Limbach – Wittgensdorf railway line

Limbach (Sachs) –Wittgensdorf ob Bf
Section of the route map of Saxony (1902)
Route number :	6636; sä. LW
Course book section (DB) :	526 (1999)
Route length:	6.403 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	11.1  ‰
Minimum radius :	350 m
Legend 0.000 (Start of the route) from Oberfrohna 0.277 Limbach (Sachs) 370 m after desert fire 1.926 formerly EÜ Bahnhofstraße (16 m) Federal motorway 72 3.370 At the Hartmannsdorf tank farm 4.183 Hartmannsdorf (b Chemnitz) 372 m 4.570 former federal highway 95 5.470 EÜ Wittgensdorfer Strasse (16 m) from Neukieritzsch 6.680 Wittgensdorf ob Bf 354 m 6,933 (End of route) to Chemnitz Hbf Swell:

The Limbach (Sachs) –Wittgensdorf ob Bf railway was a branch line in Saxony . It ran from Limbach-Oberfrohna to Wittgensdorf on the Neukieritzsch – Chemnitz main line . Only the short section from the Hartmannsdorf tank farm connection is still in operation today; the remainder of the route was shut down in 2003.

history

Former Limbach (Sachs) train station in Limbach-Oberfrohna

The Limbach – Wittgensdorf line had already been planned when the Neukieritzsch – Chemnitz main line was planned. It was opened with this on April 8, 1872. On November 30, 1897, the Limbach branch to Wüstenbrand was opened, which primarily served the coal traffic from the Lugau-Oelsnitzer district to Limbach. In 1913 the short stretch to Oberfrohna followed .

In 1950 the traffic on the branch off in Limbach to Wüstenbrand was stopped. During the GDR era, a large part of travel was shifted to faster and more frequent bus routes. The 1981 winter timetable nonetheless indicated seven pairs of passenger trains , some of which ran to and from Karl-Marx-Stadt Hbf (Chemnitz).

The social upheaval in eastern Germany in 1989/90 was associated with considerable changes. Most of the companies in the catchment area stopped their production within a very short time, which led to a drastic collapse in passenger and freight traffic. The 1993 timetable is primarily geared towards rush hour traffic, with only four pairs of trains running on the weekend. Freight traffic was stopped except for the operation of the large tank farm in Hartmannsdorf in 1996.

The last timetable in 1999, on the other hand, showed eight pairs of trains running every two hours , all of which were tied from Chemnitz Hbf to Oberfrohna. On May 27, 2000 the tourist traffic was stopped.

On December 11, 2001, the Federal Railway Authority (EBA) approved the closure of the line; it was completed on August 31, 2003. It was not until December 11, 2005 that the section that was still in use up to the connection to the Hartmannsdorf tank farm was transferred to a siding at Wittgensdorf ob station Bf converted.

Due to the construction of the federal motorway 72 , the railway line is interrupted in this area.

Since December 11, 2005, the express bus route 526 has been operating between Chemnitz, Limbach and Oberfrohna as replacement service for the former route book route 526 with three stops in Limbach-Oberfrohna and another three in downtown Chemnitz. The operation is carried out by Regionalverkehr Erzgebirge (formerly Autobus Sachsen GmbH ) in cooperation with City-Bahn Chemnitz . A special feature is the route over the federal motorway 4 , which means that the journey time is only 30 minutes.

Route description

course

The almost 7 kilometer long railway line begins in the now disused Limbach (Sachs) station in the eponymous district of the city of Limbach-Oberfrohna . It runs east towards Wittgensdorf . The first 2 kilometers of the line are closed, with the tracks still on the high dam, sometimes even two tracks parallel. Shortly after the road "Am Tännigt" the bog once railway Limbach-Wüstenbrand towards Kändler right. Parallel to the embankment of the Limbach-Wittgensdorf route, the “Ostring” was created, a motorway feeder to the “Chemnitz-Röhrsdorf” exit. In the course of the Ostring, the connection from Bahnhofstrasse to Hartmannsdorf was changed and the railway overpass was demolished without replacement. A second interruption of the embankment was created by the federal motorway 72 . On the other side of the autobahn, the railway line is currently in operation as a siding from the junction to the tank farm in Hartmannsdorf , but the Hartmannsdorf station (near Chemnitz) has been closed. After 6.68 kilometers the line joins the existing Neukieritzsch – Chemnitz line in Wittgensdorf ob Bf .

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  Limbach, embankment towards Hartmannsdorf (2016)

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  Limbach, embankment towards Limbach (2016)

Operating points

Limbach (Sachs) ⊙

Limbach (Sachs) station, track side (2015)

→ Main article : Limbach (Sachs) train station

The station Limbach was and on 8 April 1872, together with the railway line Neukieritzsch Chemnitz-in Wittgensdorf ob Bf in this opens railway Limbach-Wittgensdorf opened. The Limbach-Wüstenbrand railway line opened in 1897 and the Limbach – Oberfrohna railway line opened in 1913 , making Limbach station a hub.

It had the following names:

• until 1902: Limbach
• until 1904: Limbach near Chemnitz
• until 1911: Limbach (Saxony)
• until 1933: Limbach (Sa)
• since 1933: Limbach (Sachs)

1950 ended the passenger traffic on the railway line to Wüstenbrand. After that, goods traffic to Röhrsdorf (last time in 1959) or to the Röhrsdorf substation and the Kändler station (until 1994) took place on a section.

Since the cessation of passenger traffic on the route from Wittgensdorf ob Bf to Oberfrohna in 2000 and the closure in 2003, the station has been out of service. A reactivation as part of the Chemnitz model is conceivable. The area of ​​the train station is located on the Ostring and leaves a neglected impression. In 2015 the central part of the reception building as well as the reception and luggage hall were demolished. The two multi-storey side wings were preserved.

Hartmannsdorf (near Chemnitz) ⊙

Hartmannsdorf station (b Chemnitz) (2016)

The Hartmannsdorf station (b Chemnitz) was opened as a stop on April 8, 1872 together with the Neukieritzsch-Chemnitz railway and the Limbach-Wittgensdorf railway in Wittgensdorf ob Bf . In 1905 it was upgraded to a station. It had the following names:

• until 1893: Hartmannsdorf
• until 1911: Hartmannsdorf near Limbach
• until 1931: Hartmannsdorf near Limbach (Sa)
• until 1933: Hartmannsdorf b Chemnitz
• since 1933: Hartmannsdorf (near Chemnitz)
• since 1953: Hartmannsdorf (b Karl-Marx-Stadt)
• since 1990: Hartmannsdorf (near Chemnitz)

On May 28, 2000 the passenger traffic in the Hartmannsdorf station (b Chemnitz) was stopped. The tracks in the station area are still used to supply the Hartmannsdorf large tank farm behind the station. In 2005 they were converted to a siding at Wittgensdorf ob Bf station.

Wittgensdorf ob Bf ⊙

Wittgensdorf ob Bf, old location until 2017

→ Main article : Wittgensdorf train station ob Bf

Wittgensdorf ob Bf was opened on April 8, 1872 as Wittgensdorf station on the Neukieritzsch – Chemnitz railway line. Since the Limbach – Wittgensdorf railway branched off here since the station was opened, Wittgensdorf Oberer Bahnhof was one of the most important operating points from the start. Goods traffic was also important in the early days, as this station was the closest train stop to numerous factories in the Chemnitz Valley. After the Wechselburg – Küchwald railway was opened in 1902 , freight traffic declined considerably, as the community of Wittgensdorf now received a second station, Unterwittgensdorf, on the route, which was much cheaper for the factories. In 1927 these two stations were renamed from Wittgensdorf to Wittgensdorf ob Bf and Unterwittgensdorf to Wittgensdorf und Bf .

Traffic on the route to Limbach-Oberfrohna was stopped in 2001. Nevertheless, the station is of great operational importance, as a short section up to a tank farm in Hartmannsdorf (near Chemnitz) is regularly serviced. This connection has been a side track of the station since 2005 .

literature

• Erich Preuß , Reiner Preuß : Saxon State Railways . transpress Verlagsgesellschaft, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-344-70700-0 .

Web links

Commons : Limbach – Wittgensdorf railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Route data on www.sachsenschiene.de
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany 2007/2008 . 6th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9 . , P. 133
3. ^ Winter timetable 1980/81 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn; valid from September 28, 1980 to May 30, 1981
4. ^ Regional timetable for Saxony 1993/94 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn - valid from May 23, 1993 to May 29, 1994
5. ^ Course book Saxony of DBAG - valid from May 30, 1999
6. ↑ ^{a b} List of federally closed lines in the state of Saxony that have been closed since 1994. (XLSX; 15.7 kB) Federal Railway Authority , accessed on April 12, 2019 . 
7. ^ City-Bahn Chemnitz GmbH - The development. Archived from the original on June 28, 2009 ; accessed on September 1, 2016 . 
8. ↑ Partial demolition of the Limbach train station in the Freie Presse on July 14, 2015
9. ↑ Steffen Kluttig: Rail connections between Chemnitz and Leipzig - The Kieritzsch – Chemnitz and Leipzig – Geithain railway lines , p. 117 ff.