Celle – Wittingen railway line

Celle - Wittingen
Route number (DB) :	9173 (Celle - Wittingen) 9174 (Beedenbostel - Mariaglück)
Course book section (DB) :	formerly 156, 211f
Route length:	57.95 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	50 km / h
Legend from Celle 0.0 Celle north 37.5 m 2.0 Celle suburb 52.79 m to Soltau 4.0 Altenhagen 11.6 Gockenholz 13.6 Lachendorf (Bf until 1999) Lachendorf North (since 1999) from paper mill 16.0 (0.0) Beedenbostel (4.7) Hofer (5.6) Mariaglück (7.0) Habighorst Lutter 20.4 Sucking 23.4 Eldingen 25.2 Metzingen (b Eldingen) Laughed 27.6 Steinhorst 32.0 Great Oesingen 34.8 Dedelstorf 36.8 Repke 39.9 Hankensbüttel oil station 99.45 m 42.6 Hankensbüttel 45.2 Old Isenhagen Elbe Lateral Canal 47.1 Wittingen harbor 47.8 Glüsingen Gifhorn – Wieren from Gifhorn from Oebisfelde Wittingen 79 m 52.1 Wittingen West 79 m to Wieren

The Celle – Wittingen railway is a route operated by the East Hanoverian Railways (OHE). Since it runs along the Lachte in the western part , it is also known as the “Lachtalbahn”.

history

Wittingen station

After lengthy efforts to railway Celle - Wittingen , established on June 21, 1902 Kleinbahn Celle-Wittingen AG pushed ahead with the construction began on 16 August 1904, the operation on the track. From 1905 there was joint management with the Celle – Bergen small railway for the section of Celle Nord - Celle Vorstadt, which it also shared. On June 17, 1909, a new route in Wittingen went into operation across the tracks of the Gifhorn - Wieren railway into the Wittingen – Oebisfelde Kleinbahn station . Trains from Oebisfelde did not reach him until September. The extension of the Kleinbahn AG Bismark-Gardelegen-Wittingen from Diesdorf was also introduced into this station on August 1, 1909.

On July 20, 1912, the Beedenbostel - Habighorst branch line was put into operation to connect the planned salt mines Mariaglück near Höfer and Fallersleben near Habighorst. Initially, the desired increase in traffic did not materialize; it was only after the two pits were merged that production increased, so that potash transport developed into the main pillar of the route. Various ammunition plants and an air force airfield near Dedelstorf ensured additional traffic in the 1930s and during World War II. In 1944, the Kleinbahn Celle-Wittingen AG was merged with other railway companies to form the Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen. The OHE have been running the business ever since.

After the war, traffic was quickly resumed. There were usually four passenger trains on the entire route on weekdays and three on Sundays. In the 1950s the number rose to seven and on Sundays to four trains. From the 1950s onwards, crude oil was extracted and loaded at various points , at times an oil block train came together every day. After a thorough renovation of the line, the top speed was increased to 60 km / h in 1959. From 1959 the passenger trains in Celle were introduced into the station of the Federal Railroad. This made the transfer easier. In Wittingen, a direct transition to the DB station was possible because the stations were next to each other. In addition to worker traffic to the Mariaglück potash mine, excursion traffic was of great importance.

Celle station: on the right a MaK GDT of the OHE to Steinhorst, in the middle a rail bus of the DB to Gifhorn , October 12th 1975

The Mariaglück - Habighorst section was no longer needed and dismantled in the 1960s. Potash and rock salt production in Mariaglück ceased in 1970 and 1977, respectively. The branch line was then mainly used for parking purposes. For the construction of the Elbe Lateral Canal, the route between Alt Isenhagen and Glüsingen was relocated in 1973 and led over a bridge. Most passenger trains recently ran with MaK large-capacity diesel multiple units . The total travel time for the Celle - Wittingen route was an average of 75 minutes.

On May 25, 1974 the passenger traffic Wittingen - Steinhorst , on June 24, 1976 also on the remnant Steinhorst - Celle stopped. After that, the route was occasionally used for tourism. The operator of these trains was the Braunschweigische Landes-Museums-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft until the mid-1990s. After that, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Verkehrsfreunde Lüneburg (AVL) also drove the Lachtalbahn with its “Heide-Express”.

At the end of the 1990s, crude oil shipments ended. In 1999, the line in the Lachendorf area was relocated to the north in order to create space for the expansion of an industrial company, and a “Lachendorf Nord” station was set up. On November 8, 2005, the Beedenbostel - Habighorst section was finally closed.

In autumn 2013 and spring 2014, the line was introduced directly to track 1 of Wittingen station with a new 480 m long track. For this purpose, the connecting track between Wittingen-West station and the DB and the former OHE tracks 14-16 were largely dismantled and the new track with an entry signal and points operated by the Wittingen signal box were connected. The old driveway to Wittingen-West station was retained up to km 50.650 as a 400 m long siding with a buffer stop for parking erixx railcars. This means that Wittingen-West station, including the rest of the Wittingen - Oebisfelde route, is disconnected from the network. The road / rail timber handling in Wittingen-West will in future take place in the port area of ​​Wittingen. The change from the OHE route to the DB network , which was previously associated with sawing trips , has thus been greatly simplified. The new connection went into operation on June 10, 2014.

business

In 2012, the entire route was still served three times a week from Celle Nord by a pair of OHE freight trains. In addition, a pair of DB Cargo Germany freight trains ran from Monday to Friday to the paper factory in Lachendorf Nord . The route is operated in train control with a train conductor in Celle Nord in accordance with the FV-NE driving regulations . Recently there have been considerations to reactivate passenger traffic.

In 2018, there will only be regular freight traffic between Celle and Groß Oesingen, these freight trains will also run Monday to Friday in 2019. The port of Wittingen is also regularly served from Braunschweig.

literature

• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2. Between Weser and Elbe. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2007, pp. 259-279, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8 .
• Ingo Hütter, Thorsten Bretschneider, Wolfgang Uhl: From the small rail network to the East Hanoverian railways . Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 1997, ISBN 3-927587-71-0
• Klaus-Peter Sebastian: The history of the small railways in Isenhagener Land; The OHE railway operations in the Gifhorn district . District of Gifhorn, Gifhorn 2001, ISBN 3-929632-50-0 .
• Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The East Hanoverian Railways . 3rd edition, alba, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87094-232-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG: Redesign of track systems in Wittingen station and new track construction - general preliminary examination of the individual case according to § 3c UVPG and § 3 (1) - (3) NUVPG - preliminary deduction 2012
2. ↑ http://www.razyboard.com/system/morethread-fahrplan-2014-delegatic-1437227-6281899-10.html
3. ↑ By train to Bergen? ( Memento of the original from May 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Cellesche Zeitung, August 7, 2013 
4. ^ Freight traffic in the Lachtal . In: railway magazine . No. 2 , 2018, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 35 .
5. ↑ Positive development . In: railway magazine . No. 5 , 2019, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 28 .