Pratau – Torgau railway line

Pratau – Torgau
Overview map of the route
Route number (DB) :	6830
Course book section (DB) :	218
Route length:	41.87 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	CE
Maximum slope :	8.9  ‰
Minimum radius :	200 m
Legend from Berlin 0.00 Pratau to Halle (Saale) 2.10 Eutzsch 6.20 Rackith (Elbe) 8.60 Rackith Süd (formerly bid guest) 10.50 Globig 13.90 Trebitz (Elbe) bw Pretzsch 18.44 Pretzsch to Eilenburg 22.90 Sachau State border Saxony-Anhalt / Saxony 25.69 Wörblitz to Prettin (Strategic Railway) 29.63 Dommitzsch 32.18 Vogelsang (Kr Torgau) 34.63 Elsnig (Elbe) 36.40 Envy 39.10 Zinna (formerly Welsau) from Guben 41.87 Torgau to Halle (Saale) to Belgians

The Pratau – Torgau railway is a branch line in Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony . It branches off the main line Berlin – Halle in Pratau and leads via Pretzsch (Elbe) to Torgau . Since 2005, the line has been part of the network of the Deutsche Regionalisenbahn (DRE) on a lease basis .

history

The Pratau – Pretzsch – Torgau line was opened on July 15, 1890 by the Prussian State Railways . On October 1, 1895, the branching line to Eilenburg also went into operation.

In 1924 the line was taken over by the Deutsche Reichsbahn .

Dommitzsch station (2009)

In 1997, passenger traffic between Pretzsch and Torgau was canceled. Freight traffic ended there on November 30, 2000. On October 2, 2000, the closure of the Pretzsch – Torgau section was approved by the Federal Railway Authority . It was legally enforced on December 15, 2000.

In 2004 the Dübener-Heide-Bahn project was created through the Dübener Heide regional development concept . The aim was to implement a seasonal, tourist train service from Lutherstadt Wittenberg via Eilenburg to Leipzig.

In April 2005, DRE leased the Pratau – Torgau and Pretzsch – Eilenburg lines from DB Netz. The Pretzsch station is 10 December 2006 the seat of the central train control center and the DRE district operations.

In May 2007 the state of Saxony-Anhalt announced that the remaining regional trains of the DB from Lutherstadt Wittenberg to Bad Schmiedeberg would no longer be ordered after the timetable change in December 2007. Planned renovation work with the aim of increasing the line speed to 80 km / h was thus initially obsolete.

From December 10, 2007, travel was finally managed by the DBV- Fördererverein Niederlausitzer Eisenbahn e. V. continues to operate. Five pairs of trains ran between Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Bad Schmiedeberg every weekday. This traffic was initially limited to August 22, 2008. The trains were used in conjunction with the Vetter bus transport company after consultation with the state and the Wittenberg district . After the trial operation led to increasing numbers of passengers, the state of Saxony-Anhalt had promised to continue financing demand-oriented transport at least until the end of 2010. This was linked to the condition to improve the offer. This so far unique demand-oriented substitute transport for bus services on the rail is known as the Schmiedeberger model .

Pretzsch station (Elbe) with regional sprinter (2009)

From January 7, 2009, weekend traffic was also set up. As a result, an increase in the number of passengers from 150 to 250 and an extension of the order by the state was hoped. After an accident at an unrestricted level crossing on February 18, 2009, replacement rail services had to be set up for a few weeks.

At the beginning of the 2009/2010 timetable, the DRE carried out the long-planned upgrading of the route, which allowed the travel time to be reduced by 15 minutes. With the help of the district of Wittenberg, the majority of school traffic in the directions of Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Bad Schmiedeberg could be shifted to the railways in order to increase the number of passengers and thus secure local rail transport on the route in the medium term.

In the spring of 2014, the Deutsche Regionalisenbahn tendered the Elsnig – Torgau section for takeover and announced an application for closure in the event that a takeover did not occur. The Elblandbahn eV association, founded in 2015, has now leased the Pretzsch – Torgau section.

The local rail transport between Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Bad Schmiedeberg Kurzentrum was canceled by NASA at the end of 2014 despite 5000 protest signatures due to scarce regionalization funds and insufficient demand. However, the traffic was stopped by the operator Vetter GmbH on December 19, 2014 and replaced by buses.

In cooperation with DB Regio, the Sachsen-Anhalt local transport service and the Berlin-Anhaltische Eisenbahn development association in Wittenberg, passenger trains again ran between Lutherstadt Wittenberg and Bad Schmiedeberg Kurzentrum on the weekends from the end of April to the end of October 2016. Since the three pairs of trains were well received by travelers, the journeys continued in the summer of 2017 as the Heidebahn (regional train line RB 55) and extended beyond Bad Schmiedeberg to Eilenburg .

Route description

The route begins in Pratau, a district of Lutherstadt Wittenberg and runs parallel to the Elbe via Pretzsch and Dommitzsch to Torgau. The Pretzsch – Eilenburg railway branches off in Pretzsch .

A strategic path branched off at Dommitzsch . There the NVA practiced the pioneering construction of railway bridges over the river until 1989 - the connection to the Prettin-Annaburger Kleinbahn was practiced.

Vehicle use

DRE rail bus in Lutherstadt Wittenberg main station

The DBV started using a rail bus of the DB series VT 98 from 2007 . From December 22nd, 2008 it was replaced by an air-conditioned Regio-Shuttle , which Vetter rented from Veolia Verkehr Regio Ost and marked it with the label "Elbe-Heidebahn". After the accident in 2009, a rented RegioSprinter of the Rurtalbahn was used. The vehicle was end of June 2011 and returned to the owner by a total of three DWA LVT / S replaced. Two of them were used in school traffic in double traction . One vehicle was kept as a reserve vehicle in order not to have to set up replacement rail services in the event of a vehicle failure.

The excursion traffic in 2016 and 2017 was carried out with railcars of the DB class 642 of the Elbe-Saale-Bahn .

literature

• Thomas Nitsch: The railways in the Dübener Heide. Retrieved June 13, 2010 . 

Web links

Commons : Pratau – Torgau railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Description of the Pretzsch – Torgau route on www.sachsenschiene.de
• KBS 218: Timetable 1944 - at that time still as KBS 178a
• KBS 214: Timetable 1944 - at that time still as KBS 178b
• KBS 218: Timetable (from December 14, 2009) (PDF; 31 kB)
• KBS 218: Timetable (from August 5, 2010) (PDF; 18 kB)
• KBS 218: Timetable (from August 25, 2011) (PDF; 66 kB)
• KBS 218: Timetable (from April 30, 2016) (PDF)
• KBS 218: Timetable (from April 14, 2017) (PDF)
• Tradition on the Pratau-Torgau railway line in the holdings of the Reich Railway Directorate in Halle in the Saxony-Anhalt State Archives, Dessau department

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of federally-owned lines in the state of Saxony that have been closed since 1994 ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ See DRE, information on DRE routes. November 20, 2008, archived from the original on September 21, 2014 ; Retrieved December 23, 2008 . 
3. ↑ duebener-heide.de ( Memento from October 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ current route directory of the DRE ( Memento of December 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ See Bahn-Report , Issue 1/2008, p. 50, editor: Interest group rail transport e. V., Rohr, ISSN  0178-4528
6. ↑ See DRE press release of July 23, 2008, reproduced in: www.eurailpress.de, "DRE: Dübener Heidebahn runs until 2010". Archived from the original on June 1, 2009 ; Retrieved November 13, 2010 . 
7. ↑ See the Schmiedeberger model. A way to maintain the route in rural areas. (PDF; 1.0 MB) Deutscher Bahnkunden-Verband e. V., April 19, 2010, archived from the original on December 12, 2012 ; Retrieved July 29, 2010 . 
8. ↑ Ute Otto: Passengers now “float” between the Elbe and the Heide. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.
9. ↑ Dirk Skrzypczak: Luck in misfortune after a collision at the level crossing. Train collides with a truck at Rackith - damage in the six-digit euro range. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, February 18, 2009, accessed on February 18, 2009 . 
10. ↑ Markus Wagner: Old railcar on a fast route Railway: The tracks to Bad Schmiedeberg are being upgraded. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, July 9, 2009, accessed July 16, 2009 . 
11. ↑ See Bahn-Report , issue 6/2009, p. 46, editor: Interest group rail transport e. V., Rohr, ISSN  0178-4528
12. ↑ See shortened travel time. From December 14th, passengers can save 15 minutes. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, December 4, 2009, accessed December 17, 2009 . 
13. ↑ See Jürgen Dannenberg: Railway line makes the district of Wittenberg more attractive. In: Deutscher Bahnkunden-Verband e. V. (Ed.): The Schmiedeberger model. 2010, p. 8.
14. ↑ (PDF) ( Memento from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on regionalisenbahn.de
15. ↑ Elblandbahn.de
16. ↑ Petition to maintain the Elbe-Heide-Bahn ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
17. ↑ Farewell between anger and sadness . Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , December 20, 2014
18. ↑ See Bahn-Report , issue 5/2011, p. 48, editor: Interest group rail transport e. V., pipe