Löbau – Radibor railway line

Löbau (Sachs) –Radibor
Excerpt from the route map of Saxony 1911
Route number :	6581; sä. LR
Course book range :	243 (1972)
Route length:	40.454 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	20  ‰
Minimum radius :	300 m
Top speed:	50 km / h
Legend from Görlitz 0.00 Löbau (Sachs) 264 m to Zittau and Ebersbach to Großpostwitz to Dresden 4.21 Kittlitz (Sachs) 253 m 5.63 Opole 230 m 7.32 Kleinradmeritz 202 m 8.63 Glosses (b Löbau / Sachs) 199 m 11.17 Lautitz 188 m 12.85 Farm road (10 m) 13.30 Maltitz 190 m Görlitzer Kreisbahn from Görlitz 15.49 Weissenberg (Sachs) 184 m 16.83 Viaduct Gröditz (170 m) 16.83 Federal motorway 4 18.41 Gröditz (Upper Lusatia) 184 m 20.07 EÜ farm road (18 m) 20.61 EÜ farm road (21 m) Anst OLBA 22.27 Baruth (Sachs) 152 m 22.64 Löbauer water (28 m) 22.99 Löbauer water (28 m) 23.62 Mühlgraben (60 m) 26.28 Guttau (Sachs) 148 m 26.83 Flood bridge (11 m) 27.85 Small Spree (36 m) 27.96 Flood bridge (11 m) 28.02 Flood bridge (11 m) 28.37 Zschertoniagraben (22 m) 28.52 Spree (36 m) 30.22 Klix 160 m 33.85 Instead of Adolfshütte Crosta 33.88 At the Margarethenhütte 34.11 Grand Dubrau 172 m 36.12 Luttowitz 167 m 37.95 Radibor Hp 158 m from Hoyerswerda 40.46 Radibor (Sachs) to Bautzen

The Löbau – Radibor line was a branch line in Saxony , which was originally planned as a section of the Saxon Northeast Railway (Löbau – Riesa). It ran from Löbau via Weißenberg / OL. to Radibor , where it was connected to the Bautzen – Hoyerswerda connection .

history

Prehistory and construction

Löbau – Weißenberg

The project of a continuous connection from Weißwasser in the Prussian Upper Lusatia via Löbau to Bohemia for connection to the routes of the Bohemian Northern Railway was discussed as early as the 1860s . Although the project was approved by the Saxon state parliament on May 8, 1868, it was not carried out. When the Prussian connection between Kohlfurt and Falkenberg of the Upper Lusatian Railway Company went into operation in 1874 , the project was finally put on record.

Only the construction of secondary railways in Saxony, which began in 1879, finally made the long-awaited rail connection possible for Weißenberg. However, it was still more than a decade before the project for a line from Löbau to Weißenberg was approved by the Saxon state parliament in March 1892. The first survey work had already been carried out in the autumn of 1891; the actual construction of the route began on April 1, 1894. The route ran easily along the Löbauer Water , so that apart from some overpasses, no further engineering structures were necessary. On August 1, 1895, the line was opened as a standard-gauge secondary line.

Weißenberg-Radibor

Around 1900 there were only the two secondary railways Löbau – Weißenberg and Bautzen – Königswartha north of the Saxon-Silesian Railway in eastern Upper Lusatia . The stations on the Prussian line Kohlfurt – Falkenberg were the closest, especially for the places near the border with Prussia.

At Großdubrau, companies were set up that processed the kaolins and clays stored on site into ceramic products. The Margarethe cottage in Großdubrau began in 1900 with the production of ceramic high voltage insulators that were in demand in Germany. Since these could not be manufactured with the raw materials stored on site, a rail link became a question of existence. The nearby Adolfshütte therefore had its own narrow-gauge connecting railway to Quoos station built on the Bautzen – Königswartha line in 1891 .

In 1898, the preparatory work began for a secondary railway from Weißenberg to Radibor running parallel to the Prussian border. Since the line was viewed as a section of the Saxon Northeast Railway , which was still in the planning stage , attention was paid to the possibility of later expansion to a double-track main line .

The construction of the railway was approved on June 14, 1900. The actual route construction began on October 1, 1902. The only larger structure that had to be built near Weißenberg was a ten-arch viaduct over the Löbauer Wasser, which was created using the then-new concrete construction method . The work was carried out by the specialized AG for concrete and monor construction.

The Weißenberg – Baruth section was opened on November 10, 1903. However, further construction to Radibor was delayed. It was not until the turn of the year 1904/1905 that the Saxon state parliament approved a total of 2 million marks for the completion of the line. Construction work began on March 7, 1905. In addition to the Spree bridge with the necessary flood openings, a new construction of the Radibor train station was necessary, which had to be converted into a branching station. On May 1, 1906, the entire Löbau – Radibor line was opened.

business

In the early years, only four pairs of trains ran the entire route. The maximum speed was 30 km / h. The construction of the Saxon Northeast Railway was finally canceled in 1927, so that further expansion of the line did not take place.

On December 17, 1913, the Görlitz – Weißenberg line of the Görlitzer Kreisbahn was opened. This opened its own track system on the east side of the existing train station. A connecting track made it possible to exchange freight wagons.

Viaduct Gröditz

At the end of the Second World War, the Wehrmacht blew up a few overpasses and the Gröditz Viaduct. On June 7, 1945, traffic to Weißenberg was resumed. The viaduct was later rebuilt.

Shutdown

Großdubrau Railway Station (2009)

From the mid-1960s onwards, there was a noticeable decline in transport services. New bus lines that went directly to the Bautzen regional center withdrew passengers. In terms of freight traffic, however, the route was indispensable for the Margarethenhütte and the Baruth basalt works.

When the timetable changed on May 27, 1972, passenger traffic between Löbau and Baruth was discontinued. When the timetable changed in autumn, the remaining route also lost its passenger traffic. From then on there was only freight traffic between Baruth and Radibor.

In the spring of 1973 the Löbau – Baruth line was dismantled. However, in 1978 a new track was between Löbau and Kittlitz again relocated, which for armored shipments of the NVA was used -Standortes Löbau.

When the Margarethenhütte stopped production at the end of 1993, the rest of the route came to an end. Freight traffic between Baruth and Guttau officially ended at the end of 1994. In 1997 the Guttau freight yard was also closed. The line was closed on September 1, 1996 (Baruth – Guttau) and August 15, 1998 (Guttau – Radibor). In 2004 the remaining tracks were dismantled.

literature

• Hans von Polenz: Railways in the Bautzener Land ; Ostsächsische Eisenbahnfreunde eV, Löbau 2006; ISBN 3-00-018243-8
• Wilfried Rettig: Railways in the border triangle of Eastern Saxony (D) / Lower Silesia (PL) / Northern Bohemia (CZ) - Part 2: Secondary, small and narrow-gauge railways, railway operations and repair shops, railway mail , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2011, ISBN 978-388255 -733-6 ; Pp. 57-65

Web links

Commons : Löbau – Radibor railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Route description at sachsenschiene.de