List , who presented a plan for a German railway network as early as 1825. The lime industry in Angertal was already important back then. The focus of the Niederbergische Kalkbrennerei was on the "Kalkstraße" until it was developed by the railroad. It ran in the Angertal from Steinkothen via Cromford, past Lintorf and ended in Wittlaer on the Rhine. In the first half of the 19th century, the first limestone processing companies came into being in Angertal. Lime consumers such as the "Factory for the manufacture of English cast steel and all products resulting from it" founded by Friedrich Krupp in Essen in 1811 were in close proximity. Horse-drawn vehicles transported the limestone as far as the Rhine. A task that a railway could handle much better.

In 1856 the plan arose to build a railway from the Ratingen limestone quarries to Kalkum . The railway line from Düsseldorf to Münster already ran there . This plan did not materialize. In 1877 the Rheinische Eisenbahngesellschaft intended to build a branch line from Ratingen to Dornap , a station on the Prinz Wilhelm Railway . The Rheinische Eisenbahngesellschaft had built the Düsseldorf - Mettmann - Elberfeld - Dortmund line from 1873 to 1879 and, with the concession for this line, received approval to lay a branch line from Schöller to Ratingen. However, a stock market crash and the subsequent economic crisis let the plans burst.

It would take 13 years before the project was taken up again. The railway fever broke out in 1890. There were three drafts: The Rheinisch-Westfälische Kalksteinwerke (RWK) in Dornap and the city of Velbert preferred a route via Heiligenhaus , which should lead through a tunnel to Kettwig in front of the bridge. The city of Wülfrath wanted to run the train from Hofermühle to Hösel . A third draft provided for the construction of a line from Heiligenhaus - Hofermühle - Ratingen.

construction

In August the city of Wülfrath had the plan for the Angertal Railway drawn up. Mayor Albert Kirschbaum recognized the importance of railway construction for the economic development of Wülfrath at an early stage. Krupp , Thyssen and the Rheinische Stahlwerke had already acquired several farms in the area, under which there were lime deposits. On May 24, 1897, the Minister for Public Works in Berlin approved the draft and provided the funds for the construction of the railway. It took another four years until the groundbreaking ceremony, as residents such as the former municipality of Homberg-Bracht-Bellscheidt submitted an alternative route and residents in the Angertal sued against the construction of the railway. From 1901 to 1903, several hundred guest workers, mostly from Italy, built the route through the narrow, swampy Angertal in just 26 months. 14 bridges and underpasses had to be built. The swampy underground was u. a. fastened with waste material from mines.

The connecting curve Abzw Anger - Abzw Tiefenbroich in the direction of Lintorf station was opened on January 15, 1941. The original route section Bf Ratingen West - Abzw Anger was closed on January 9, 1983, the Abzw Anger was taken out of service in June 1983.

business

Class 216 with freight train entering Hofermühle, 1988

Former freight yard Flandersbach near Wülfrath on the Angertal Railway

The first train left on May 28, 1903. Five months later, August Thyssen founded the Rheinische Kalksteinwerke (now Rheinkalk ). In 1905 he had a siding to the Angertalbahn laid in Rohdenhaus. In the meantime, a large marshalling yard has been created at the Rohdenhaus alternative junction due to the constantly growing volume of traffic.

However, until the Second World War there were fewer and fewer connections. After 1945, the railway only hung one passenger car on the morning and evening trains. The journey through the Angertal took one and a half hours. The train stopped in Flandersbach, Hofermühle and Steinkothen. The buildings of the Steinkothen stop at that time, a service room and a waiting hall, were destroyed in the Second World War and were not rebuilt. In December 1952, the railway stopped passenger traffic there.

In the 1980s, the DB used its heaviest class 221 diesel locomotives on the Angertal Railway to pick up the heavy lime trains. Today DB and private railroad locomotives share these services.

The section Rohdenhaus - Wülfrath has not been used since September 1, 2006, the tracks from the former Wülfrath RWE junction up to and including Wülfrath station were dismantled from March to July 2010, after the line was farewell on March 6 and 7 was used again with two motorized trolleys from the Railroad Patrol association from Remscheid. The Wf signal box at Wülfrath station was occupied for the last time at this event.

Time and again, special trips with passenger trains took place on the Angertalbahn at irregular intervals, mostly historic trains, some of which were powered by steam engines .

About twelve pairs of freight trains are on the route every day.

outlook

Limestone mining, which accounts for a large part of freight traffic, is secured in the medium term at least until 2048, so that the route has a future. There were plans to reactivate passenger traffic using a regional railway (Circle Line) between Wülfrath and Ratingen West. Alternatively, a route via Velbert to Kettwig or between Wülfrath and Aprath was also under discussion.

literature

Bus & train 9/06;
Wülfrath accents. Special print for the 90th anniversary of the works railway, 1995.
Norbert Opfermann: Kalkbahn or Angertalbahn . In: The couch grass. Ratinger and Angerländer Heimatblätter . No. 64 , 1994, ISSN 0930-6560 , pp. 31-34 .

Web links

NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost: