Carlsbahn
| Karlshafen – Hümme | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number (DB) : | 3906 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | ex 198d | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 16.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Installation: | 1848 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shutdowns: | - 1966 (passenger traffic) - 1986 (freight traffic) |
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| Expansion: | single-track branch line | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| State: | Hesse | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Operating points and routes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Carlsbahn was a railway line between Hümme and Bad Karlshafen . It was opened in 1848; its last section was closed in 1986. Parts of the former route, which leads through today's Kassel district in Hesse , include parts of the Diemel cycle path .
The Carlsbahn was built as a section of the first line of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft , a Hessian private railway founded in 1844. It connected Kassel with Karlshafen and was primarily intended to ensure the connection between Kassel and river shipping on the Weser . As the first section and first railway in the Electorate of Hesse , a section of the line from Karlshafen to a provisional station near Grebenstein went into operation in 1848 . Compared to the branch to Warburg in Hümme , the Carlsbahn quickly lost its importance. Plans to extend the port in Karl -ending railway line on the other side of the Weser and its expansion to a passage route were persecuted for decades over again, but never realized. In 1966 the Carlsbahn was closed for all traffic with the exception of the section from Hümme to Trendelburg . After that, freight trains ran to Trendelburg for 20 years; this residual traffic ended in 1986.
Geographical location
The former route of the Carlsbahn runs essentially above the right bank of the Diemel flowing in the valley , on the western slope of the Reinhardswald . Only in the Deiseler Tunnel does its former route lead through the ridge of a Diemel loop.
Naming
On August 6, 1846, the Kurfürst-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn Aktiengesellschaft, which was commissioned to build the line, set the name for the line to Bad Karlshafen, which was called Carlshafen until 1935, as Carlsbahn . This was intended to commemorate Landgrave Carl von Hessen , on whose instigation the city of Carlshafen was established as a Huguenot settlement in 1699 .
history
Starting position
The states of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , Prussia and Kurhessen had been negotiating since 1840 to build an east-west railway connection between Westphalia and Halle an der Saale . Between Gerstungen in the east and Haueda , 14 kilometers west of Hümme on the border with Westphalia, this main line was supposed to run through Kassel and Bebra through the Hessian region. Negotiations came to an end in the autumn of 1841.
In 1844 the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft received the concession for the construction of the line, today's Kassel – Warburg line . The concession also contained the requirement to build a horse branch from Kassel to Karlshafen on the Weser . At that time, river navigation on the Weser was an essential means of long-distance transport. When the plans were finalized in 1846, a route via Hümme, 32 kilometers north of Kassel, was determined for the route of the main line and that the Carlsbahn should branch off from there to Karlshafen. In addition, locomotives and not horses should pull the trains .
construction
The Carlsbahn was built as a section of the first line built by the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft. It connected Kassel with Karlshafen and was opened in sections. The first section and first railway in Kurhessen went into operation on March 30, 1848, a section of the line from Karlshafen to a provisional train station on the northern edge of Grebenstein . It was officially opened on April 3, 1848, and with it the Carlsbahn.
When the connection via the border station Haueda to Warburg and to the network of the Royal Westphalian Railway Company was established on February 6, 1851 , the importance of rail traffic on this main line outweighed by far. The "Carlsbahn" between Hümme and Karlshafen became a branch line . The 16.5 km long, single-track line was the only domestic connection between the Electorate of Hesse and a Weser port. Soon, however, the importance of rail transport far outweighed shipping, which greatly reduced the transport value of the Carlsbahn.
Route
route
The Carlsbahn branched off at the north end of the Hümme station from the Kassel – Warburg line . In contrast to the main line, the 16.5 kilometer long railway line is only single-track. Their maximum incline was 1: 100, the narrowest radius 201 meters. The 202-meter-long Deiseler Tunnel between Trendelburg and Wülmersen and a three-arched viaduct over the Holzape , a stream that rises in the Reinhardswald, were built on larger structures .
Railway stations and stops
The cities of Trendelburg, Helmarshausen and Karlshafen with 1,652 inhabitants, which had 1,014 and 1,207 inhabitants respectively when the line opened, were given stations, the latter right next to the center .
Hümme
Hümme had received an island station when the railway was built . The station building and the engine shed came from Julius Eugen Ruhl . As early as the end of the 19th century, the inexpedient location of the reception building between the tracks and the track layout itself prompted a fundamental renovation. In 1897 the new station building on the side was completed, in 1902 the renovation was completed and shortly afterwards the locomotive shed from 1848 was demolished and replaced by a three-tiered ring shed with a 16 m turntable in front .
Come
Initially, no trains stopped in Trammen. A petition from the community to the Royal Railway Directorate Elberfeld on April 29, 1894 ensured that a stop was put into operation here from February 1, 1895 . As contractually agreed, the municipality assumed the costs of building the platform .
Trendelburg
In 1848, Trendelburg train station was given a siding, a head track and a siding to the Trendelburg sandstone quarry . The first station building came from Julius Eugen Ruhl. With the exception of the new station building built in 1914, the system remained unchanged until the line was closed.
Wülmersen
The tenant of the manor Wülmersen and the owner of a nearby mill as well as the representatives of the village of Deisel , two kilometers away, petitioned on June 26, 1896 for the construction of a stop next to the property located directly on the railway. After the application was initially rejected, Wülmersen finally got the longed-for stopping point in 1899 and the manor a siding in 1902.
Helmarshausen
When the railway was built, Helmarshausen had a stop, later called a station, with an open loading siding on both sides connected to the main track and a fixed ramp. The station building came from Julius Eugen Ruhl. Business settlements in 1912 meant that an extension of the railway facilities was approved for 1915, but was no longer realized due to the First World War .
(Bad) Karlshafen
During the construction of the Carlsbahn, Karlshafen had received a large station in view of the fact that it was the terminus and terminus of the line and in anticipation of brisk cargo handling with Weserschifffahrt. The station building came from Julius Eugen Ruhl. In addition to the main track, there was a circulating track, two installation tracks, one freight shed and one open loading track, as well as several tracks in a small locomotive station . There was also a carriage hall connected to the other tracks by a transfer platform . A track continued in the street to the Weserhafen, the quay of which, however, was at right angles to the approaching track. Two turntables mediated the traffic between this and the two tracks parallel to the quay, on which the freight wagons for the loading business were set up . Another storage shed stood between the two port tracks. Since the layout already appeared oversized in 1881, one track was completely removed and another partially removed. The wagon hall, which was partly used by the railway maintenance department, was sold for demolition. Since the wagons parked in the station had often made themselves independent and the sloping harbor track had rolled down, its connection in the station area was changed by an additional switch . In the 1920s, the station building was significantly rebuilt. It was reduced in size and given an exterior design adapted to contemporary tastes.
business
Kurhessische time
Initially only two pairs of trains ran a day, but from August 1, 1848, the frequency was increased to three pairs of trains a day for two years. The travel time between Hümme and Karlshafen was between 35 and 40 minutes. In 1851 the Kingdom of Hanover joined the German Customs Union , so that now the port of Hann, which is closer to Kassel . Münden was preferred. At the same time, shipping traffic on the Oberweser decreased significantly with the opening of the Hanover Southern Railway , which ran from Göttingen via Hann. Münden reached Kassel. Shipping traffic on the Oberweser was also severely affected by fluctuations in the water level . The cargo throughput at the Weserkai Karlshafen was only 19,024 tons in 1863 .
At that time, in order to counter this negative development, the continuation of the line beyond Karlshafen was discussed for the first time. Preliminary negotiations with an English bank began in 1864 with the aim of securing the financing of the project. The negotiations, which were made more difficult by the high demands of the Kurfürst-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft, did not come to a conclusion before the political situation changed fundamentally as a result of the war of 1866 with the annexation of Electorate Hesse and Hanover by Prussia .
Prussian time
The Prussian state immediately exerted considerable influence on the Kurfürst-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft and thus also on the Carlsbahn. The company was renamed Hessische Nordbahn . The Prussian state took over its administration on April 1, 1867, and set up a railway directorate in Kassel. In 1868 the northern railway then became the property of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , which from 1873 also took over the administration of the northern railway lines. This meant the quick end of the Kassel Railway Directorate. On 1 January 1882 finally took place nationalization of the Bergisch railway company and thus also the Carl's Railway.
Prussia initially aimed to build a line from Karlshafen via Detmold and Herford to Lemförde . Although the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft planned several variants of an eastern extension of the Carlsbahn between 1873 and 1878, this always failed because of the financing. The decision to finally abandon the plans was probably made easier by the fact that as early as 1873 the Royal Westphalian Railway Company had received the concession for a second route in contact with Karlshafen. This Solling Railway , completed in 1878 , quickly became an important east-west thoroughfare for goods traffic . It ran near Karlshafen on the right bank of the Weser, was given a train station there, but was never connected to the Carlsbahn. In order to avoid confusion between the now two stations in Karlshafen, the addition Left Bank (lU) was added to the Carlsbahn and the addition Right Bank (rU) to that of the Solling Railway.
The Carlsbahn's traffic volume, which was modest until the 1870s, with two pairs of trains a day, was gradually increased to seven pairs of trains by 1914. However, due to the predominant use of mixed trains, travel times were extended to up to 50 minutes. Pure passenger trains made the route in 33 minutes thanks to the top speed increased to 50 kilometers per hour for secondary lines from 1904.
Reichsbahn time
The transition of the state railways to the newly founded Deutsche Reichsbahn took place in the shadow of severe political and economic crises that also directly affected the Carlsbahn. The train frequency, already reduced during the war, was reduced by the Reichsbahndirektion Kassel on January 15, 1924 to only three daily train pairs. Railcars took over the transport of the few passengers. In order to reduce operating expenses, the Reichsbahn intended to close the low-traffic Stammen and Wülmersen stops, or at least not allow individual trains to stop there, but this led to massive protests. After another profitability calculation , the decision was finally reversed. The situation only improved with the 1925 summer timetable. By 1938 the train frequency increased again gradually to up to seven pairs of trains a day. Some trains were carried out to and from Kassel. Also now only pure passenger trains ran. Four pairs of trains were railcars.
Time after World War II
The Carlsbahn line was not damaged in World War II . In the spring of 1946 there was only one pair of passenger trains every day and one pair of passenger trains on workdays with goods transport without stopping in Stammen. Two pairs of trains did not run every day. From the 1949 summer timetable there were again six pairs of trains on workdays and five on Sundays and public holidays. Individual trains were carried out to and from Kassel.
Around 1950 the continuation of the Carlsbahn to the Sollingbahn on the other bank of the Weser was discussed again. Due to the unfavorable topography in Bad Karlshafen, a new tunnel about 530 meters long would have been necessary. The decision was made to integrate the north-south long-distance freight traffic into the Hamm – Warburg railway line by building the bypass curve at Altenbeken station .
In the 1950s, the Carlsbahn developed into a branch line with up to nine passenger trains in each direction. The travel time was reduced to less than 30 minutes and numerous trains ran to and from Kassel.
As on many other Deutsche Bundesbahn routes , attempts were made on the Carlsbahn in the following years to make rail transport more economical by largely switching to rail buses . At times, a V 36 also pulled the passenger trains. From 1963 locomotives of the class 86 , accumulator railcars of the class ETA 150 with sidecar, single-engine rail buses of the class VT 95 with sidecar and diesel railcars of the class VT 60 with sidecar were used.
Freight traffic on the Carlsbahn was limited during this time. The Hümme station shunting locomotive, a Köf II, was sufficient for him . The permissible load between Hümme and Trendelburg was 200 tons, on the northern part of the route only 100 tons. Railway siding existed in Karlshafen (Weserhafen), in Wülmersen (settlement community) and at Trendelburg (sandstone quarries).
Shutdown
Passenger train traffic on the Carlsbahn ended on September 25, 1966. At the same time, freight traffic on the 11-kilometer Trendelburg – Karlshafen section was also discontinued. The reason for the closure was the desolate condition and safety-relevant deficiencies in the railway infrastructure . Means for rehabilitation were not provided. Freight traffic between Trendelburg and Hümme was stopped on September 27, 1986 and with it all rail traffic on the Carlsbahn.
Relics
Today the Diemel cycle path and the Märchenlandweg hiking route run along part of the route . Structural remains of the Carlsbahn can still be seen in many places. Passages and many retaining walls as well as the viaduct have largely been preserved in their original state. Several high-rise buildings, such as the Trendelburg station building, are still standing, some of which have been changed due to extensions and renovations. The Deiseler tunnel between Trendelburg and Wülmersen has been preserved and has been accessible since September 2014 as part of the Diemel cycle path. Only in Bad Karlshafen is nothing to be seen of the railway systems. The loading facilities at the Weserkai with the turntables were also removed. A commemorative plaque next to a locomotive wheel set , which the city had installed in Carlstrasse in 1975, commemorates the former connection of Bad Karlshafen to the railway. In the school yard of the Marie-Durand-Schule, which occupies the former area of the reception building, a rail bus of the series VT 2.09 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn was set up, a piglet taxi , which however never traveled the route. This was acquired on July 29, 2020 by the community station Güsen and transported to the Stendal depot.
After the end of all traffic between Trendelburg and Karlshafen, the tracks remained in place until 1970 and were then dismantled with the exception of an alternate and a head track in the Trendelburg station area. In 1973, the siding and immediately after the rest of the line was closed in 1986, the entire superstructure was removed.
In 2000, the Diemel Eco Path was laid out on the route of the Carlsbahn , which is intended to encourage discovery of the traces of the Landgraf-Carl Canal , which began in 1710 . This canal, which ran almost parallel to the Carlsbahn, was never completed.
In 2001, the exhibition The Carlsbahn in the course of time was a reminder . Documented relics in Trendelburg on the first Hessian railway line.
See also
literature
- Siegfried Lohr : Plans and buildings by the Kassel master builder Julius Eugen Ruhl 1796–1871. A contribution to the building history of Kassel and Kurhessen in the 19th century . Masch. Diss. Darmstadt [1982], p. 329.
- Lutz Münzer, Ulrike Taenzer: By rail from Hümme to Carlshafen , DGEG Werl 2001, ISBN 3-921700-91-4
- Lutz Münzer: Transport history - 150 years ago North Hesse rolled into the railway era , HNA from March 29, 1998
- Heinrich Stotz: Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn. From her early days , Kassel 1973
- Theo Wandler: Kurfürst-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn , Geschichtskreis Hümme e. V. 1995
- Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen. Cultural monuments in Hessen = State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Hrsg.): Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Vol. 2.1. Stuttgart, 2005. ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , pp. 85 ff. (Route 004)
Web links
- The RegioTram , on nvv.de.
- Pictures of the route: 3906 , photos and information about the Deiseler Tunnel, on eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de
- Hümme - Karlshafen (left bank) (Carlsbahn) , information and links to photos of the route from 2005, on vergessene-bahnen.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany 2007/2008 . 6th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9 .
- ↑ Information and pictures about the tunnels on route 3906 on eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de by Lothar Brill
- ↑ Lohr (1982), pp. 334f.
- ↑ Lohr (1982), pp. 333f.
- ↑ Lohr (1982), p. 333.
- ↑ Lohr (1982), pp. 332f.
- ↑ www.hna.de/ accessed on July 29, 2020
