Limbach (Sachs) train station
| Limbach (Sachs) | |
|---|---|
 The station building in 2015
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| Data | |
| Location in the network | Terminus (1872–1912; 2000/2001) Separation station (1912–1996) Through station (1996–2000) |
| Platform tracks | 1 |
| abbreviation | DLIB |
| Price range | 5 |
| opening | 1872 |
| Conveyance | 2000 |
| Architectural data | |
| Architectural style | Prussian historicism |
| location | |
| City / municipality | Limbach-Oberfrohna |
| Place / district | Limbach |
| country | Saxony |
| Country | Germany |
| Coordinates | 50 ° 51 '40 " N , 12 ° 46' 25" E |
| Height ( SO ) | 369.32 m |
| Railway lines | |
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| Railway stations and stops in Saxony | |
The Limbach (Sachs) Bahnhof is a former railway station in the Saxon town of Limbach-Oberfrohna decommissioned and since 2000th It belonged to category 5 of the Deutsche Bahn and had a platform track. The station is located in the Limbach district and, along with the station in the Oberfrohna district, was one of the final stops on the Limbach-Wittgensdorf route .
The building was built in 1871 in the historical Prussian style and was officially opened a year later as the terminus. With the opening of the Limbach-Wüstenbrand line , the importance of the station grew and so the entire facility, which included a building for freight traffic, a locomotive shed, a coal deport and a water station, had to be expanded and expanded. After the Limbach-Wittgensdorf line was shut down shortly after the political change in 1989/1990 and freight traffic became less and less important, the train station was immediately abandoned and finally closed to passenger traffic in 2000. After the turn of the millennium, the former station building was placed under a preservation order, but since then it has been in an unrenovated condition and left to decay. In 2015, the baggage handling section and an intermediate building had to be demolished due to weather damage. In October 2019, the city council announced that it would demolish the remaining reception building.
location
The station building is about 700 meters northeast of Limbach city center. The area is located on the Ostring street, which flows west into Burgstädter Straße. To the east the route crosses Hohensteiner Strasse; the railway area lies roughly between these two main traffic routes. The station forecourt consists largely of a paved area with parking facilities and is located in front of the former reception wing, which was demolished in 2015 due to deterioration. The baggage handling area was also located in this area of the building. To the west, an allotment garden borders the area, which is also located on the Ostring road. Directly from the forecourt of the train station, between the reception hall and the garden, several tracks led to the freight station building, which is located exactly opposite the main building.
The Am Tännigt residential area is also in the immediate vicinity . It was built in the 1930s and expanded several times in the following years. The street that leads into this residential area crosses in an easterly direction with the street Ostring and bears the name Am Tännigt . Immediately after the confluence, it crosses the Limbach-Wittgensdorf railway line under two small bridges. The residential area is in turn adjoined by an allotment garden that extends from Am Tännigt street to the railway area at the level of the freight station.
Railway lines
The station is on the Limbach-Wittgensdorf route and is the second or penultimate stop on this route after Oberfrohna train station. In the Oberfrohna district, the route begins with a single track and is divided into several side tracks about 150 meters in front of the station building in Limbach. These sections were dismantled one after the other in the years following the closure. About 400 meters after the station, the route is divided into two sections: The main track continues to the stop in Hartmannsdorf in an easterly direction to Wittgensdorf. The second track of the branch line leading to Wüstenbrand branches off to the south of the main line and runs parallel to it for about 800 to 900 meters, before it branches off in a south-easterly direction to Kellers at the intersection of the streets Ostring and Feldweg. The track system on the Limbach-Wittgensdorf line has been preserved to this day. The section of the other route to KÄNDERER and Röhrsdorf has since been dismantled.
history
Station name
During its operating time, the station had five different names, in detail these were:
- until September 30, 1902: Limbach
- until April 30, 1904: Limbach near Chemnitz
- until June 30, 1911: Limbach (Saxony)
- until December 21, 1933: Limbach (Sa)
- from December 22, 1933: Limbach (Sachs)
Construction of the first line
The first considerations for the construction of a railway line to Limbach already existed in 1869. However, the government in Dresden decided against building a railway line to Limbach, despite the fact that the city at that time had twice the number of inhabitants than that of Burgstädt and it there were also greater challenges in the topographical sense. So the Dresden government came to the decision that the route should run from Chemnitz to Burgstädt despite the existing conditions. The fact that the decision in favor of Burgstädt was made by a large majority was not least thanks to the Burgstädter MP Hahn, who campaigned for a rail connection to Chemnitz.
On April 8, 1872, a so-called "Sackbahn", starting from Wittgensdorf with a stop in Hartmannsdorf to Limbach, was put into operation. This gave the city of Limbach a rail connection for the first time. So it was now also possible to get to Chemnitz and continue to Leipzig. However, some of the residents were not very satisfied with the existing railway line and so an attempt was made to achieve further connection options and to expand the line expansion. The city of Limbach made numerous attempts between 1890 and 1895 to make improvements in rail traffic and to expand the existing route. An electrically operated train to Waldenburg was planned, which the neighboring communities wanted to finance themselves. The railway line, which was to run from Limbach via Rußdorf, Falken, Langenchursdorf, Grumbach and Oberwinkel, was never built by the Dresden government due to financial reasons and disagreements between the affected communities.
Extension of the station facilities
Towards the end of the 1890s, the route network was expanded after Wüstenbrand. This route led over a siding, which branched off from the Limbach train station and led to Kändler via Röhrsdorf to Rabenstein and on to Grüna. The final stop was in Wüstenbrand near Hohenstein-Ernstthal . Thus, the city was also connected to the coal railway, which ran from Wüstenbrand via Lugau to Oelsnitz , located in the Ore Mountains . The line was inaugurated on December 1, 1897. With the opening of the Limbach – Wüstenbrand line , which took place in 1897, the Limbach train station was then comprehensively expanded. A completely new section of the station for the trains to and from Wüstenbrand was laid out on the forecourt and a large wooden extension was built on the goods shed . The facility also received a turntable . With the opening of the route, a locomotive station for the Chemnitz Hbf was set up in Limbach . A two-tier engine shed, a coal shed and a water station were built. With the opening of the Limbach (Sa) –Oberfrohna line in 1912, the station was rebuilt.
With the interruption of continuous operations on the route to Wüstenbrand at the turn of the year 1950/1951, the Limbach (Sachs) station lost much of its operational importance, as only a small volume of goods traffic was carried out on the remaining stretch to Röhrsdorf.
Extension of the route to Oberfrohna
In 1899 there were efforts to further expand the Limbach-Wittgensdorf railway line. At that time, many petitions were received by the government in Dresden. The then city council sent these petitions to the government with the aim of realizing further routes. Among other things, a route was to be built around Oberfrohna. Numerous merchants and factory owners welcomed the plans for the proposed routes. The same goes for the merchant Rittberger, who owned a factory building on Karlstrasse and supported the planning of a connection in Waldenburg to the Glauchau-Wurzen route . In 1908 negotiations were held in the state parliament in Dresden about extending the route. The new route was to be extended from the terminus in Oberfrohna to Niederfrohna, Mühlau, Tauscha and to connect to the branch line of the Glauchau-Wurzen line in Penig. A connection to Leipzig would also have been conceivable. The then mayor of Oberfrohna, Willy Böhme, supported this project and was also involved in its planning. However, he should have bought the site for the future route and made it available to the railway administration free of charge.
On June 30, 1913, the extension of the route to Oberfrohna with a train and two locomotives was officially opened at 10:45 a.m. The viaduct on the Kellerwiese had been built and inaugurated a year earlier using stamped concrete.
After the outbreak of the First World War on August 1, 1914, no further plans for a planned extension of the line to Penig could be implemented. The city of Limbach did not have the money to finance the expansion. In addition, train traffic was increasingly restricted due to the growing number of motor vehicles. During the Second World War , rail traffic came to a complete standstill because day trains were canceled and the route was not of great importance for the transport of ammunition material.
German Democratic Republic, turn and decline
After the founding of the GDR on October 7, 1949, the facility became a separation station. After numerous companies joined the Association of Publicly Owned Enterprises (VEB), the freight traffic in Limbach station rose again. For more than 30 years, the trains have transported textile goods, machine parts and other numerous goods from the final stop in Oberfrohna and Limbach via Hartmannsdorf and Wittgensdorf to Chemnitz.
In the course of the political change in 1989/1990 and the associated closure of the individual companies, the numbers of goods traffic fell drastically. The train station was also affected by the closure of the industrial plants in Limbach-Oberfrohna and the surrounding area at the beginning of the 1990s. In the period that followed, ever lower numbers of passengers were registered. On January 1, 1996, freight traffic was completely stopped. Passenger traffic continued for four more years until the turn of the millennium. On February 24, 2000, the Federal Railway Authority (EBA) announced that it would shut down the section from Oberfrohna to Limbach. The area between Limbach and Wittgensdorf was closed to train traffic over a year later on December 11, 2001. Due to the existing freight traffic between Hartmannsdorf and Wittgensdorf, the office legally implemented the adjustment on August 31, 2003. On December 11, 2005, the section up to the connection to the tank farm in Hartmannsdorf was converted into a siding at Wittgensdorf station. Passenger traffic was canceled on May 28, 2000 on the entire route.
Development from 2000
The years after the closure
After the cessation of passenger traffic on May 28, 2000, the buildings were finally closed to the public and accordingly secured. In the years following the closure, entering the facility was strictly forbidden. Warning signs that were put up in different places should point this out. Only the station forecourt could still be used as a parking space.
Since the mid-2000s there has been a bus connection to replace the disbanded rail transport. The express bus route 526 was opened on December 11, 2005. There are three stops in the city that are served every 3/4 hour. However, the former train station is not a starting point for buses and is not used as a bus stop. The current stations are about 500 to 800 meters south and west. The route with a total length of 17 km, three further stops in downtown Chemnitz, is marketed by the Association of Regional Transport Erzgebirge. Part of the bus route runs along the A4 federal motorway, with a journey time of just 30 minutes.
On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the town charter, trips took place for the first time since the closure on September 27th and 28th, 2008. On the former route, a motorized trolley with a sidecar, which could carry up to ten people, alternated between the Oberfrohna train station and the Limbach stop.
Connection to the Chemnitz Stadtbahn
As part of the Chemnitz model, Limbach-Oberfrohna was to be connected to the Stadtbahn in Chemnitz via a large part of the existing train route via Wittgensdorf and Hartmannsdorf. According to plans by the city councils of Limbach-Oberfrohna and Chemnitz, the route would lead via KÄNDERER and Chemnitz-Röhrsdorf to the center of Chemnitz. In 2003, the Limbach-Oberfrohna Council drafted a cost estimate of up to 16 million euros for the infrastructure project. Seven years later, in 2010, a decision was to be made about the realization of the route project; the Free State of Saxony rejected this on the grounds that the amount stated was too high and that they were not prepared to bear their own share of the development costs for new hybrid trains.
For several years now, some of the city's residents have been criticizing the poor, run-down condition of the main building and the entire area. Due to the shutdown and declining maintenance, the facility is repeatedly used for illegal waste dumping. Strangers regularly dispose of all kinds of waste on the site, often on the platform or next to the old tracks. The city spoke out against this approach and often carries out specially organized clean-up and clean-up operations. In addition to illegal waste disposal, the main building in particular is repeatedly exposed to damage from vandalism and demolition. This is facilitated by the barrier-free access to the site and the direct proximity to the Ostring street. Damage to the building due to vandalism was already reported in the first few years after the station was closed. So people tried repeatedly to gain access to the house. For this purpose, window panes were often destroyed and doors broken open. When these crimes became known to the town hall, appropriate protective measures were taken. Windows were bricked up, first on the ground floor and later on the upper floors. The doors of the main and side entrances were closed with boards to prevent entry.
Partial demolition in 2015
In June 2015, the city council decided to demolish the side wing, in which the reception and luggage hall was located, as well as the intermediate building, in which there were various social rooms, between the two main buildings. The roofs of the baggage handling and the intermediate wing showed considerable defects in some places due to the lack of maintenance and care. The damage increased when, in the winter of 2014/2015, the roof structure of the intermediate wing gave way under the weight of the snow on it and collapsed. The council decided that these two parts of the building should be demolished, as falling objects such as roof tiles could pose a danger to passers-by and vehicle drivers. The following month, July, the demolition work began. The two risalits , the wooden roofing of the platform and the building of the freight station were in good condition and have been preserved for the time being. In response to a request, the city council stated that there was no utilization plan for the remaining buildings and the area.
Discussions about future use
In mid-August 2019, a fire broke out in the reception building at the height of the roof. The Limbach fire brigade and the police fire brigade were on site shortly afterwards and were able to bring the fire under control within a few minutes. Parts of the roof structure had to be removed in order to extinguish embers. The fire service was over after about three hours. As the police later announced, the cause of the fire was not known because the source of the fire could not be found. The amount of property damage was put at several thousand euros.
At the end of October 2019, the city council planned to demolish the reception building including the wooden platform roof. Upon request to Lord Mayor Jesko Vogel, he informed that there were no uses for the station building. The city had already had numerous possible uses checked over the past few years. However, the building is in such a bad condition that a new use seems impossible. The Limbach-Oberfrohna Railway Association has spoken out against demolition for years. However, there were no more precise solutions to save the ensemble. A possible reactivation of the former Limbach-Wittgensdorf route would not help save the station. As part of the Chemnitz model, no stopping point is planned at the current location of the station. These would be built elsewhere in the future, u. a. on Burgstädter Strasse and on the Kellerwiesen Viaduct. The main building was placed under a preservation order after it was closed in 2000. On request, the district of Zwickau confirmed that the Office for Monument Protection had submitted an application for a demolition permit to the Zwickau Regional Office for Monument Preservation. This agreed to the demolition of the building. However, the application to the Office for Nature Conservation must be checked, since numerous animal and plant species have developed and settled on the facility during the years of closure. The city has not yet given a description of the animal species that live there.
In November, the city council passed another meeting in principle to demolish the station. The majority of politicians were in favor of removing the wasteland and at the same time speaking out against redevelopment. It is planned that after the demolition of the station building, the area will be renatured and planted. However, the resolution also provides for the former train station to be renovated and used for other purposes. If a private investor is found by September 2020, the decision to demolish the building can be lifted.
Towards the end of January 2020, the remnants of the freight yard were removed. The demolition work lasted until mid-February.
gallery
The train station in Limbach on a historic postcard from 1914
A hundred years later: The main building from the street Ostring seen from
The platform with the wooden roof; left of it the tracks of the Limbach-Wittgensdorf railway line (status October 2019)
The platform with the roof (as of October 2019)
The wooden roof structure of the platform (view from below)
One of the numerous pillars of the platform roof
The tracks of the Limbach-Wittgensdorf route to the east
The freight yard building (as of October 2019)
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Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Limbach (Sachs) station on Google Maps
- ↑ The course of the former Limbach-Wittgensdorf and Limbach Wüstenbrand routes on Google Maps
- ^ City history - The railway from Limbach-Oberfrohna to Chemnitz
- ^ The railway to Limbach-Oberfrohna
- ↑ Stephan Häupel, Eberhard Schramm, Jürgen Viehweger: branch lines to Wüstenbrand. Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 1998.
- ^ Limbach – Wittgensdorf railway line - efforts to establish a connection to Leipzig
- ^ Wittgensdorf – Limbach – Oberfrohna railway line
- ↑ Bus timetable for bus line 526
- ^ Line 526 Chemnitz - Limbach-Oberfrohna
- ^ The Chemnitz rail model - extension to Limbach-Oberfrohna
- ↑ John Pöhlandt: discussion about demolition of Limbacher station. In: Free Press. Medien Union GmbH Ludwigshafen, January 9, 2018, accessed on April 4, 2018 .
- ↑ Fire brigade extinguishes fire at the train station in Limbach - Freie Presse, August 20, 2019
- ↑ John Pöhlandt: New hurdle for demolition of the station in Limbach-Oberfrohna - Free Press, October 23, 2019
- ↑ City councils vote for the demolition of the Limbach train station - Free Press, December 2, 2019