Railway line Cloppenburg – state border
Map with all coordinates: | Cloppenburg state border | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Course book range : | 198 s (1939) 220 a (1944) 220 h (1950) |
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| Route length: | 29.2 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 750 mm ( narrow gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Cloppenburg – state border line was a 750 mm narrow-gauge railway in what is now Lower Saxony . The line was opened in three sections from 1900 to 1903. The traffic was mainly limited to the transport of agricultural products and remained modest during the entire operating time, partly because the planned gap to the Lathen – Werlte railway line of the Hümmlinger Kreisbahn did not take place. The traffic was stopped in 1953 and the route was then dismantled.
history
Prehistory and construction
The Oldenburger Münsterland was an extremely sterile region with swampy and barren soils until well into the 19th century. The area was not developed in terms of rail technology for the time being, only the Oldenburg – Osnabrück railway line opened in 1875/76 and the Essen – Löningen line opened in 1888 touched the edge of the region. At the end of the 19th century, however, artificial fertilizers were widely available, so that as early as the 1880s there were serious attempts to build a railway that was to be designed as a narrow-gauge railway from the start. At first, however, no success could be achieved, it was only when the Hümmlinger Kreisbahn was opened in 1898 that things started moving again.
A "railway association" was founded in 1898 when the neighboring communities merged. Although the legal basis for building a small railway was initially missing (a corresponding law was only passed by Oldenburg in 1902), on December 31, 1898 the association received the operating license for a narrow-gauge railway from Cloppenburg via Lastrup to Kleinen Ging. The construction of the railway, which was estimated at 400,000 marks, began in 1899. The Grand Duchy of Oldenburg took over part of the costs. On January 1, 1900, the Cloppenburg – Kleinen Ging line was opened. However, the Kleine Ging station was far away from any major settlement, as the next larger town, Lindern, did not want to participate in the railway construction at first. Shortly after the railway opened, people in Lindern recognized the advantages of a railway connection and joined the railway association. This then wanted to extend the route to Werlte to the Hümmlinger Kreisbahn . For the time being, only the Kleine Ging – Lindern section was built and put into operation on November 1, 1900.
The border between the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg and Prussia was problematic for the extension to Werlte . In addition, the Hümmlinger Kreisbahn was not interested in further construction, as it was feared that the connection could divert traffic from its own railway. In May 1902, for the time being, only the extension to the state border was tackled. This section was opened on February 1, 1903, it cost a total of about 500,000 marks. For the travelers, however, the traffic deteriorated with the extension of the route, as the post connection between Lindern and Werlte was dropped without replacement. They now had to walk the 2.5 km between the Landes Grenz railway station and Werlte.
business
Until 1939, the line belonged to the Cloppenburg railway association, founded by the communities of Cloppenburg and Lastrup . The district of Cloppenburg took over the railway as its own company in 1939. The main purpose of the railway was to transport agricultural goods. Passenger traffic only experienced a certain boom in the war and post-war years.
Shutdown
Passenger traffic ceased on October 15, 1950. From then on, however, a passenger car was always used as a brake car on the freight trains . In 1951, people were also transported before the daily freight train was again included in the timetable as a freight train with passenger transport in 1952. However, travel times of around two hours made the connection completely unattractive, so that on September 30, 1952 this connection was canceled again. Freight traffic - still with passenger cars as brake trucks - continued until spring 1953. On April 15, 1953, the remaining freight traffic was carried out for the last time due to the low transport services. The line was officially shut down on July 3, 1953. After the shutdown, the line was completely dismantled and the vehicles, with the exception of a few cars sold to the Philippsheim – Binsfeld small railway , were scrapped on site.
literature
- Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Part 2: Lower Saxony. Zeunert Verlag, Gifhorn 1973, ISBN 3-921237-17-3 .
- Herbert Schmidt: Narrow-gauge railway Cloppenburg state border . In: Yearbook for the Oldenburger Münsterland 1976 . Vechta 1975, pp. 101-110.
- Gerd Wolff: Narrow-gauge railways between Ems and Weser. Zeunert Verlag, Gifhorn 1977, ISBN 3-921237-38-6 .
- Lothar Riedel: Pingel Anton, The Cloppenburger Kreisbahn, traffic history of the narrow-gauge small railway Cloppenburg-Lastrup-Lindern-Landesbank. Publishing house and office for special traffic literature Dipl.-Ing. Gustav F. Röhr, Krefeld 1980, ISBN 3-88490-088-9 .
- Lothar Riedel: The Cloppenburger Kreisbahn. Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 1997, ISBN 3-927587-72-9 .
- Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 9: Lower Saxony 1 . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 3-88255-668-4 , p. 331-343 .