Zbąszynek railway station
| Zbąszynek | |
|---|---|
 Zbąszynek reception building
|
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| Data | |
| Location in the network | Separation station |
| Design | Through station |
| Platform tracks | 6th |
| IBNR | 5100071 |
| opening | 1925 |
| Architectural data | |
| architect | Wilhelm Beringer |
| location | |
| City / municipality | Zbąszynek |
| Voivodeship | Lebus |
| Country | Poland |
| Coordinates | 52 ° 14 '33 " N , 15 ° 49' 5" E |
| Railway lines | |
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| List of train stations in Poland | |
The Zbąszynek station is a passenger and freight station in the Polish municipality of Zbąszynek ( German Neu Bentschen ) in the Lubusz Voivodeship . It is an important railway junction in the Pan-European Transport Corridor II between Berlin and Warsaw . It was built in the 1920s as the Neu Bentschen border station together with the railway settlement of the same name in the German Empire on the border with Poland established in the Versailles Treaty .
history
prehistory
With the entry into force of the Versailles Treaty, the station of Bentschen ( Polish: Zbąszyń ), to date the most important junction on the Frankfurt (Oder) –Posen railway line , came to the newly formed Republic of Poland in January 1920. The new border ran immediately to the west of the station. Since the line represented one of the most important traffic axes between Central and Eastern Europe, the establishment of border stations was necessary in order to continue to operate the traffic. On the Polish side, the Zbąszyn station, which was already equipped with the most important necessary systems for train handling and dispatching, was used as a hub. From the direction of Germany, three lines now crossed the new border, of which the Frankfurt – Poznań line and the Guben – Bentschen line also had significant transit traffic. The Deutsche Reichsbahn set up the stations of Stentsch on the route to Frankfurt (Oder) and Bomst on the route to Guben provisionally as border stations. The station of Groß Dammer on the branch line from Landsberg (Warthe) to Bentschen also became a border station from November 1920.
Construction of the station
The operation of three border stations with a distance of only a few kilometers meant considerable personnel expenditure for the Reichsbahn and customs, and all three stations were structurally hardly suitable for the new task. Stentsch still served as a border station for passenger traffic until 1930. The Reichsbahn soon decided to solve this situation by building a new border station, which should also serve the north-south traffic between Landsberg an der Warthe and Guben. The alternative solution of joint German-Polish border clearance in Bentschen had previously been rejected. Therefore, the station did not originate in one of the existing lines, but was south of the existing line of Stentsch after Bentschen in approximate alignment from southwest to northeast on the districts of the villages Klastawe and knuckled created. Trains from Landsberg in the direction of Guben and back were able to travel through Neu Bentschen without worrying . In addition, an undisturbed construction process was possible.
In the absence of suitable larger locations, the Reichsbahn built its own railroad settlement north of the station. The community of Neu Bentschen developed from this settlement in the following years. At the same time, the new construction of the train station and location was intended to demonstrate modernity compared to Poland, which in Germany was often viewed as backward.
First, the Reichsbahn built a provisional track connection between Groß Dammer and Stentsch, trains to and from Landsberg could avoid Polish territory and the Groß Dammer border station could be abandoned. For passenger traffic to the construction site of the new train station, the Frankfurt line at the junction of the new connecting curve also received a provisional stop, which was named after the village of Kuschten to the south of the construction site. Construction work on the new border station finally began in April 1923. While a two-sided marshalling yard for handling over 2000 wagons per day was initially planned next to the passenger station , the Reichsbahndirektion Osten had to reduce its planning noticeably in November 1923 due to the inflationary period . The marshalling yard was only designed on one side and designed for 900 wagons per day. The number of residential buildings required for the railway settlement was also reduced from 514 to 395. Of these, 310 apartments were intended for railway workers, the rest for employees at customs, the border police and the post office. The settlement is said to have been the largest railway colony in Germany at the time. In addition, there were all the necessary community buildings, including shops, a restaurant, a school, two churches and a cemetery. A bribery affair, in which three construction companies and several Reichsbahn officials were involved, caused delays on the construction site, which was temporarily occupied by up to 1,800 workers. In total, the construction of the station and settlement cost more than 25 million Reichsmarks .
In addition to the station, new feeder lines had to be built. The route coming from Guben was swiveled north between Bomst and Bentschen at about the level of the Posemukel block , from Frankfurt the Reichsbahn moved the route from the Obra block, shortly after the bridge over the Faule Obra , southwards. The Landsberg line could only be routed to the new station after the line from Neu Bentschen to the Polish border had been completed, as otherwise its new route would have crossed the previous line at ground level.
The Neu Bentschen border station
On November 24, 1925, the Reichsbahn first put the freight and marshalling yard into operation, as did the new route sections. For the time being, Stentsch and Bomst remained border stations for passenger traffic. The direct routes between Bomst or Stentsch and Zbąszyń lost their traffic and were dismantled, the passenger trains have since passed the not yet finished Neu Bentschen station without stopping. On August 14, 1930, the Reichsbahn finally put the passenger station into operation, and since then all border and customs formalities on the German side have been handled in Neu Bentschen. Bomst and Stentsch lost their function as border stations.
Neu Bentschen quickly developed into one of the most important border stations with Poland. The marshalling yard was soon too small and was supplemented by an auxiliary waste mountain. It was also given a special ramp for feeding and watering geese , at that time one of Poland's most important export goods. In 1929 Neu Bentschen handled 1644 wagons with around 1.5 million geese, up to 30,000 geese were transported through Neu Bentschen every day.
The train station came into the focus of world public attention in 1938. In the so-called Poland Action organized by Reinhard Heydrich , the National Socialist regime deported around 17,000 Polish or stateless Jews , some of whom had lived in Germany for decades, some at armed force, to Poland at the end of October . Several thousand Jews were transported to Neu Bentschen by the Reichsbahn alone, some in special trains, some in regular trains. Some of them were still transported by train to Zbąszyń until the Polish state railway PKP closed the border. Then the other arriving Jews in Neu Bentschen were taken from the trains and forcibly driven across the border on foot by the SS . Several thousand people finally arrived in Zbąszyń and were temporarily accommodated by the Polish authorities. The last of them could only leave the established camps in the summer of 1939. Among the victims of the action were the parents of Herschel Grynszpan , who thereupon shot the German embassy employee Ernst vom Rath in Paris . Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels used this as a pretext for the November pogroms in 1938 .
After the attack on Poland and the occupation of Poland by the Wehrmacht , the station lost its function as a border station. Gestapo officials nevertheless checked travelers in Neu Bentschen who wanted to travel to the new Reichsgau Wartheland . The Neu Bentschen station remained of considerable importance for freight traffic during the war. Due to the newer facilities in comparison with the Bentschen station, which is now also under the control of the Reichsbahn, the junction function was retained, the lines dismantled until 1930 were not rebuilt.
After 1945
With the advance of the Red Army and the end of the war, the Neu Bentschen station came under Soviet administration to Poland after a few months. During this time, a track on the line between Warsaw and Berlin was temporarily changed to Russian broad gauge in order to be able to run Stalin's special train to the Potsdam Conference . The facilities of the modern station, which was initially called Nowy Zbąszyń until it was given its current name in 1947, was taken over by the Polish state railway PKP. In the PKP network, the Zbąszynek station remained an important hub for both freight and passenger traffic. It also remained a stopover for most international express trains between Berlin and Warsaw. Since the new border stations in Rzepin and Kunowice were not sufficient for the requirements of border traffic, the PKP used the Zbąszynek station as a front station for freight trains. Under the direction of PKP, the station was also expanded, including a new entrance group at the western head of the station.
From the end of the 1970s, PKP gradually electrified the line between Poznań and the border near Frankfurt. In 1983 the Zbąszynek train station also received the contact wire. In 1986 the section to Czerwieńsk followed the line to Guben . Until the beginning of the 1990s, the PKP still used steam locomotives from Zbąszynek .
Since its introduction in the spring of 2002, most pairs of trains on the Berlin-Warszawa Express have also stopped in Zbąszynek. The station temporarily lost part of its importance in passenger traffic when the line to Gorzów Wielkopolski was discontinued on October 1, 2002. Traffic was resumed a year later and the railway line has been modernized since then. The station building has also been renovated in recent years. The Zbąszynek station is an important hub for passenger traffic with direct connections to Berlin and Warsaw.
Plants and structures
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The architect responsible for all of Neu Bentschen's buildings was the then head of building construction at Rbd Osten, Reichsbahnoberrat Wilhelm Beringer , who also designed the reception building for the Frankfurt (Oder) train station . The plan and the buildings of the railway settlement were also designed by the Reichsbahn, in addition to the residential buildings, several shops, the school and two churches. In addition to the settlement and the passenger station, a freight and marshalling yard as well as a depot and a railway maintenance office were built .
Entrance building and passenger station
Like the entire railway settlement, the station building is kept in the style of the 1920s, but also has Expressionist features . Together with the post office, which is kept in the same style, and a residential building, the reception building frames the station square; it is also structurally connected to the two neighboring buildings. Inside, Beringer envisaged two waiting rooms with a station inn on the ground floor on both sides of the ticket hall, in addition to the ticket office and baggage counter. The station building did not have a house platform , access to all platforms is through an underpass.
The Reichsbahn built two island platforms with four tracks. Trains to and from Landsberg and Guben ran on the narrower, 200-meter-long inland platform. For border traffic, the second platform was 300 meters long and 18 meters wide. On the platform, the Reichsbahn built a customs inspection building 94 meters long and 9 meters wide, which is still in place today. In the early years, with the exception of the Nord-Express, all travelers had to pass through this building before control was transferred to the train in the early 1930s. The customs building has served as a waiting hall since 1945. The PKP also laid another island platform south of the former border platform.
Freight and marshalling yard
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The goods handling facility , which was built in 1923, was one of the first new buildings . The marshalling yard was opened in 1925 and served both border traffic to and from Poland and regional north-south traffic between Pomerania and central Germany. Around 1930 up to 1200 cars passed the station every day, around 300 of them from and 50 to Poland. Imported goods were mainly wood and agricultural products, fertilizers, machines and spare parts were exported via Neu Bentschen. In addition to the goose ramp, the freight yard received customs and goods sheds as well as a cattle ramp with a wagon cleaning facility.
PKP expanded the marshalling yard with a new drive-in group. It also built other overpass structures to allow the various routes to be threaded without crossing. The slump in freight traffic after 1990 ensured that the PKP only used part of the tracks in the marshalling yard.
Depot
To supply the steam locomotives used , the Reichsbahn built a railway depot (Bw) in Neu Bentschen. The most striking structure is the 40 meter high massive water tower . It not only served the feed water supply of the depot, but also the railway settlement. In addition to the coaling system and turntable , the Neu Bentschen depot received a rectangular locomotive shed with 12 tracks and 24 stands that can be reached via a transfer platform . After 1945, the PKP expanded the facilities to include halls for car repairs. The PKP has now shut down most of the facilities in the depot.
Transport offer
Until 1939
The railway line from Berlin to Poznan had already been an important east-west artery before the First World War, over which, among other things, the Warsaw wing train of the Nord-Express drove. With the construction of the new line from Kutno to Strzałkowo , one of the first new lines of the PKP, the connection from Berlin to Warsaw was again significantly shortened. The line was therefore one of the most important connections between Germany and Poland, and the Neu Bentschen station was accordingly significant. In the 1934 summer timetable, in addition to three pairs of passenger trains, four pairs of express trains passed the border at Neu Bentschen:
- L 11/12 "North Express" Paris - Berlin - Warsaw (three times a week, just sleeping and dining cars, luxury train of CIWL )
- D 23/24 Paris - Berlin - Łódź - Warsaw - Niegoreloje / Stołpce (border stations between Poland and the USSR )
- D 55/56 Berlin - Toruń - Insterburg (with privileged through traffic to East Prussia )
- D 123/124 Berlin - Warsaw
Passport and customs controls as well as locomotive changes took place in Neu Bentschen on all trains. In addition to the long-distance trains, five pairs of passenger trains and more between Neu Bentschen and the district town of Schwiebus ran between Neu Bentschen and Frankfurt (Oder) . In the summer of 1934, four passenger trains left the Neu Bentschen station in the direction of Guben in addition to an express train, and another only ran to Züllichau . Seven pairs of passenger trains ran on the route in the direction of Meseritz - Landsberg. This offer remained largely constant until the outbreak of war in 1939, but Neu Bentschen lost its connection to Insterburg with the concentration of East Prussian traffic on the Eastern Railway via Schneidemühl and Chojnice ; the D 55/56 ran to Warsaw from summer 1936. Only the number of passenger trains to Guben was increased to seven. From 1938 the Nord-Express also drove daily to Warsaw and three times a week to the Soviet border at Niegoreloje / Stołpce.
1939 to 1945
With the occupation of Poland, Neu Bentschen lost its function as a border station. The Reichsbahn first expanded the train service to the occupied territories, the trains on the lines to Lissa and Birnbaum , which had previously ended in Bentschen , were extended to Neu Bentschen. Travelers to the new Reichsgau Wartheland were still checked in Neu Bentschen, which is why the train stops usually lasted 10 minutes and longer. There was generally no need to change locomotives. In the winter timetable 1940/41, the Reichskursbuch recorded the following long-distance trains on the now route 130 between Frankfurt and Posen with a stop in Neu Bentschen:
- DmW 17/18 (express train with Wehrmacht part ) Wiesbaden - Berlin - Posen
- DmW 23/24 Berlin - Warsaw - Zaremba / Malkinia (transition to the Soviet-occupied part of Poland , connection from / to Moscow)
- D 51/52 Berlin - Posen - Insterburg
- D 53/54 Berlin - Posen - Insterburg
- E 55/56 Berlin - Poznan - Bromberg
- D 61/62 Berlin - Posen - Ostrowo - Litzmannstadt
- SF 79/179 ( express train for front vacationers ) Hamm - Halle (Saale) - Guben - Allenstein
- D 123/124 Berlin - Warsaw
- D 153/154 Berlin - Warsaw (with wing train D 353/354 Leipzig - Neu Bentschen)
The offer was thinned out again in the following years in accordance with the deteriorating military situation in the German Reich, until express train traffic was completely stopped at the end of the war.
After 1945
The PKP gradually expanded its train service again after the war. In 1949 there were already direct trains between Berlin and Warsaw, which usually stopped at the now Zbąszynek station. The line in the direction of Guben, which was used for direct trains between Warsaw and the new voivodeship capital, Zielona Góra , became increasingly important . In the winter of 1974/75, of the up to eight international long-distance trains between Berlin and Warsaw, including the East-West Express from Paris to Moscow, only the Berolina did not stop in Neu Bentschen. The decline in border traffic between the GDR and Poland after 1980 as a result of the August strikes in Poland in 1980 and the formation of the Solidarność trade union hardly affected the route via Zbąszynek, as the trains stopping here also served international east-west traffic. In 1988 up to ten international train pairs stopped in Zbąszynek every day.
The turning point in Poland as well as the turning point and peaceful revolution in the GDR resulted in a considerable loss of importance for rail transport. The travel times were no longer competitive compared to the road. New Eurocity trains were soon introduced between Berlin and Warsaw, but they no longer stopped in Zbąszynek. Long-distance trains from Berlin to the Soviet Union or the CIS successor states were gradually discontinued. The remaining Eurocity trains were unable to compete with private cars and cheaper long-distance buses . With the introduction of the Berlin-Warszawa-Express , which stops in Zbąszynek and the cheaper tariff, and the gradual modernization of the railway line, the participating railways DB AG and PKP have been able to make up some ground in recent years.
In the 2013 timetable year, in addition to the four pairs of trains of the Berlin-Warszawa-Express, another four pairs of express trains to and from Zielona Góra stopped in Zbąszynek. Three of these train pairs will run to Warsaw in 2015, one to Gdynia on the Baltic coast . In local transport, five pairs of trains ran on workdays on the route to Gorzów Wlkp. Other regional train pairs drove from Zbąszynek in the direction of Posen and Rzepin. Zbąszynek has been the western terminus of the network of the Koleje Wielkopolskie regional railway company since 2012. Modern Pesa Elf multiple units run in regular intervals in the direction of Poznań and in individual cases as far as Kutno.
literature
- Peter Bock: D 1 Berlin - Königsberg. In transit through Gdansk and through the “Polish Corridor” . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-88255-737-4
- Erich Preuß : Not far from Posemukel. The history of the Neu Bentschen train station. In: Eisenbahngeschichte No. 5, summer 2004, ISSN 1611-6283 , pp. 36–39
- Rostoski: The border and customs station Neu-Bentschen and the associated settlement. In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Volume 51, 1931, No. 25 (from June 20, 1931) ( digitized version), pp. 370–379.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frauke Adesiyan: A city as a provocation. In: Märkische Oderzeitung. January 15, 2013, accessed September 29, 2013 .
- ^ A b Peter Bock: D 1 Berlin - Königsberg. In transit through Gdansk and through the "Polish Corridor" . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2012. p. 39
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Erich Preuß: Not far from Posemukel. The history of the Neu Bentschen train station. In: Eisenbahngeschichte No. 5, summer 2004, ISSN 1611-6283 , pp. 36–39
- ^ Peter Bock: D 1 Berlin - Königsberg. In transit through Gdansk and through the "Polish Corridor" . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2012. p. 72
- ^ The deportation of Polish Jews from the German Reich in 1938/1939 and their tradition. The fate of those deported to Bentschen. In: Memorial book victims of the persecution of the Jews under the Nazi tyranny in Germany 1933-1945. Federal Archives, September 18, 2013, accessed on September 29, 2013 .
- ↑ History of the station on www.bazakolejowa.pl , accessed on September 29, 2013
- ^ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, Oberbetriebsleitung East Berlin (Ed.): Official course book for the Reich. Summer 1934, May 15 to October 6, 1934, course book section 122c , p. 182
- ^ Albert Mühl: International luxury trains. EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1991, ISBN 3-88255-673-0 , p. 169
- ↑ Deutsche Bundesbahn (Ed.): International Course Book Winter 29.9.1974-31.5.1975 , Table 21010, p. 132, Mainz 1974