Lollar – Wetzlar railway line

Lollar – Wetzlar
Route number (DB) :	3706
Course book section (DB) :	526 (1980)
Route length:	18.1 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Marburg from Grünberg (Oberhess) 0.0 Lollar ( island train station ) 0.4 Lumda after casting 1.5 Lahn 2.4 Wissmar 4.4 Launsbach 4.8 Launsbach, Giessener Strasse 5.7 Krofdorf-Gleiberg 7.1 Federal motorway 480 7.9 Instead of the Schneider company 7.9 Biebertalbahn 8.0 Evening star 8.5 Beaver 9.0 Kinzenbach East 9.9 Kinzenbach 11.5 Kinzenbacher Strasse 11.6 Atzbach 11.9 Atzbach 12.2 Atzbach footbridge 12.9 Dorlar 13.3 Waldgirmeser Strasse 14.9 Federal motorway 45 15.1 Lahn 15.2 Branch to the flyover structure 15.5 from Giessen 16.3 Garbenheim, Wannsweg 16.4 Garbenheim (until 1977) 16.6 Garbenheim, Bahnhofstrasse 16.6 Wetzlar Gbf Lahn 18.1 Wetzlar after victories to Limburg (Lahn) Swell:

The Lollar – Wetzlar line was a single-track main line in Hesse , which was originally built and operated as part of the Berlin – Metz cannon line. It connected Lollar and Wetzlar , bypassing the Gießen node .

history

The cannon railway bypassed the Hessian railway junction in Gießen and ran as far as possible on Prussian territory at the time (map from 1905)

The last special trips with a rail bus took place on June 24, 1990; here in Atzbach.

The 18.04 km long Lollar – Wetzlar section was built to bypass Gießen . Before 1870/71, Gießen belonged to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt and thus not to the Prussian sphere of influence until the establishment of the German Empire. Coming from the north on the Main-Weser Railway , the Kanonenbahn branched off to the west in Lollar on its own route and met the Lahn Valley Railway in Wetzlar , on which it continued west.

The work was under the direction of Julius Lehwald . The first survey work for the route was carried out in 1872, construction work began on July 1, 1875 and was completed in July 1878. The route was officially opened on October 15, 1878. Because of its strategic importance , none of the towns along the route were initially served. The line is characterized by quite generous radii and low gradients. Some of the foundations of the bridge structures as well as the dam structure were even designed for double-track operation. A flyover structure at the Wetzlar freight station enabled crossing-free entry and exit from the respective mainline tracks of the Dill line . A plan of the Wetzlar train station from 1920 shows a signal box at the western end of the Lahnbrück at 15.2 kilometers and a single-track branch to the Dill line in the area of ​​the former signal box VIII of the Wetzlar marshalling yard. This track - the dam of which can still be seen today - could be used to enter tracks 1 and 3 to 5 of the marshalling yard from the direction of Lollar and exit tracks 2, 5 and 6 of the marshalling yard in the direction of Lollar.

Passenger traffic on this route ended on May 30, 1980. Freight traffic between Lollar and Abendstern was stopped on February 28, 1983. The rest of the freight traffic between Wetzlar and Abendstern was stopped on September 28, 1990. After that, there were still individual operating trips between Abendstern and Wetzlar in order to transport several generators by rail from the nearby Wettenberg substation.

The track dismantling between Lollar and Abendstern took place on February 20, 1988. The dismantling of the track, points and signaling systems in the Abendstern – Wetzlar section began on July 10, 1995 and was completed on July 31, 1995.

State today

Bridge at Krofdorf-Gleiberg, near “Im Augarten”, the railway body is slowly growing over. (2007)

With the exception of a small section in the municipality of Heuchelheim and at the end of the line in the urban area of ​​Wetzlar, the railway line is now in the hands of the neighboring communities of Lahnau , Heuchelheim , Wettenberg and Lollar . Almost all parts of the route are exempt from railway operations in accordance with Section 23 of the General Railway Act , so it is no longer legally a railway system. According to the latest findings (request from the municipality of Lahnau about the ownership of the "Iron Bridge" over the Lahn near Dorlar 2019/2020), the bridge itself is not owned by the municipality of Lahnau, but is still owned by a railway and as a railway line.

Attempts are being made to preserve the structures of the disused sections of the cannon railway network. Some are cultural monuments according to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .

The reception building in Kinzenbach serves as a local museum. Two sidecars for the Uerdingen rail bus (998 850 and 998 170) are parked on the track in front of the building and are also looked after in a museum. The reception building in Dorlar serves as the municipal youth center “JUZ Alter Bahnhof”. Otherwise, the reception building of Atzbach has been preserved, which is now used for club purposes, as well as that of "Abendstern", which has been converted into a residential building. The old goods hall still stands in Wißmar; the branch of the municipal depot was built here.

The largest conversion or conversion of the former properties of the Kanonenbahn took place in Wetzlar. With the renovation of the passenger station in 2012 and 2013, the entire area of ​​tracks 1 and 2 disappeared and track 3 is now practically the house track. The track apron to the east was used for a pedestrian ramp to the underpass and a pedestrian / cycle path was created. The second bridge over the Lahn, which controlled tracks 1 and 2, was dismantled down to the pillars. The bridge sections of the new Wolfgang-Kühle-Strasse now lie on these. This communal street opens up the newly designed area on the south side of the station in Wetzlar. There used to be locomotive sheds, factory buildings, industrial plants and a tank loading ramp there. The multifunctional arena Rittal Arena Wetzlar , the home ground of the handball Bundesliga club HSG Wetzlar , and the large shopping center Forum Wetzlar have been located there since 2004/2005 . Hardly anything can be seen of the old cannon railway and the operating facilities.

So far, all railway bridges, some of which serve as pedestrian bridges, have been preserved on the entire route of the Kanonenbahn between Lollar and Wetzlar.

Operating points

Train station or stop	local community	Platform tracks	Distances - kilometers	annotation
Lollar ( island train station )	Lollar	3 (formerly 6)	0.0	Connection station , transfer point in the direction of Frankfurt am Main , Kassel , ..., connection to the Lumdatalbahn
Wissmar	Wettenberg	1	2.4	bus stop
Launsbach	Wettenberg	1	4.4	Breakpoint
Krofdorf-Gleiberg	Wettenberg	1	5.7	Breakpoint
Evening star	Hypocritical home	1	8.0	Railway station, level crossing with the Biebertalbahn , which also had a connection for ore loading here.
Kinzenbach East	Hypocritical home	1	9.3	Breakpoint
Kinzenbach	Hypocritical home	2	9.9	railway station
Atzbach	Lahnau	1	11.9	Breakpoint
Dorlar	Lahnau	2	12.9	railway station
Garbenheim	Wetzlar	1	16.4	Halt until 1977
Wetzlar	Wetzlar	5 (former 7)	18.1	Separation station , transfer junction towards Siegen , Gießen , Limburg ...

literature

Originally stamped tickets, dimensions 31 × 58 × 1 mm

• Heinz Schomann : Railway in Hessen . Railway buildings and routes 1839–1939. In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Cultural monuments in Hessen. Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Three volumes in a slipcase. tape 2.1 . Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8062-1917-6 , p. 546 ff . (Route 035).
• Winter, Emil: The Lollar – Wetzlar Railway or The Kanonenbahn 1878 to 1990. Heuchelheim 1995, ISBN 3-926923-17-2
• Lahnau in old pictures and 25 years of Lahnau - a total of 8-volume history series and a. with important content about the Kanonenbahn, publisher: Geschichtsverein Lahnau and municipality Lahnau

Web links

Commons : Lollar – Wetzlar railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Documentary about the Wetzlar – Lollar section
• Photos of the railway line
• Lumdatalbahn AG: Land railway stations in the district of Gießen . In: Gießener Zeitung , February 21, 2011

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
2. ↑ Today's track numbers in the Wetzlar marshalling yard according to the DB AG operating point graphic FWR-1 , accessed on January 13, 2019: Track 1 = 247.2 = 246, 3 = 245.4 = 244, 5 = 243, 6 = 242.
3. ↑ Article on the naming of the Bf Abendstern in the Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung of February 27, 2008, accessed on January 12, 2019