Celle – Braunschweig railway line

Celle – Plockhorst – Braunschweig
Route number :	1722
Course book section (DB) :	211a, 211d (until 1970)
Route length:	57.129 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Hamburg-Harburg 0.0 Celle to Gifhorn to Hannover Hbf according to Lehrte 7.7 Nienhagen (district of Celle) 11.9 Wathlingen Feet 16.9 Bröckel (Kr.Celle) Erse Feet Feet 22.5 Uetze (Han) Feet Feet 26.1 Eltze 27.7 Plockhorst Berlin – Lehrte from the Berlin-Lehrter Railway to Peine 30.3 Eickenrode Erse 34.2 Wipshausen 36.0 Wipshausen South 38.7 Wense 41.3 Harvesse Industrial track: VW logistics center Braunschweig A 2 43.6 Turning cell Aue-Oker Canal White Bridge, farm road Industrial track: Watenbüttel waste disposal center Mittelland Canal 48.1 Watenbüttel A 392 Okerflut Bridge (w) Oker flood bridge (o) A 391 Oker Connection port Hamburger Street 52.8 Braunschweig boast Connection to the Volkswagen factory Awanst north curve Ring track to Braunschweig North from Gifhorn from Fallersleben 56.4 Braunschweig-Gliesmarode Marshalling yard from Helmstedt 60.3 Braunschweig Hbf

The Celle – Braunschweig railway was a single-track branch line for the direct connection of the old Guelph cities of Celle and Braunschweig with a length of 60.3 kilometers.

history

When the first railways were built, there was a desire in Braunschweig for the most direct possible connection to the seaports. However, at the request of Hanover, the first route was built via Lehrte. Since the entire traffic from Hamburg (with headache) and Berlin to Hanover led via Lehrte, the station was correspondingly overloaded. So there was still a desire for a direct connection without going through Lehrte. The first conversation on June 15, 1907 was followed by negotiations that led to the State Treaty between Prussia and Braunschweig of January 13, 1912. This was preceded by the dispute about the route in Braunschweig area. The Prussian plans were from south of Wendezelle: east of Bortfeld, west of Lamme and then west of Broitzem flowing into the Hanover – Braunschweig line. At Braunschweig's request, the more complex route to the east around Braunschweig was built, so that the through station that was already being considered at the time (opened in 1960) could be used by trains to the south; however, there have never been such moves. After ratification in both parliaments and exchange of the ratification documents on June 2, 1913 in Berlin, the state treaty was in force and construction could begin. During the First World War the construction was temporarily stopped. On September 1st, 1920 the line from Celle to Uetze was opened. The inauguration of the line from Uetze to Plockhorst took place on May 3, 1921 and on March 1, 1923 the further line to Gliesmarode went into operation. There it merged with the existing Gifhorn – Braunschweig line. The Celle – Braunschweig line was built - in accordance with Braunschweig's wishes - with curvature and gradient conditions and the substructure for a main line. Only the superstructure was designed for a branch line. The generous route is also recognizable by the five (!) Crossing of the Fuhse between Eltze and Wathlingen. The station buildings were also generously dimensioned; they had been built according to a uniform pattern and were very similar. Each station was set up for passenger and freight traffic and equipped with at least one loading platform. Due to the construction of the Mittelland Canal, the railway line between Wendezelle and Völkenrode was swiveled westward in 1929 to enable a shorter bridge. This route also suffered damage during World War II. The bridge over the Mittelland Canal was damaged during the blast on April 10, 1945, then repaired very makeshift, but after a short period of commissioning it was closed to traffic again. In February 1946, the floods of the Oker destroyed the Oker flood bridge (o). After the final repair of the Mittelland Canal Bridge and the construction of the Okerflut Bridge (o), continuous traffic began again from March 14, 1949.

business

Despite the spacious layout, the route did not go beyond local importance. In 1962, five pairs of trains ran in passenger traffic. In freight traffic, mainly agricultural products (sugar beets, potatoes, cattle) were transported and coal (briquettes) received. In addition, there was general cargo traffic with the baggage car parked in passenger trains. In recent years, a rail bus with a sidecar was sufficient for passenger transport. The line from Braunschweig-Gliesmarode to shortly before Harvesse is in operation; The Volkswagen group has built the VW logistics center in Braunschweig there. In autumn 2015, after upgrading the route, VW's freight traffic was initially resumed, but stopped again at the end of 2017 for cost reasons.

Shutdown

Fuhsebrücke between Uetze and Eltze (2019)

On May 27, 1962, the Plockhorst – Braunschweig passenger service, and on May 23, 1971, the Celle – Plockhorst passenger service ceased. Freight traffic was discontinued in the following sections:

• May 30, 1976 Wathlingen – Uetze
• May 31, 1985 Nienhagen – Wathlingen
• September 29, 1990 Celle – Nienhagen
• September 30, 1990 Uetze – Harvesse (closed December 31, 1991)

On December 31, 1993, freight traffic between Watenbüttel and Harvesse was discontinued; in 1998 the section was closed. In 1994, the last bridge in the Plockhorst tower station was dismantled for the expansion of the high-speed line from Hanover to Berlin , after the platform had been removed ten years earlier. The last special passenger train to date ran on December 11, 1994 from Braunschweig to Harvesse.

Status

The line is largely closed and dismantled. Some properties were sold and built over. Most of the stations are privately owned. The section from Westercelle (B 3) to Nienhagen is the route for a natural gas pipeline owned by SVO Energie GmbH. It is released as a private path for cyclists and pedestrians. The track runs from Gliesmarode up to and including Harvesse; The rest of the route in the Peine district has been designated as a landscape protection area in which rail traffic is permitted. For the section in Braunschweig, there were considerations to include it in a light rail concept in Braunschweig as far as Wipshausen. So far, this has failed due to a lack of money, but keeps coming up in the discussion.

The Braunschweig-Gliesmarode-Harvesse section landed in first place on a list of possible route reactivations in local rail transport in Lower Saxony. In the final evaluation, however, the route only received a cost-benefit calculation of 0.7, so that reactivation was initially rejected. In March 2018, the district of Peine passed a resolution aimed at reactivating the route for local rail transport.

The regional association for the greater Braunschweig area (RGB) would like to have the reactivation of local rail transport on the route re-examined. The reason for this is that investments to connect the VW logistics center for freight transport have reduced the one-off investment costs for the infrastructure. The calculated costs of reactivation to Harvesse have thus decreased from 23.27 million euros to 19.45 million euros. The new study aims to look at six different cases. The cases differ in the endpoints Wendeburg, Harvesse and Wipshausen. An hourly and half-hourly intervals are examined for each end point. Since in the future there will be the possibility of financing reactivations with funds from the GVFG , but it is not yet known whether a standardized assessment is necessary or whether it must be assessed according to the "Hessian procedure", the RGB would like to wait for the federal government's decision before starting an investigation in order.

See also

Viaduct between Uetze and Eltze

• Traffic in Braunschweig

literature

• Railway magazine 11/1991

Web links

• Braunschweig - RühmeVW / Hafen / Watenbüttel route
• German course book, annual timetable 1944/45, p. 211
• Experience report from 1997 ( memento from June 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Railroad cycling south of the Aller

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rolf Ahlers: Celle-Braunschweig railway line - the beginning. In: Braunschweigische Heimat (101), 2015/2, p. 31.
2. ↑ [Braunschweigische] Law and Ordinance Collection, No. 34, of June 21, 1923: Ordinance concerning the publication of the State Treaty between Braunschweig and Prussia for the construction of a railway from Celle to Braunschweig. Braunschweig, June 9, 1913.
3. ^ Rolf Ahlers: Traces in the field between Völkenrode and Wendezelle. In: Braunschweigische Heimat (101) 2015/2, pp. 13–15.
4. ↑ Harvesse: Closing the gaps in the tracks. In: Peiner Allgemeine. March 27, 2015, accessed November 8, 2018 . 
5. ↑ LKW the "more suitable alternative". In: Braunschweiger Zeitung. January 22, 2018, accessed November 8, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Martin Krauss: Development of the Railway Infrastructure 1997/98, in: Bahn-Report 2/1999, p. 4–7, here: p. 6.
7. ↑ utility. (No longer available online.) In: mw.niedersachsen.de. March 14, 2014, archived from the original on March 18, 2014 ; accessed on November 8, 2018 . 
8. ↑ PTV Group: Benefit-cost studies for reactivating rail lines - Lot III. See PDF , accessed on November 8, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Alexander Dontscheff: "Asparagus Express": Resolution on reactivation decided. In: regionalbraunschweig.de. March 8, 2018, accessed November 8, 2018 . 
10. ^ Regional association Greater Braunschweig, meeting committee for regional traffic, status of study reactivation of SPNV Braunschweig Hbf - Harvesse, 10.06.2020