Dillenburg depot
The depot Dillenburg (symbol FDIL) was an important depot (Bw) of the Federal Railways Directorate Frankfurt on the Dill Railway victories - pouring the station Dillenburg .
At the time of steam operation, over 110 steam locomotives of the series 01 , 38 , 39 , 44 , 50 , 55 , 65 , 86 , 93 and 94 were located here.
The Dillenburg depot was the last Bundesbahn depot to use class 94 5 steam locomotives . Thus, in the 1970s , Dillenburg gained national fame among railway enthusiasts.
Land railroad time
With the construction of a single-track railway line between Deutz and Gießen in the years 1859–1862 and the division into four sections Deutz – Eitorf / Eitorf – Betzdorf / Betzdorf – Dillenburg / Dillenburg – Gießen, the section stations, including Dillenburg, received operational facilities for maintenance of locomotives. The line was opened on January 14, 1862. Due to the increasing number of trains, the line was expanded to double tracks as early as 1864.
The facilities in Dillenburg comprised a four-sided rectangular locomotive shed, a 20-meter turntable for turning the locomotives as well as a 50 m long coal bunker and a water tower .
The profitable business with the railways and the region's very good quality iron ore quickly spurred the construction of further branch lines in the Dill area. From 1870 to 1872, the Schelden Valley Railway was built from Dillenburg to the then Nikolausstollen and opened for freight train traffic on February 11, 1872. The clearance for passenger traffic took place on May 8, 1896. In 1890, construction of the Dillenburg – Straßebersbach line (now Ewersbach ) began. It was opened on April 29, 1892. The Herborn – Niederwalgern line was built from 1894 to 1902, and the Herborn – Westerburg line was opened as part of the Westerwaldquerbahn on May 1, 1906 .
| Type | model series | number |
|---|---|---|
| Passenger locomotive | P 4 1 | 3 |
| Passenger locomotive | P 4 2 | 2 |
| Freight locomotive | P 5 1 | 2 |
| Freight locomotive | G 7 1 | 6th |
| Freight locomotive | G 7 3 | 2 |
| Tank locomotive | T 3 | 4th |
| Tank locomotive | T 7 | 3 |
| Tank locomotive | T 9 1 | 2 |
| Tank locomotive | T 9 3 | 1 |
A further increase in train traffic in Dillenburg brought the expansion of the Schelden Valley Railway from Nikolausstollen to Wallau (Lahn) in 1909 to 1911 and the construction of the section from Haiger to Siegen in 1911 to 1915, which connected the Dill route with the The Ruhr-Sieg route led to what later became the main Gießen – Siegen – Hagen route. As a result, the number of locomotives to be maintained increased significantly, so that the railway depot was expanded in 1915. This expansion included the construction of a roundhouse with 16 parking spaces and the associated, electrically operated, 20-meter turntable . The route between the railway stations in Herrnberg and Hirzenhain on the Nikolausstollen – Wallau (Lahn) route had a steep section with an incline of 1:17 (59 per thousand). This section was designed as a cogwheel route. To operate this section of the route, six T 26 series locomotives were located in the depot.
The now accumulating quantities of cargo on the branch lines made the construction of a freight station necessary. This freight depot, which is still almost fully preserved today, but only used by a third, was set up in the valley between Dillenburg and Niederscheld and expanded again and again in the following years. For this purpose, an increasing number of shunting locomotives , primarily the G7 series and later the G8, had to be kept available in the depot .
| Type | model series | number |
|---|---|---|
| Passenger locomotive | P 4 1 | 4th |
| Passenger locomotive | P 4 2 | 3 |
| Freight locomotive | P 5 1 | 4th |
| Freight locomotive | G 7 1 | 7th |
| Freight locomotive | G 7 2 | 5 |
| Tank locomotive | T 3 | 4th |
| Tank locomotive | T 7 | 3 |
| Tank locomotive | T 9 3 | 5 |
| Cogwheel tender locomotive | T 26 | 6th |
Further construction work was carried out between 1918 and 1919 with the establishment of the car workshop, the common rooms and a 1000 m³ elevated tank in the mountain above the depot.
Reichsbahn time
The expansion of the depot was also continued under the new Reichsbahn. Construction work on a new and modern coal, sand and purification plant began in 1922. The systems were built in the mountainside south of the existing locomotive shed. The weighing bunker of the coaling plant was filled using an electrically operated control track crane that drove on a concrete track directly above the coal bunker. This track was connected to the Schelden Valley Railway. This meant that the coal bunker could be filled from above using a bulk goods wagon. Furthermore, the the Bekohlungskran for repairs was in the Bw be towed. The work was completed in 1925.
In 1923 the Bw between the turntable and the coaling plant was expanded to include a second turntable (23 meters) with 23 sidings.
The 94 series is based in Dillenburg. With their Riggenbach counter-pressure brake , it was possible for the locomotives to run the steep section of the Dillenburg – Wallau route, which ran in cogwheel mode, in friction mode. The T 26 series was thus withdrawn from Dillenburg.
In 1926, construction of the Haiger – Rabenscheid line (from 1939 to Breitscheid ) began and was opened on December 15, 1926.
Between 1934 and 1935 the locomotive shed was expanded from 16 to 25 stands, turntable 1 was enlarged from 20 to 23 meters, an axle changing system for locomotive axles was installed in shed stands 22 and 23, and the tracks at stands 24 and 25 were shortened and the gates walled up. A lathe shop and a foundry were set up in the two stands. Stand 26 received a gantry crane, which enabled large parts to be removed and installed on the locomotives.
The following locomotive stations belonged to the Dillenburg depot at this time: Ewersbach , Gladenbach , Gönnern and Rennerod .
| Type | model series | number | Numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger locomotive | 38 | 5 | 38 1263, 1264, 1705, 1707, 2392 |
| Freight locomotive | 55 | 12 | 55 2595, 3435, 4069, 4160, 4275, 4374, 4578, 4647, 4759, 4943, 4955, 4999 |
| Freight locomotive | 58 | 13 | 58 1253, 1380, 1436, 1449, 1451, 1538, 1541, 1647, 1750, 1841, 1895, 2043, 2115 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 93 | 8th | 93 575, 576, 577, 586, 622, 738, 739 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 94 | 14th | 94 413, 691, 1073, 1188, 1232, 1533, 1538, 1539, 1540, 1541, 1542, 1545, 1546, 1639 |
Second World War
During the Second World War, the Dillenburg station was initially a secondary target and later the main target of the Allied forces due to its freight yard, which had grown into a marshalling yard, and also because of the nearby arms industry. Several low-flying aircraft and bombing raids were flown onto the railway facilities between October 1944 and March 1945 and left severe damage to the station and the surrounding area, which is still visible today. The largest attack took place on March 13, 1945. During the attacks, the second turntable and the coaling plant were badly hit and the marshalling yard was disabled.
| Type | model series | number | Numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger locomotive | 38 | 5 | 38 1264, 1707, 2211, 2663, 3379 |
| Passenger locomotive | 39 | 2 | 39 221, 222 |
| Freight locomotive | 42 | 1 | 42 2376 |
| Freight locomotive | 44 | 36 | 44 019, 040, 042, 067, 069, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 299, 355, 358, 364, 547, 580, 594, 595, 616, 619, 794, 803, 805, 806, 807 , 847, 891, 1069, 1396, 1397, 1399, 1420, 1457, 1458, 1671, 1686 |
| Freight locomotive | 50 | 13 | 50 309, 311, 607, 1438, 1647, 1726, 1738, 1742, 1760, 2086, 2241, 2966, 3084 |
| Freight locomotive | 55 | 1 | 55 1882 |
| Freight locomotive | 56 | 4th | 56 380, 603, 661, 845 |
| Freight locomotive | 57 | 2 | 57 2522, 3415 |
| Freight locomotive | 58 | 6th | 58 1489, 5567, 5585, 5590, 5598, 5623 |
| Passenger train tender locomotive | 78 | 1 | 78 226 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 91 | 1 | 91 1750 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 93 | 8th | 93 576, 577, 586, 738, 739, 769, 869, 1122 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 94 | 14th | 94 553, 615, 691, 1073, 1188, 1533, 1538, 1539, 1540, 1541, 1542, 1545, 1546, 1639 |
German Federal Railroad
When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, the Deutsche Reichsbahn was renamed the Deutsche Bundesbahn , for which the first few years were marked by reconstruction and restructuring. The depot, which until then was essentially the home of freight locomotives, now received an increasing number of class 39 (P 10) locomotives for passenger and express train traffic on the Gießen – Siegen – Cologne – Aachen main line. Furthermore, in the Federal Railway Directorate Frankfurt / M. the locomotives of the series 44 moved together to the three depots Friedberg , Hanau and Dillenburg. In 1946, the 58 series was finally replaced by the “Jumbos” of the 44 series in the Dillenburg depot, which was then to be the most popular series in the depot. In 1951, this led to the highest number of locomotives in the history of the Dillenburg depot. A total of 112 locomotives from six series were based here.
| Type | model series | number | Numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger locomotive | 39 | 15th | 39 050, 064, 116, 123, 125, 128, 130, 138, 156, 220, 221, 222, 223, 232, 237 |
| Freight locomotive | 44 | 46 | 44 042, 067, 185, 186, 188, 240, 299, 344, 358, 364, 377, 413, 441, 465, 510, 529, 549, 574, 580, 594, 616, 618, 619, 798, 803 , 805, 807, 869, 891, 1015, 1069, 1097, 1117, 1222, 1243, 1396, 1397, 1420, 1435, 1454, 1458, 1477, 1483, 1529, 1671, 1763 |
| Freight locomotive | 50 | 16 | 50 199, 309, 311, 509, 604, 607, 939, 1088, 1253, 1259, 1331, 1401, 1573, 1647, 1726, 1727 |
| Freight locomotive | 55 | 13 | 55 2724, 3336, 3414, 3520, 3625, 3744, 4091, 4222, 4956, 5012, 5081, 5313, 5504 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 93 | 9 | 93 586, 658, 669, 796, 995, 997, 1031, 1122, 1200 |
| Freight train tank locomotive | 94 | 9 | 94 1245, 1533, 1538, 1539, 1541, 1542, 1545, 1639, 1652 |
But the end of the trains hauled by steam locomotives was to begin creeping up. In 1956, the new class VT 95 and VT 98 railcars from the Gießen depot in Dillenburg appeared for the first time and competed with the class 94 steam locomotives on the branch lines. The construction program for the standard electric locomotives also showed the way into the future, because in 1959 the electrification of the Ruhr-Sieg line began and passenger traffic on part of the Westerwaldquerbahn was discontinued. Starting in 1960, the class 93 was replaced by the class 86 locomotives , which operated here until 1966, and from 1962 the class 39 was gradually replaced by the “queen of the rails”, the class 01 . The following class 01 locomotives were located at the Dillenburg depot until 1965:
| Type | model series | number | Numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Express locomotive | 01 | 9 | 01 006, 007, 020, 039, 077, 080, 091, 099, 171 |
In May 1965, electric train operations began on the Ruhr-Sieg route . For this purpose, the hub 1 was equipped with an overhead line spider and the states 1 to 8 of the engine shed with contact wire provided to the now frequently occurring electric locomotives of the series E 10 , E 40 , E 41 , E 50 and E 94 under noted in the engine shed.
In 1966 the great death of the steam locomotive began, also in Dillenburg. This year 37 steam locomotives were decommissioned in Dillenburg alone and handed over to the welding torch. At the same time, most of the iron ore mines in the dill area were shut down. The new locomotives of the 65 series gave a short guest appearance in Dillenburg from 1967 to 1968 with the locomotives 65 008 to 65 011.
On April 28, 1967, the last steam locomotive of the class 44 of the depot Dillenburg was adopted and in 1970 the first diesel locomotives of the class 212 of the depot Gießen and depot Siegen were used in Dillenburg. These included the ten class 213 diesel locomotives from the Gießen depot, which were equipped with additional brakes for use on steep sections. This made the class 94 locomotives superfluous.
On June 27, 1969, the last locomotive of the class 55 of the Dillenburg depot and also of the Federal Railway Directorate Frankfurt / M., The 55 3528, was adopted with a special run. The shunting tasks in the station, which had always been one of the main tasks of the class 55 in Dillenburg, were taken over by the diesel locomotives of the class V 60 of the Gießen depot, which started their work from this point on.
The last locomotives of the class 50 lost their field of activity as freight locomotives on the branch lines due to the increasing number of diesel locomotives of the class V 100. On April 1, 1972, the last five locomotives of this series were handed over to the Limburg depot.
On May 2, 1972, with the special run of locomotive 94 1538, the 110-year history of steam locomotives in the Dillenburg depot, whose area of operation once stretched from Aachen to Würzburg and Mannheim, ended.
As a result, the depot had only become a place of use for diesel and electric locomotives from other depots. Only a few small locomotives Köf I and Köf II were located here for a short time. The second turntable and the weighing bunker were dismantled in the years that followed.
Passenger traffic on the Haiger – Breitscheid branch line , the so-called Balkan Express, ended on May 31, 1980, and freight traffic was discontinued in 1997. At the end of May 1987, the Schelden Valley Railway lost passenger traffic and freight traffic to Niedereisenhausen was also discontinued. From this point on there was no longer any passenger traffic on the Dietzhölztalbahn; Freight trains, however, drove to Ewersbach until the end of 2000. On June 8, 2001, the last regular train ran on the Herborn – Hartenrod route.
A repair department for lattice boxes was housed in the engine shed for some time. On January 1, 1983, the Dillenburg depot was officially closed, making it a branch of the Gießen depot.
today
Of the former nearly 800 people who worked at the depot and the station Dillenburg are now only a dispatcher at the dispatcher interlocking Df, two points guards on the interlocking Dn and Ds and a shunter left.
Some of the steam locomotives once used in the Dillenburg depot have been preserved for posterity.
The locomotive 94 1538 (094 538-6) was erected as a locomotive monument in the Gönnern station in the same year after it was retired on April 18, 1972 and after 45 years of uninterrupted activity in the Dillenburg depot. It was acquired in 1997 and with the help of the Eifelbahn e. V. fetched from the base. Since its extensive reconditioning in 1998, it was operational again until it was seriously damaged and in front of special trains first from West (Eifelbahn) later from East Germany (Rennsteigbahn) in use nationwide.
The locomotive 55 3528 (055 528-4) was erected as a locomotive monument in Netphen-Deutz after it was retired. After the monument was dismantled, it has been preserved and can be admired today in the Technik Museum Speyer and the second class 55 locomotive, 55 3345, is stored in the Bochum-Dahlhausen Railway Museum and can be viewed there.
The freight locomotive 44 903 has been erected as a steam locomotive monument at the main station in Emden since 1981. It was based in Dillenburg between 1955 and 1956 and was converted to oil firing in 1960. This resulted in a change in the locomotive number to 043 903-4 with the introduction of EDP numbers in 1968. 043 903-4 drove on October 26, 1977 with train 81453, the last regular train of the Deutsche Bundesbahn to be hauled by a steam locomotive.
As a result of the removal of vegetation in the course of track construction work on the Dill route and the Ruhr-Sieg route , one has recently had a clear view of the remaining round locomotive sheds, which had been left to decay, as well as the workshop buildings, the locomotive line and the mighty concrete block of the coaling system former depot.
The car workshop and the sanding system were demolished during the track construction work in spring 2008. The caretaker signal boxes Dl (locomotive signal box) and Dr (shunting signal box) are still preserved but no longer in operation. Platform 4, from which the trains used to go to Gönnern and the Dietzhölztal to Ewersbach, is still in existence, but now has no function or tracks.
The only connection besides the main line that has survived is the Betzdorf – Haiger (–Dillenburg) line . Today it is operated by the Hessian State Railway. A section of the former Dillenburg – Ewersbach branch line now serves as a siding to the Thyssen-Krupp-Nirosta stainless steel plant.
The former marshalling yard is now only used as a transfer station for the supply of the Haiger station, a resident scrap dealer, a wood loading facility and the stainless steel plant with coil trains. A class 294 diesel locomotive has been assigned to Dillenburg station for this task .
As the last part under maintenance, the impeller, which used to stand near the locomotive line, has survived as a symbol of the Dillenburg depot at the station building.
A future commercial use of the area is occasionally discussed.
Literature / evidence
- Hansjürgen Wenzel: The series 39. The history of the Prussian P 10. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3-88255-138-0 .
- Bernd Krauskopf, Reinhard Vogelbusch: The Dillenburg depot . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1983, ISBN 3-88255-315-4 .
- Horst J. Obermayer, Manfred Weisbrod: Special edition series 94 . In: Eisenbahn-Journal II / 85 . ISSN 0720-051X .
- Dirk Rohde, Markus Tiedtke: System planning for the depot . In: Eisenbahn-Journal . ISBN 3-89610-116-1 .
- Prototype and model . In: Railway courier . No. 387 , 2004.
Web links
- of the Bw Dillenburg
- Film about railway depots in Hessen, including Dillenburg (2013)
- Track plan Dillenburg station 1978 ( Memento from November 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Pictures of the Dillenburg depot and the Schelden Valley Railway by Ulrich Budde
- Pictures from the Dillenburg depot April 30, 1972 from the turntable online forum
- Pictures from the Dillenburg depot and the Schelden Valley Railway 1970 from the turntable online forum
- Pictures from the Dillenburg depot and train station in June 1970 from the turntable online forum
- Pictures from the Dillenburg depot and train station in June 1970 from the turntable online forum
- Monument locomotive 44 903
Coordinates: 50 ° 44 ′ 3 " N , 8 ° 17 ′ 43" E