Hjørring – Hirtshals railway line

Hjørring – Hirtshals
Hirtshals station building
Hirtshalsbanen
Route length:	17.8 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	Hjørring – Tornby 100 km / h Tornby – Hirtshals 75 km / h
Operating points and routes
Legend Harbor tracks 17.8 Hirtshals Color Line Freight wagons to Kristiansand (until 1991) Freight train terminal 16.6 Lilleheden 15.1 Emmersbæk (formerly Terpet ) 13.7 Horne (formerly Bhf.) 11.8 Ravndrup 10.4 Tornby 9.5 Sønderby 6.9 Vidstrup 5.9 Langholm planned railway line Hjørring – Aalbæk 4.1 Vellingshøj 3.2 Herregårdsparken Hjørring – Løkken – Aabybro Jernbane from Løkken (from 1942) 1.6 Teglgårdsvej to the workshop 0.5 Kvægtorvet Hjørring – Løkken – Aabybro Jernbane from Løkken (until 1942) Hjørring Vestbanegård Frederikshavn – Aalborg railway from Frederikshavn 0.0 Hjørring Railway line Frederikshavn – Aalborg to Aalborg Hjørring – Hørby Jernbane to Hørby

The Hjørring – Hirtshals railway is a standard-gauge railway between Hjørring and Hirtshals on the Danish island of Vendsyssel-Thy . The route with a total length of 17.8 km is also called Hirtshalsbanen in Denmark after its second operating company, the private Danish railway company Hirtshalsbanen (HB) .

history

Hjørring – Aalbæk Jernbane

With the Railway Act of May 27, 1908 , a private railway line from Ålbæk via Tversted to Hjørring, possibly with a branch line from Vellingshøj to Hirtshals, was established.

The line was designed as a main line, with the section Hjørring – Hirtshals from Vellingshøj station planned as a branch line. The concession for the line was granted in 1915, but the start of construction was delayed due to the First World War . In 1923 a new law was passed by which the state share of the construction costs was increased to 60%. Construction work began in April 1924. However, the branch line to Hirtshals was completed first and opened on December 18, 1925. In 1933 the originally planned route to Ålbæk was abandoned.

Although the plans for the construction of the Hjørring – Aalbæk Jernbane (HA) were no longer pursued, the company name HA remained until 1932. With the opening of the line to Hirtshals , the vehicles for the originally planned Hjørring – Aalbæk Jernbane were procured and given the registration number HA , which they carried until the 1940s.

→ further details: Hjørring – Aalbæk railway line

Hirtshalsbanen

The single-track line of Hirtshalsbane , which opened on December 18, 1925, had its starting point at Hjørring Vestbanegård station, which had existed since 1913 . The Westbahnhof was already used by Hjørring – Løkken – Aabybro Jernbane (HLA) and Hjørring – Hørby Jernbane (HH).

Hjørring private banker

On April 1, 1939, all the private railways leading to Hjørring were merged into one company, A / S Hjørring Privatbaner (HP). Then major renovation work began on the track system in Hjørring. From October 3, 1942, the trains no longer used the Westbahnhof, but the DSB station.

→ Main article : Hjørring Vestbanegård

The Hirtshals station building is privately owned

Nordjyske Jernbaner

On September 11, 2001, A / S Hjørring Privatbaner , which at that time only operated the Hjørring – Hirtshals line, and Skagensbanen A / S , which operated the Frederikshavn – Skagen line , merged to form Nordjyske Jernbaner A / S.

Vehicles and operation

Operation began with steam locomotives , and in 1933 they switched to diesel locomotives .

The railway experienced a major boom with the commissioning of a shipping route from Hirtshals to Kristiansand in Norway. The Danish state railways DSB then operated a long-distance train called "Nordpilen" ( German  North Arrow ) to the port of Hirtshals . There the passengers could transfer directly to the ferry. The Second World War ended the ferry route, which was not resumed until 1949. In addition, from 1942 train traffic no longer ended at Hjørring Vestbanegård station, but at DSB station.

1968, for the Hirtshalsbane railcar of the type Y-tog procured, as Lynette are known. They replaced the rail buses built in 1948 .

Since the merger in 2001, the Siemens Desiro Classic route has been used by Nordjyske Jernbaner.

On August 6, 2017, the state transferred responsibility for local transport to the Nordjylland region . As a result, Nordjyske Jernbaner took over regional train operations on the entire Frederikshavn – Aalborg route and on via the Aalborg Nærbane to Skørping from the Danske Statsbaner (DSB). To this end, a further 13 new Alstom LINT 41 trains were procured, which serve the Skagen – Skørping and Hirtshals – Hjørring route with the Desiro trains. On the Hirtshals – Hjørring route, all intermediate stations are stop-offs.

On Friday, October 5th, 2018, the last passenger train ran on the section between Frederikshavn and Lindholm (station exit north) with route signals . Then test drives took place until operations with ETCS started on October 21 . Since then, DSB vehicles have only been able to travel to Lindholm. DSB's IC trains end in Aalborg. Up to this point, freight trains can run with the MZ series at 90 km / h.

The local operating facilities (Kmp = command post) in Hjørring and Frederikshavn were closed. The remote control of Lindholm station is carried out from the remote control center Aalborg (FC = Fjernstyringscentral). Hirtshalsbane and Skagensbane are remotely controlled by FC Hjørring.

New Hirtshals freight yard

The new Hirtshals Godsterminal

After all the port tracks north of Hirtshals station were dismantled during the line modernization, a new freight terminal was built in 2014 opposite the Lilleheden stop. The port of Hirtshals assumed that the new freight rail terminal is expected to go into operation at the end of 2014 or in the first half of 2015 if the entire planning process goes as expected. The opening with a 612 m long loading track took place on August 1, 2015. However, this loading track is only connected to one side in the north with a pull-out track, so that arriving trains have to be pushed into the terminal. The municipality of Hjørring was looking for an operator, for which DB Schenker had also applied.

The total investment in the new freight train terminal in North Jutland was estimated at 33 million DKK , of which 23 million DKK went to the Togfond , which was approved by the Folketing in January 2014 . On September 15, 2015, the first 640-meter-long freight train operated by Captrain Denmark reached the new terminal. The background, however, was the fact that the freight tracks in Aalborg were being rebuilt. Fundamental problems with freight traffic arise from the fact that trains from Aalborg to Hirtshals in Hjørring have to change the direction of travel. All of the passenger traffic tracks have to be crossed. The length of the bypass track is about 520 m and does not allow longer trains that are only driven by a locomotive.

The construction of the combined terminal must be viewed as a bad investment. From the opening in 2015 to January 2019, it was approached three times by freight trains. The next scheduled train should reach the station in 2020.

Web links

Commons : Hirtshalsbanen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Hjørring – Hirtshals banen. nordjyllands-jernbaner.dk, accessed February 13, 2014 (Danish). 
• Historien bag Nordjyske Jernbaner. Nordjyske Jernbaner, accessed February 13, 2014 (Danish). 
• Erik V. Pedersen: Hjørring private banker. Retrieved November 17, 2014 (Danish). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ COMPETITION. (PDF) In: banedanmark.dk. May 11, 2017, accessed May 17, 2017 (Danish). 
2. ^ Erik V. Pedersen: Hjørring – Hirtshals railway line. Retrieved November 17, 2014 (Danish). Sporforbindelser 1913. (PDF) Accessed December 14, 2014 (Danish).   
3. ^ Ole Gold, Ole L. Nielsen: Hjørring Privatbaner. Hjørring – Hirtshals. In: EVP Danmark. Retrieved August 26, 2019 (Danish). 
4. ↑ Hjørring – Hirtshals Banen. (PDF) In: jernbanearkivalier.dk. Archived from the original on January 21, 2015 ; accessed on August 26, 2019 (Danish). 
5. ↑ Nordjyske Jernbaner A / S. Virk.dk, September 11, 2001, accessed May 1, 2017 (Danish). 
6. ↑ Fysiske signaler Lindholm-Frederikshavn. In: jernbanen.dk. Retrieved October 17, 2019 (Danish). 
7. ↑ Banedanmark (ed.): TIB-S, Strækningsoversierter . October 7, 2019, p. 1384 .
8. ↑ ^{a b} Jernbaneleksikon. In: jernbanen.dk. Retrieved October 17, 2019 (Danish). 
9. ↑ Banedanmark (ed.): Strækningsoversigt ETCS . 25. (Lindholm) - Frederikshavn. March 25, 2019, p. 42-4-59-3 .
10. ↑ Jesper B. Nielsen: Godstog til Hirtshals Havn. Transportmagasinet, April 4, 2014, accessed October 17, 2019 (Danish). 
11. ↑ Første tog på kombiterminalen ved Hirtshals Havn. In: hirtshalshavn.dk. Retrieved October 17, 2019 (Danish). 
12. ↑ Kristoffer Wolsing, Michael Stie Laugesen: Godstransport-og logistikplan 2025 for Hjørring Kommune. (PDF) 10.3.1 Combi terminal. Solutions4Innovation, p. 48 , accessed on October 17, 2019 (Danish). 
13. ↑ Anders Kampmann: Hirtshals' nye kombiterminal ligger stort set ubrugt hen. In: SCM.dk. Retrieved October 17, 2019 (Danish).