Langenfeld – Rheindorf railway line

Langenfeld – Monheim – Rheindorf / –Baumberg
Route number :	9247 (Langenfeld – fork) 9248 (fork – Hitdorf) 9249 (fork – Shell)
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	up to 1979: 800 V  =
Legend Duisburg – Cologne 0.0 Langenfeld transfer station A59 1.7 1.0-2.6 Gravel dredging 3.0 Monheim 3.77 Monheim Town Hall 0.0 (new kilometrage according to Baumberg) 4.1 Frohnstrasse 4.7 Depot Shell colony 2.4 Bus depot Fence angle 1.08-1.88 Shell 6.0 Blee Hammesfahr Kielsgraben 8.7 Hitdorf 2.64 graveyard 9.4 Kremer's switch 2.88 Baumberg 10.9 Rheindorf

The Langenfeld – Rheindorf railway is a railway line in North Rhine-Westphalia operated by the railways of the city of Monheim (BSM). There is only freight traffic on it.

history

Railway bridge of the Monheimer Bahn

From 1904, the Monheim – Langenfeld route was initially served by the Gleislose Bahn Monheim – Langenfeld , an early trolleybus operator. In 1908 this was finally replaced by a standard-gauge railway line and extended from Monheim to Hitdorf . In 1911 the line from Monheim to Baumberg was opened and in 1912 the Hitdorf line was extended to Rheindorf. RWE was responsible for operational management . The lines were electrified with 800 V direct current. Until 1963, the Langenfeld - Monheim - Hitdorf - Rheindorf and Monheim - Baumberg routes were in full operation.

In 1962/1963, passenger transport was completely converted to buses. At the same time, the section from the Shell refinery to Baumberg was shut down. In addition, the railways of the city of Monheim took over the management themselves in 1963. In 1979 the operation with electric locomotives was ended and two diesel locomotives were procured. At the same time, the construction of bypass routes began, since until then the route had led through the Monheim city center. Operations have been on the new routes since 1983. The outer branches of the route to Hitdorf , Rheindorf and Baumberg were abandoned and dismantled in 1986 due to a lack of traffic. When the Shell refinery was closed in 1987, an important freight customer was lost.

In 2010, a new siding was opened to a freight forwarding company that provides logistics services for Henkel and connects its plant in Wassertrüdingen with Düsseldorf . For this purpose, a siding was later added in front of the junction to the Monheim depot.

There is currently a 9.2 km long railway network that is only used for freight traffic . Passenger transport is also offered for special trips . In 2013 there were three diesel locomotives.

passenger traffic

Passenger traffic was carried out with tram cars. Between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., on weekends until 0.40 a.m., the railcars ran every half hour between Langenfeld and Rheindorf. In Monheim Town Hall there was a connection to a railcar that shuttled between the town hall and Baumberg. At rush hour, sidecars were carried between Langenfeld and Hitdorf. The transport services were remarkable. 190 were carried 341,600 people, in 1919 already 1,146,003 people. The numbers fell due to the economic crisis, in 1935 there were only 291,585 people. Top performances were achieved after the Second World War: 2,100,000 people were transported in 1948. In 1960 there were still 1,480,939 people. At the beginning there were five two-axle railcars and three trailer cars of the type customary at RWE. In 1924 two more railcars were added from other WEG railways. In 1949 a trailer was procured for a car that was destroyed in the war . In 1955 four railcars were added. These had a light green car body with a light ribbon of windows, while the railcars had previously been painted cream. Some of the vehicles were labeled with Kleinbahn der Rheingemeinden , but this was never an official name.

Freight transport

Freight traffic has always been of greater importance for the railway. For him, the time-consuming re-routing was also worthwhile. The initially low transport performance rose to over 200,000 t soon after the First World War. (1928: 227.094 t). Peak values ​​were achieved in 1938 with 438,006 t and in 1944 with 570,810 t. In the 1960s, the output was always over 200,000 t and then still over 100,000 t (1985: 174,600 t). With the closure of the Shell refinery, performance collapsed. Since then, only between 20,000 t and 40,000 t have been transported. The refinery received the oil through a pipeline and shipped finished products. It had its own locomotives. The Rheinische Pappenfabrik was located in Blee and also had a lot of inland traffic to the Rhine port of Hitdorf. The cardboard factory was shut down in 1981. In 1986, the rail handling in the Rhine port was stopped. The sand and gravel dredging plants in the Monheim area had also switched to road traffic since the 1980s. There were open loading tracks in the Monheim collection station and at the depot, in Blee, Hitdorf, Rheindorf and Baumberg. The new depot in Monheim also received a goods shed and loading platform, but this was hardly used.

Since the opening of the new siding by the Hammesfahr company in 2010, the northern branch has been served daily with around 3-4 individual journeys to the connection.

literature

• Gerd Wolff, Lothar Riedel: German small and private railways. Volume 5: North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern part . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-88255-662-5 , p. 31-47 .

Web links

• bahnen-monheim.de Website of the railways of the city of Monheim

Individual evidence

1. ^ Martin Mönikes: Monheim: Henkel train at Hammesfahr. Retrieved July 19, 2017 . 
2. ^ Gerd Wolff, Lothar Riedel: German small and private railways. Volume 5: North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern part . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-88255-662-5 , p. 36 .
3. ↑ D. Schmidt-Elmendorff: Monheim: level crossing is secured with a signal. Retrieved July 19, 2017 .