Hamburg-Altona – Neumünster railway line

Hamburg-Altona-Neumünster
Route number :	9121
Course book section (DB) :	137
Route length:	(formerly 67.225 km) 62.634 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	100 km / h
Dual track :	Sections see route picture
Legend Altona (AKN, Gählersplatz) 1884–1912 Hamburg-Altona connecting railway Secondary customs office until 1912 0.0 0.000 Altona Kaltenkirchener Bahnhof (1912–1962) 1.5 0.000 Langenfelde (1884-1911, 1962-1965) 2.7 0.000 Start of today's route 2.8 0.000 Hamburg-Stellingen Connecting track to the freight bypass S-Bahn from Stellingen 4.3 6,100 Hamburg-Eidelstedt 6,371 4,617 to the Hamburg-Altona – Kiel railway line 5.239 from here on two tracks 6.277 Hamburg-Eidelstedt center 6.478 Hamburg-Eidelstedt East 7.057 Hamburg Hörgensweg 7.430 A23 7.833 Hamburg-Schnelsen Süd (planned) 9.024 Hamburg-Schnelsen 9.770 Schnelsener Moorgraben 10,535 Hamburg Burgwedel 11.125 State border Hamburg / Schleswig-Holstein 11,190 Mühlenau 12.307 Boenningstedt 15.944 Hasloh 18,200 Elsensee 19.161 Quickborn South 20,137 Quickborn 20.575 single track from here 22.038 Gronau 22.760 Ellerau 23.890 from here on two tracks 24.196 Tanneneck 24,700 A7 25,872 Tanneneck freight yard 26.277 to the Alsternordbahn to Norderstedt 26,382 single track from here 26.720 from here on two tracks 27.009 Ulzburg South 28.253 Pinnau Relocation of the route in 2001 28.885 Ulzburg Tunnel (630 m) 29,515 from Bad Oldesloe 29,565 Henstedt-Ulzburg 29.693 to Elmshorn 32,959 Kaltenkirchen South 33.165 single track from here 33,993 from here on two tracks 34,300 Kaltenkirchen (Holst) 34.368 Kaltenkirchener Tunnel (202 m) 34,570 34.821 single track from here 36.078 Holstentherme 36.696 Dodenhof 37.170 A7 39,341 Benefit 41.816 Lentföhrden 44.175 Ohlau 44.798 Bad Bramstedt Kurhaus 45,460 Narrow fields 46,446 Lower Osterau 46.708 Bad Bramstedt 49.970 Gayen 51.753 Wiemersdorf 54,026 54,000 Extra length 26 m 54,360 A7 56.288 Great Aspen 58.145 to the armed forces depot 61.445 Boostedt 63.752 Boostedt ramp 65.031 from the industrial area Neumünster Süd from Bad Oldesloe 65.763 sturgeon 66.832 Neumünster south Material handling center Neumünster 67.225 76.410 Property boundary 76.013 Swallow from Hamburg 74,809 Neumunster to Flensburg , Kiel and Heide

The Hamburg-Altona-Neumünster railway is the main line of the AKN railway . Today the 64.506 km long Hamburg Eidelstedt - Neumünster section is operated by AKN for passenger transport.

The stops of today's A1 line between Hamburg Hbf and Hamburg-Eidelstedt, which are located in Hamburg's urban area, are not part of the main route and are only used temporarily by the AKN.

Today's operation

Lentföhrden train station

On the Hamburg-Eidelstedt-Kaltenkirchen section, the AKN's local trains today mostly run every 20 minutes. This frequency applies on weekdays between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. and on Saturdays between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. In the rush hour, the AKN compresses the cycle to 10 minutes. In the off-peak hours from late evening to around 1 a.m. and on Sundays, 40-minute intervals are offered. On the weekend nights and at major events in Hamburg, operations for late return passengers are extended by additional trains until after 2 a.m.

Between Kaltenkirchen and Neumünster there is mostly an hourly service.

During rush hour, some trains on the A2 line run in the gaps on the A1 via Ulzburg Süd to Kaltenkirchen.

The A3 line also runs every hour between Henstedt-Ulzburg and Ulzburg Süd.

The line is therefore heavily used in the Ulzburg Süd - Henstedt-Ulzburg section with up to nine trains per hour and direction.

The line is used regularly for freight traffic to and from Norderstedter Industriebahn and is required by long-distance freight trains as a diversion route when the Hamburg – Elmshorn – Neumünster line is blocked.

Service facilities at the stops

On the southern section Kaltenkirchen - Hamburg-Eidelstedt, with the exception of Hamburg-Schnelsen, all stations are equipped with electronic displays for passenger information; on the northern section there are individual train stations such as Bad Bramstedt or Neumünster Süd. All stations between Hamburg-Eidelstedt center and Neumünster Süd have had free WiFi since May 2015.

Vehicle use

From the beginning to the end of the Second World War, the AKN owned a total of 28 steam locomotives, which handled all traffic until the arrival of the first railcars built in 1930. Before the end of the war, two more railcars were added. It was not until 1951 that new Esslingen railcars took over passenger transport. Five vehicles came together by 1963. From 1956 to 1963 MAN supplied ten railcars , which were supplemented by four rail buses from Uerdingen . A total of ten driving cars provided the necessary space. In 1927 the AKN owned 25 two-axle and five three-axle passenger cars, seven of which were also set up for the transport of mail. 42 covered and 72 open freight cars were placed in the fleet of the Reichsbahn. Seven milk trucks took over the daily milk transports. Little changed in this vehicle stock until 1960. In 1936 milk trucks no longer appear in the statistics. Diesel locomotives first ran on the AKN network in 1948. A total of 20 diesel locomotives were counted up to 1972, which took over the freight traffic. From 1976 the new VTE multiple units were used between Eidelstedt and Kaltenkirchen, and the new VTA multiple units have been in use since 1993 . Eight trains received a pantograph on the side so that they can run on the S-Bahn network.

In December 2015, the AKN decommissioned the almost 40-year-old cars from the VTE series. LINT 54 trains are used as replacements.

Expansion of the Hamburg - Kaltenkirchen section

The railway line was expanded between 1995 and 2012 in the southern section Hamburg - Kaltenkirchen with considerable expenditure. The line is now largely double-tracked, passes under several town centers in a low-lying area and has modern stops. Among other things, the following were realized:

• a height-free threading of the route in Eidelstedt into the network of the S-Bahn,
• the new "Eidelstedt Zentrum" stop in the lower elevation,
• the double-track expansion between Eidelstedt center and Quickborn,
• the double-track expansion between Ulzburg Süd and Kaltenkirchen Süd with the removal of all level crossings and the construction of a new train station in Henstedt-Ulzburg as well as a nearly 600 m long tunnel in this location,
• a new train station in Kaltenkirchen in low elevation.

In the Hamburg-Eidelstedt - Kaltenkirchen area, individual sections in the Hamburg-Eidelstedt - Hamburg-Eidelstedt center, Quickborn - Ulzburg Süd and Kaltenkirchen Süd - Kaltenkirchen areas are still single track.

The entire route is controlled from the AKN operations center in Kaltenkirchen via branch offices of the local electronic signal box.

Expansion to the S-Bahn line

The Hamburg - Kaltenkirchen section is to be integrated into the Hamburg S-Bahn network as part of the S21 line in the 2020s. For this purpose, further extensions are planned on the route:

• The platforms have to be lengthened from today's 110 meters to 140 meters. This makes it possible to use so-called full trains of the S-Bahn that are around 132 meters long.
• The last remaining single-track sections will be expanded to double-track.
• The entire route will be electrified. An overhead line with the traction current system customary in Germany at 15 kV alternating voltage is used here, and a lateral conductor rail in the area of ​​the transition to the existing S-Bahn network. The Hamburg S-Bahn will use so-called two-system multiple units after Kaltenkirchen, which can use both power systems.

The necessary construction measures to integrate the route into the S-Bahn network (electrification, dual track) should not begin before 2018 ^[obsolete] and should not be completed before 2020. Even after the conversion to the S-Bahn line, the AKN, as a railway infrastructure company, will remain the owner and operator of the line and the stations.

history

On September 8, 1884, the Altona-Kaltenkirchen Railway Company founded the previous year opened the line from Altona to Kaltenkirchen for passenger traffic. Freight traffic began on November 24, 1884. The company initially ran the company Kintzel & Lauser, which had built the line and held a stake in the share capital. Handover of goods to the state railway was initially not planned, but possible to the Hamburg tram in Altona. Accordingly, a central buffer coupling was chosen, which was necessary for the tight bends that initially existed. In 1892 the AKE took over the management itself.

The line was originally planned as a narrow-gauge railway , but was built in standard gauge . It largely followed the Altona-Kieler Chaussee, built in 1830–32, with its southernmost section, Holstenstrasse, from the Kaltenkirchen train station on Gählerplatz to the north. Using folding rails , it crossed the Hamburg-Altona connecting railway , which passed the Viktoria barracks at street level from the shoulder blade station, roughly where Haubachstraße runs today. To the north of this intersection, the Nebenzollamt station was set up on the border of the joint customs area Hamburg / Altona . Customs controls took place here until Hamburg joined the German Customs Union in 1888 .

When, in 1893, the embankment north of the Holstenbrauerei with the Holstenstrasse station was built for the connecting line , as it still exists today, the AKE operation on the Gählersplatz - Nebenzollamt section of the road was discontinued. On August 20, 1898, the line was extended beyond Kaltenkirchen to Bramstedt, and the Nebenzollamt station was named Bramstedter Bahnhof .

Before Hamburg-Eidelstedt there was an incline that made longer trains difficult. In 1902 a connection to the state railway in Eidelstedt was established so that freight wagons could be handed over here.

On December 17, 1912, the route between Altona and Ellerau was relocated from Altona-Kieler Chaussee to the route that is still in use today parallel to the Altona-Kieler Railway due to the increasing road traffic . The maximum speed on the new route was 40 km / h.

The terminus in Altona was the newly built (second) Kaltenkirchen train station north of the connecting line at Sonderburger Platz , today's Kaltenkirchener Platz . This was used until 1962 and was taken over by the post office that year, which built a loading hall for the parcel post office 2 on the site from 1965–1973. Until then, it was housed in the old post office building on Stephansplatz .

In 1913 an application was made to extend the line to Neumünster, approved on December 1, 1914, and operations on the new line opened on August 1, 1916. The company had been operating as the Altona-Kaltenkirchen-Neumünster Railway since 1914 .

Neumünster south

The terminus was Neumünster Süd station on the Neumünster – Bad Oldesloe railway line .

During the Second World War it was run for wear, so that the superstructure was in a correspondingly poor condition after the war. The Wiemersdorf station was destroyed in the explosion of an ammunition train.

Since 1957, the route has been operated using the train control method by radio . In 1962, a connection to the AKN line was created from the Hamburg-Holstenstraße S-Bahn station, the Hamburg-Diebsteich stop was created and the end point of the AKN line was moved to Langenfelde.

From 1974 the line was renewed and the tracks were continuously welded. The platforms between Hamburg-Eidelstedt and Kaltenkirchen were uniformly brought to a height of 76 cm and a length of 100 meters. Level crossings were lifted or secured by half barriers. This reduced the travel time between Kaltenkirchen and Eidelstedt to 38 and 44 minutes respectively. In 1976 a central signal box was put into operation in Ulzburg Süd , which controlled the signal boxes in Quickborn , Hamburg-Schnelsen and Kaltenkirchen (from 1982). Since 1983 it has been working with microprocessors instead of relay technology . In 2002 the signal box was replaced by an electronic signal box in Kaltenkirchen. In 2005 the whole route was converted.

Between 1997 and 2001 the line between Ulzburg Süd and Kaltenkirchen Süd was expanded to two tracks. For this purpose, the line in Henstedt-Ulzburg was shifted several 100 meters to the west. Since then, the town center has been crossed in a 630-meter-long tunnel, and the train station directly adjacent to the tunnel is located at a lower level. The traffic on the new line began on August 28, 2000, about a year later the work was completely finished and the new buildings were officially inaugurated.

Between Hamburg-Eidelstedt and Hamburg-Schnelsen, the route was partially rebuilt in a low-lying area between 2001 and 2004, which means that three streets are crossed under. A new Hamburg-Eidelstedt center stop was created. The introduction to the Hamburg-Eidelstedt station has been changed. The line passes under the eastern S-Bahn track and threads into the S-Bahn tracks. From there it is possible to continue your journey on the S-Bahn line without crossing. To the north of the Hamburg-Eidelstedt train station, the freight track extends towards Hamburg-Langenfelde . The line between Hamburg-Schnelsen and Quickborn has been expanded since 2006, and has been in operation between Bönningstedt and Hasloh since October 28, 2007. The Hasloh - Quickborn Süd section has been double-tracked since May 2011, and commissioning between Halstenbeker Strasse and Hamburg-Schnelsen station followed in October 2011. Since October 2012, train traffic between Hamburg-Schnelsen and Bönningstedt has been possible on two tracks. With the completion of this measure, there should be no further expansion of the two-track system for the time being.

Y-steel sleepers have been used almost exclusively for track renewals since 1989 . Over 100 kilometers in the entire AKN network have already been equipped with it.

Between 2001 and 2004, the Kaltenkirchen train station was redesigned and redesigned, followed by an approximately 400 meter long tunnel. This makes several level crossings superfluous.

Since December 1, 2002, AKN has leased the Neumünster Süd – Neumünster section from DB Netz and runs to Neumünster station and on to Heide and Büsum.

passenger traffic

In 1884 the journey from Altona to Kaltenkirchen took more than two hours. Nevertheless, more than 150,000 passengers were carried in the first year. In 1930, railcars were used for the first time in order to be able to carry out the traffic more cheaply. After the Second World War, from May 25, 1945, a daily passenger train ran again. In 1946 there were already ten passenger trains a day. The number of passengers transported increased: 1945 1,495,000, 1948 3,883,000 people. Since March 31, 1953, the passenger trains from the station go Neumünster South on the tracks of Neumünster-Bad Oldesloe railway on to the station Neumünster .

With the expansion of the Hamburg S-Bahn , the southern terminus for passenger traffic was relocated from the Kaltenkirchen train station in Hamburg-Altona in 1962 to Hamburg-Langenfelde and finally to Hamburg-Eidelstedt in 1965. The S-Bahn tracks (today's lines S21, S3) are parallel to the AKN track to the west.

In 1947 more than three million passengers were carried for the first time. The exact number was 3,517,733. In 1967 the number had fallen to 2,849,730. Joining the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV) brought an upswing : in 1974, 4,213,930 passengers were counted.

Freight transport

It started with 10,000 tons in the first year. The main interested parties were peat factories.

In the beginning there was no direct transfer traffic with the state railway, all freight had to be reloaded. In 1902 a transfer facility was set up. In 1934 there were 22 sidings with a total of 13.59 kilometers of track.

Until 1959, a mail coach was on the route every day.

The transport services varied: in 1940 560,000 tons were transported, in 1950 348,000 tons.

Since January 1, 2008, the rest of the freight traffic (mainly transfers to the main track of the Norderstedter Industriebahn and at Boostedt station ) has been handled by DB Cargo Germany .

Former breakpoints

The Elsensee stop was between Hasloh and Quickborn Süd. Users were mainly employees of the Thörlschen margarine factory . This was closed during World War II due to bombing and relocated to Hamburg-Harburg. Although this made it superfluous, the stop was not closed until 1974 when the route was renewed.

The Gut Gayen stop was between Bad Bramstedt and Wiemersdorf. A sand platform is still available.

Until 2002, instead of today's Hamburg-Eidelstedt Zentrum stop, the Hamburg-Eidelstedt Ost train station was served. It was located a few 100 meters north of Eidelstedt center.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ No more boredom on the platform: AKN is now offering WiFi at all stations. (No longer available online.) AKN, May 28, 2015, archived from the original on July 12, 2015 ; accessed on September 7, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Second plan approval procedure for S-Bahn to Kaltenkirchen started. Local transport HAMBURG, January 23, 2017, accessed on January 23, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Map excerpt from 1890 with Gählerplatz and Kaltenkirchener Bahnhof

Kaltenkirchen train station

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  Former Kaltenkirchen train station (2002)

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  New train station (2006)

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  View from the platform to the entrance

• 

  platform

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  VTE on the western track

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  Kaltenkirchen South

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  Kaltenkirchen station, above-ground part

See also

• List of AKN train stations

literature

• Jörg Minga, Reinhardt Hassenstein: 125 years of AKN Eisenbahn AG 1883–2008 . Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8319-0318-4 .
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways, part 1: Schleswig-Holstein / Hamburg. Zeunert, Gifhorn 1972, ISBN 3-921237-14-9 , pages 65-74

Web links

• Station and route photos (private website)