Railway line Lietzow – Ostseebad Binz
| Lietzow (Rügen) –Ostseebad Binz | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Course of the Lietzow – Binz railway line
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| Route number : | 6776 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 190 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 12.1 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route class : | mainly D4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power system : | 15 kV 16.7 Hz ~ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Lietzow – Ostseebad Binz line is a single-track electrified branch line on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It is primarily used for local and long-distance passenger transport.
Route description
The line branches off from the Stralsund – Sassnitz connection at Lietzow station . It initially leads eastwards, on the north bank of the Kleiner Jasmunder Bodden . Then it turns to the south, later to the southeast and runs on a headland between the bay and the Baltic Sea. The four-and-a-half kilometer complex of the holiday home in Prora, built by the National Socialists as the KdF- Seebad Rügen, lies parallel to the railway line between it and the coast . The route ends in Ostseebad Binz station on the northern edge of the town. In contrast to the Rasender Roland's small station in the south of Binz, this is also known as the large station.
history
Until the 1930s, there was only an isolated railway network on the island of Rügen. There were two standard gauge lines, Altefähr – Sassnitz and the line to Lauterbach, which branches off in Bergen. With the Rügen dam completed in 1936 , the island of Rügen could be reached directly by train. On the other hand, there was the cumbersome journey to Binz, the largest seaside resort in Rügen, and the other seaside resorts in the south-east of the island with a change in Bergen to Rügen and Putbus to the Rügen small train . In addition, in the second half of the 1930s, a seaside resort of the organization Kraft durch Freude was built north of Binz , in which 20,000 people were to be accommodated. To connect it and to improve traffic to Binz, a line was built from Lietzow station to Binz, which was inaugurated on May 15, 1939. The station building in Binz was finished as early as 1938. The plans envisaged an extension of the line along the coast to Thiessow , as well as the replacement of the narrow-gauge railway from Putbus with a standard-gauge line. With the outbreak of the Second World War, this no longer happened. The KdF complex was never completed, the tourist traffic was not important to the war effort. In 1940 only two pairs of trains ran a day. After the end of the war, the line was initially dismantled as a reparation payment . In 1952, however, it was put back into operation. A new stop was created in Prora Ost.
The role of the island of Rügen and thus also of Binz for the tourist traffic grew. This also increased the importance of the route again. Prora was a restricted military area during the GDR era. Large barracks were built in the KdF blocks. Accordingly, the railway line was also important for military traffic. For the arrival of the conscripts, some express trains also stopped in Prora. A total of up to six pairs of express trains ran in the summer, depending on the timetable. They connected Binz with Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Erfurt and, in the late 1980s, even with Bratislava. Passenger transport was also relatively dense, with a total of twelve pairs of trains running in 1988.
Regardless of the high traffic importance, the line remained operationally a branch line. Together with the Stralsund – Sassnitz line and the connection to the Mukran ferry port , the line was electrified. Electrical operation began on May 27, 1989.
In 1991 the line was connected to the Intercity network of Deutsche Bahn with the IC “Rügen” . The long-distance service has been redesigned several times, but the basic service has changed little on this route. The number of local trains was reduced somewhat in the early 1990s, among other things, with the closure of the Prora army base, some early and late connections were lost. At the end of the 1990s, the offer was gradually increased to an hourly rate during the day.
Train traffic
In local transport, the route is operated every hour by regional express line 9 . The trains run alternately to Lietzow (with a connection to the Sassnitz – Stralsund – Rostock trains) or to Stralsund. In long-distance traffic, depending on the day, between three and five trains run daily, including line 30 , most of them travel either via Rostock or via Berlin to western or southern Germany. There is also a direct Eurocity connection to Prague, which runs irregularly, mostly on weekends, but also daily in summer. Individual long-distance trains also stop in Prora.
