Beienheim – Schotten railway line

Beienheim – Schotten
Route number (DB) :	3741
Course book section (DB) :	632 (193g old)
Route length:	33.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Friedberg 0.0 Beienheim after mosquito 1.7 Weckesheim 4.0 Reichelsheim (Wetterau) 6.6 Gettenau - Bingenheim 8.0 Echzell A 45 Horloff 10.2 Grund-Schwalheim garbage transfer station, previously Bf 13.0 Ober-Widdersheim houses courtyard Goat-Nidda 16.2 Bad Salzhausen 19.2 Nidda Giessen-Gelnhausen 21.2 Kohden 23.1 Unter-Schmitten 24.4 Ober-Schmitten 25.3 Eichelsdorf 28.9 Rainrod 33.4 Bulkheads

The Beienheim – Schotten railway line (also known as the Horlofftalbahn in the western part ) is a railway line in the Horloff and Niddatal in the Wetteraukreis in Hesse .

Structurally, there were two different sections that were connected to each other at Nidda station and to the Gießen – Gelnhausen railway line , which opened in 1870 :

• the actual Horlofftalbahn, coming from Friedberg , branching off from the Friedberg – Mücke railway line at Beienheim station to Nidda, opened in 1897 and still in operation today, and
• the section from Nidda to Schotten , in operation from 1888 to 1959.

Since both sections reach Nidda station from the north, the direction of travel had to be changed for continuous operation there .

course

Beienheim – Nidda

Bad Salzhausen stop

The route begins at the Beienheim train station (Stadt Reichelsheim ), where it branches off from the Friedberg – Mücke railway line (now only in operation as far as Wölfersheim). As far as Reichelsheim, the train runs through the village of Weckesheim , directly on the south side of Landesstraße 3186/3187 (Weckesheimer Straße and Bad Nauheimer Straße).

In Reichelsheim it turns north and runs parallel to Horloff through the Echzell community to a little south of the village of Ober-Widdersheim (town of Nidda). The “Häuserhof” stop there is only about 750 meters south of the Gießen – Gelnhausen railway line , to which the line runs parallel, now again in an easterly direction, to Nidda at some distance. After stopping in the spa town of Bad Salzhausen , which is part of the city of Nidda, the Nidda train station is reached via a large right-hand bend . In the course of this curve, the railway line from Gießen and the former continuation to Schotten join from the left.

The entire route from Beienheim to Nidda lies in the Hessian Wetteraukreis in the area of ​​the communities Reichelsheim and Echzell and the city of Nidda.

Nidda Scots

The section to Schotten is the older of the two parts. It was opened in 1888, nine years before the section towards Friedberg, but was shut down and dismantled in 1959/60. For reasons of cost savings and the low traffic volume foreseeable at the planning stage, it was built in a technically uncomplicated manner. So it followed for almost the entire course of the country road leading in the valley of the river Nidda from the city of Nidda to Schotten, today this is the federal road 455 , mostly on the side next to it. In the developed villages, the railroad even ran, similar to a tram, directly on the (in all cases very narrow) village street, which was a considerable burden for the residents due to the steam operation. Although the villages were driven through centrally, the stopping stations could not be set up in the center of the village due to the narrow street widths, but were built on the respective peripheral locations.

At the northern end of the Nidda station, the Schotten route branched off to the east from the Gießen – Gelnhausen railway line and ran west of the main road and along the route of today's Kohdener Weg to the intersection at Im Paradies / Hoherodskopfstrasse, from which it joins the latter on the left (west) Side of the street through the village of Kohden . The Kohden stop was at the level of Ulfaer Weg. Outside of Kohden, the railway changed to the right (eastern) side of the country road. The following village of Unter-Schmitten could be accessed parallel to Dorfstrasse (Brückenstrasse / Vogelsbergstrasse) instead of directly via it. In the area of ​​Brückenstraße / Am Storz, the former route can still be seen as a path. The bus stop was at the “Chausseehaus” inn on the northern edge of the village.

In the next village, Ober-Schmitten, there were also commercial users of the railway line with two paper mills, each with a siding . Here, too, the route had to run straight through the narrow village street. The breakpoint was at its eastern end at the level of the SPO paper mill. On the right (south-east) side of the road, the railway followed the country road to Eichelsdorf and via the village thoroughfare to the stop at the current Eichelsdorf community center.

The railway line between Eichelsdorf and Rainrod moved away from the course of the country road and crossed it roughly in the middle between the two villages. The course is partly recognizable by a path. Rainrod was also crossed near the thoroughfare (Frankfurter Strasse), but here, too, the breakpoint was on the eastern edge of the village, now again on the southern side of the street, east of the junction with Brückenstrasse. On the south side of the country road, on the north bank of today's Nidda reservoir , which was only created after the railway line had been dismantled , the terminal station in the city of Schotten was finally reached. The station was between the river Nidda and today's main road at the level of the Taubenweg, its goods shed still exists and is used commercially.

The villages of Kohden, Unter- and Ober-Schmitten and Eichelsdorf are now part of the town of Nidda in the Wetterau district; Rainrod belongs to the town of Schotten in the Vogelsberg district .

history

Beienheim – Nidda

Former Geiß-Nidda train station

The route was originally planned and operated by the Grand Ducal Hessian State Railways / Prussian-Hessian Railway Community . Construction began on September 20, 1895. The railway was opened on October 1, 1897. The double-track expansion of the line was planned, but never realized.

Goods traffic was important in the past and was fed by agriculture in the Wetterau. Particularly noteworthy is the loading of sugar beet to the sugar refinery in Friedberg (until 1982). In addition, between 1804 and 1949 lignite was mined near Geiß-Nidda. The Wölfersheim power plant and salt production in Bad Salzhausen also brought traffic to the railways. From 1982 to 1995, around 120,000 tons of residual waste were loaded annually in Grund-Schwalheim. Two trains a day went to Friedberg and were united there for the onward journey. To do this, the very dilapidated superstructure, which in some cases caused slow driving at 10 to 30 km / h, had to be modernized.

Nidda Scots

The Nidda – Schotten section was opened on May 26, 1888. Due to the route through narrow village streets, the railway represented a traffic obstacle and accident risk from day one, which was no longer considered acceptable since the beginning of mass motorization in the late 1950s. Passenger traffic was therefore stopped on November 29, 1959 and the railway in Schotten and the neighboring villages was ceremoniously adopted. Freight traffic continued until February 1960, but was also discontinued due to a lack of demand. Finally, the line was dismantled a few months after its complete closure.

Operation today

GTW 2/6 shortly before Reichelsheim

The route is part of the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV). It is served by HLB Hessenbahn GmbH , Butzbach site (until 2005 the subsidiary Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn ). In the rush hour, there are through trains to and from Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof . Two of these trains are hauled by a locomotive as regional express trains from DB Regio Mitte with a class 245 locomotive with double-decker cars , and one train with the GTW 2/6, which also runs from Friedberg, is operated in multiple traction by HLB in the direction of Nidda.

Freight traffic now plays a subordinate role after the removal of waste loading in the Wetterau district in Grund-Schwalheim and the decline of the wood processing industry in Nidda . However, the company received Pfleiderer , which in the former Hornitex was -Werk, until its closure in the summer of 2011 still regularly siding tank cars as handover .

The only two subway stations, Reichelsheim and Echzell, where train crossings are still possible, are operated in train control . Until 2010, the train crew of the train arriving first had to set the cable operated switch in a concrete house on the platform at crossings and give the signal Coming (Zp 11) via a light signal on the trapezoidal board at the station entrance . Since 2010, both stations have been equipped with fallback switches, which no longer requires manual operation and has introduced directional operation on the platforms that have been modernized in the process. On August 17, 2012, a multiple unit GTW 2/6 derailed on one of the Reichelsheim turnouts, damaging the tracks over 100 meters. Beienheim still has a manned mechanical signal box . In April 2017, ESTW-A (connected to ESTW-Z Altenstadt) was put into operation in Nidda as a replacement for two mechanical interlockings.

literature

• Railway in Hessen. Cultural monuments in Hessen. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany, ed. from the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen, Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, 3 volumes in a slipcase, vol. 2.2, p. 787ff (route 070). ISBN 3-8062-1917-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Horlofftalbahn on alexanderhitz.de , accessed on March 7, 2015
2. ^ Reorganization of Reichelsheim on alexanderhitz.de , accessed on March 7, 2015
3. ↑ Message on alexanderhitz.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 7, 2015  

Web links

• Route description Nidda – Schotten with many pictures (2005) of preserved remains of the Schotten route
• Photos of the route from 2013
• The Nidda-Schotten railway ( Memento from May 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) with a description of the route and the planning history with historical photos and videos
• Beienheim - Nidda. Railway lines in Hessen. (As of April 15, 2016). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Nidda - Scots. Railway lines in Hessen. (As of April 15, 2016). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).