Kaliningrad – Baltiysk railway line

Kaliningrad – Baltiysk
Railway lines around Königsberg in 1938
Route length:	47 km
Gauge :	until about 1950: 1435 mm 1520 mm
Legend from Bagrationovsk and from Chernyshevskoye 0.0 Kaliningrad-Passashirsky also Juschny Woksal, formerly Königsberg (Pr) Hbf to Mamonowo ( Königsberg Ostbahnhof ) (until 1929) Railway bridge and Reichsbahnbrücke over the Pregel 1.7 ( Königsberg-Holländerbaum ) (1929–1945) (Königsberg-Pillauer letter) (until 1929) to Kaliningrad Severny from Kaliningrad Severny according to Tilsit 4.0 Sapadny-Nowy ( Königsberg-Rathshof ) 5.9 ( Königsberg-Juditten ) Brusnitschnaja (since 2018) 10.4 Lesnoje -Nowoje (Metgethen) Freight line 13, 0 Op 13 km 14.8 Ljublino -Nowoje ( Sea Rappers ) former Bf. 17.6 Op 18 km (Lindenau) Freight route from the Sodrugestvo company 22.2 (0.0) Schipowka (Powayen) 26th, 0 Op 26 km Freight line from the Lukoil oil terminal (12.8) Baltijski Les ( Peyse ) 29.4 Op 29 km ( Kaspershöfen ) former train station 33, 0 Op 33 km to and from Jantarny 34.4 Primorsk- Nowy (Fischhausen) former Bf. 39, 0 Op 39 km 42.0 Metschnikowo (Neuhäuser) formerly Bf. 45, 0 Op 45 km 47.0 Baltijsk (Pillau, until 1941) (Pillau Seedienstbf) (1920–1945)

The Kaliningrad – Baltiysk (Königsberg – Pillau) railway is located in the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast and runs from its center, Kaliningrad, through southern Samland to the Baltic Sea port of Baltiysk at the opening of the Fresh Spit .

history

The line built by the East Prussian Southern Railway Company was opened on September 11, 1865. It was initially based on the Lizent station, built north of the Pregel as a terminus station, which was later called Pillauer station. The railway passed through the (inner) fortifications of the city of Königsberg through a specially inserted gate. Initially, this route served not only for goods traffic, which however lost its importance after the completion of the Königsberger See Canal around 1900, especially for excursion traffic from Königsberg to Metgethen and to the west coast of Samland, for which in 1884 a connection was made by the East Prussian Southern Railway Company from the district town of Fischhausen was created after palm nods .

The Pillauer train station in Königsberg around 1900, in the background the Neurossgärter Church

After the East Prussian Southern Railway Company was taken over by the Prussian State Railways in July 1903, the Pillau station in Königsberg was expanded into a through station and the (first) railway bridge built in the 1880s over the Pregel allowed traffic to the Königsberg Ostbahnhof . After the formation of the Polish Corridor as a result of the First World War , with the establishment of the East Prussian Sea Service in 1920, this railway line became an important link between Königsberg and the rest of the German Empire .

From September 19, 1929, the trains to Pillau ran from the newly built Königsberg main station over the also new Reichsbahnbrücke over the Pregel. In 1938 a new reception building was completed at the Pillauer Sea Service Station. From October 6, 1941, this station became the departure and arrival point for all passenger trains in Pillau. On December 1, 1941, a branch from Powayen to Peyse was opened. On January 28, 1945, the route near Metgethen was interrupted by Red Army troops and on February 19, 1945 the German Wehrmacht fought it free again for a few weeks until it was finally in Soviet hands on April 25, 1945.

After the Second World War , the line was changed to Russian broad gauge. Passenger traffic on the junction to the Baltijski Les (formerly Peyse) station near the town of Swetly ceased after the collapse of the Soviet Union .

Licentbahnhof

From 1882, the three platform tracks also took on the trains to Labiau / Tilsit from the Ostbahnhof . The three-storey station building faced Lizentgrabenstrasse with a simple, sandstone-like plastered facade. In the area between Lizentgrabenstrasse and Ostendorffstrasse, bounded to the south by the main customs office, were the operating facilities of the station for parking the passenger trains and for supplying the locomotives. Shunting tracks were used to connect the Lastadie and the Königsberger Kleinbahn .

Web links

• Timetable on www.kppk39.ru

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German Südbahnhof , not to be confused with the Königsberg Südbahnhof that existed until 1929
2. ↑ was also called Lizent-Bahnhof and was initially a pure terminus
3. ↑ The stop is located in the immediate vicinity of the former Königsberg-Juditten stop
4. ↑ 1937–1941 Pillau Seestadt
5. ↑ 1941–1945 Pillau Seestadt
6. ↑ The exact circumstances of the renovation of the Pillau station and when the first train from Pillau arrived at the Königsberg Ostbahnhof still has to be determined.
7. ↑ Uwe Nussbaum, Bridge over the Baltic Sea , 1999, p. 109
8. ↑ Report of the former district administrator of the Samland district Klaus von der Groeben from 1952, reproduced on www.zgv.de ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2012 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. 
9. ^ Robert Albinus: Königsberg Lexicon . Würzburg 2000. ISBN 3-88189-441-1