Ernstbahn
| Braunfels – Philippstein | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ernstbahn around 1877
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 7.6 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 800 mm ( narrow gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Ernstbahn ( Issertalbahn until 1877 ) was a narrow-gauge railway with 800 mm gauge in Hesse .
history
The Ernstbahn was founded in 1875 - initially as a general partnership - by Prince Ernst zu Solms-Braunfels and two other mine owners. It was intended to serve as a mine railway for transporting ore from mines around Braunfels in the northern Taunus to the Lahn. The legal form was converted into a GmbH in 1900, which was acquired in 1906 by Friedrich Krupp AG in Essen. Since 1924 it was part of the Sieg-Lahn-Bergbau-Gesellschaft, which was transferred to Harz-Lahn-Erzbergbau AG in 1953.
The route began in 1876 at the state Lahn railway station (today: Leun / Braunfels railway station ) and led in the Iserbachtal, a side valley of the Lahn , upwards below the town of Braunfels to the Ottilie pit (5.1 km) and ended on October 1, 1877 in Philippstein Clöserweide at km 6.5. The concession was changed on June 5, 1894. Since then, the railway has been a small public transport train that also transported people to the Braunfels Stift stop , and from May 1, 1913 even to the Philippstein paper mill.
Passenger and general cargo traffic ended on June 15, 1930. In 1940, the railway was again given the status of a mine railway after public goods traffic had also been given up. The ore traffic was stopped at the end of 1962 and the line dismantled.
Remnants of the railway can still be found at the Lahnbahnhof (Leun / Braunfels): there is still the old loading ramp and a short section of rail in a field path.
A Ernstbahn vehicle, a passenger car, has survived as a chicken coop and is currently being restored in the Fortuna Field and Mine Railway Museum .
See also
literature
Gerd Wolff, Andreas Christopher: German small and private railways. Volume 8: Hesse . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 2004, ISBN 3-88255-667-6 , p. 239-253 .