Rødekro – Løgumkloster – Bredebro railway line

Bredebro – Lügumkloster – Haberslund Bredebro – Løgumkloster – Rødekro
Løgumkloster station building
Klosterbanen
Route length:	36.5 km
Gauge :	1888: Bredebro – Lügumkloster 1435 mm 1901: Lügumkloster – Haberslund 1000 mm 1926: Bredebro – Løgumkloster – Rødekro 1435 mm
Operating points and routes
Legend Bramming – Tondern railway line from Bramming 0.0 Bredebro Bramming – Tondern railway line to Tondern Ellum (B&S) 54.3 Lying monastery there. Løgumkloster 53.6 Lügumkloster Holmplatz there. Løgumkloster Holmplads 49.7 Assith there. Asset 48.5 Alsleben mug there. Alslev Kro 46.1 Graulund there. Gravlund 43.6 Osterterp there. Øster Terp Branderup – Osterterp railway line to the north security position 41.3 Bedstedt there. Bedsted 39.2 Sieverkrug there. Sivkro 36.6 Steal often there. Klovtoft 35.1 Hellewatt mill there. Hellevad Mølle 33.8 Hellewatt there. Hellevad 32.5 Lönholm there. Lønholm 31.2 Ekwatt there. Egvad 29.3 Norder-Hostrup there. Nørre Hostrup 23.9 Rauberg there. Rugbjerg Fredericia – Flensburg railway from Fredericia 22.0 Haberslund there. Hovslund, until 1968 Bhf., Hst. Until 1972 Small railways from the Aabenraa district to Aabenraa Railway line Fredericia – Flensburg to Flensburg
Bredebro – Løgumkloster – Rødekro
Legend Bramming – Tønder railway from Bramming 36.5 Bredebro Railway Bramming – Tønder to Tønder 30.4 Ellum (B&S) 27.3 Løgumkloster 22.4 Alslev Kro (B&S) 16.7 Bedsted Løgum Surbæk 12.1 Klovtoft (B&S) 9.2 Hellevad 4.9 Nørre Hostrup (B&S) Fredericia – Flensburg railway from Fredericia 0.0 Rødekro Railway line Fredericia – Flensburg to Flensburg

The railway Rødekro-Løgumkloster-Bredebro ( Danish Rødekro-Løgumkloster-Bredebro Jernbane even Klosterbanen called ) - because Løgumkloster was colloquially called Monastery - was a Southern Jutland railway line after the plebiscite in Schleswig proposed in 1920 and from the Danish Rigsdagen with the Railways Act of 29 March 1924 was decided.

prehistory

The background was the desire of the residents of this Danish region from 1920 to have an improved connection between East and West Jutland to the existing two railway lines Bredebro – Lügumkloster and Lügumkloster – Haberslund (–Apenrade). In this sparsely populated area there was already another cross line, the Tønder – Tinglev line , just a few kilometers south. Nevertheless, the construction was decided.

Bredebro – Lügumkloster railway line

The Holstein Marsh Railway Company opened on 15 November 1887 a railway line from Heide at that German-Danish border at Hvidding . The standard-gauge route Bredebro –Lügumkloster branched off as a branch line and was opened on September 21, 1888. It was already called the monastery railway.

It was built with rails that were relatively heavy for the time and weighed 33.4 kg per meter and was completely fenced off . It was taken over by the Prussian State Railroad on July 1, 1890. In 1920, like all Prussian routes in North Schleswig , the line came to the Danske Statsbaner (DSB). The track was in better shape than any other that Denmark took over. Only around 1000 sleepers had to be replaced when it was taken over into the new line to be built.

Railway line Lügumkloster – Haberslund (–Apenrade)

The railway line between Aabenraa and Lügumkloster via Haberslund on the Flensburg – Fredericia railway line was opened on May 8, 1901 by the Aabenraa small railroad company as a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 1000 mm. In 1920 this company was taken over by Aabenraa Amt and renamed Aabenraa Amts Jernbaner (AaAJ).

These narrow-gauge railroads quickly turned out to be unprofitable and there were considerations to shut them down. The very winding route, which led from Aabenraa to Lügumkloster after a large semicircle around Aabenraa via Loit, Knivsberg and Haberslund, was to be discontinued and replaced by a direct connection between Rothenkrug and Lügumkloster as an extension of the existing Rothenkrug-Aabenraa line.

The embankment of the old line could be partially used from Norder-Hostrup to the west. In other places the route is so winding that it would have to be re-routed.

Bredebro – Løgumkloster – Rødekro railway line

The planned new line consisted of several sections:

• an existing railway line
• two sections of an existing railway that was shut down to use the embankment for the new construction
• three newly created route sections.

The planning for the new route began on July 11, 1924, the construction work in 1925. The construction of the new route sections was relatively easy due to the geographical conditions. The takeover of the embankments of the Aabenraa Amts Jernbaner , on which the narrow-gauge (1000 mm) circular tracks were replaced by standard gauge (1435 mm) for eight kilometers, was unproblematic, as it was decided to discontinue the AaAJ on March 31, 1926.

A new embankment was built by Rødekro via Nørre Hostrup, where it reached the old embankment of the circular railway in the center of the village. He followed this west to Hellevad, but without the previous stops in Egvad and Lønholm. After Hellevad, another six kilometers of the old subgrade via Klovtoft to the east of Bedsted Løgum were used; the previous stations at Hellevad Mølle and Sivkro were omitted.

This was followed by a new section towards Bedsted Løgum and past Sønder-Gravlund, where the old route crossed west of Asset. Alslev Kro was maintained as a new station with a more northerly location than before, while Øster Terp, Sønder-Gravlund and Asset were omitted.

After Asset to Starup, two kilometers of the old line could be used, from here the new line to Løgumkloster station followed. The Holmplads stop of the small train in the middle of the town, which was close to the city center and accounted for 90 percent of the town's passenger traffic, was closed.

The previous 13 stops at the Aabenraa Amts Jernbaner were reduced to five. They received new station buildings. Bedsted Løgum and Hellevad were built by builder Wollesen from Hellevad and the buildings in Alslev Kro, Klovtoft and Nørre Hostrup by builder Jacobsen from Bolderslev. The DSB left the previous German small train concept, in which the tasks of the train stations were taken over by inns or farms, among other things.

With the rails used, which weigh 32 kg per meter, a speed of 70 km / h would have been possible. Of the 73 level crossings along the route - 49 private and 24 public - only one was guarded. In addition, no telegraph connection had been established, only a single telephone connection was available. Therefore a maximum speed of 45 km / h was allowed.

Maintenance of the line was carried out by railway attendants . Seven guards were spread over three columns with fixed stations in Rødekro, Bedsted Løgum and Løgumkloster. A service building was erected for the guard's superior.

The final report on the construction costs contained 2.074 million crowns . In the original plan, 2.9 million crowns had been estimated. The share of DSB for locomotives and wagons alone was 400,000 crowns.

Train stations

Hellevad and Bedsted Løgum were crossing stations with 180 m crossing track and 70 m staging and loading track. Nørre Hostrup, Klovtoft, Alslev Kro and Ellum were ticket sales points with a public parking and loading platform about 50 meters long. Ticket sales points with loading siding ( Danish: Billetsalgssteder med offentligt sidespor ) were marked with B&S in the duty schedules.

traffic

The press tour took place on October 1st, 1927 with the traffic inspector for Sønderjyske Statsbaner AJ Joest from Aabenraa.

The new monastery bane was inaugurated on October 2, 1927 by Transport Minister Johannes Stensballe and the executive board member of DSB Theodor Andersen-Alstrup . Scheduled operations began on October 3rd. Now a train ride from Løgumkloster to Aabenraa took about 75 minutes instead of three to four hours, and about half the price as before.

From 1927 to 1930 five pairs of trains drove daily on the Rødekro – Løgumkloster – Bredebro route and two additional pairs of trains on the Løgumkloster – Bredebro route.

Individual trains ran between Tønder and Aabenraa. From May 15, 1930, a pair of steam trains with new 2nd and 3rd class cars drove in the Aabenraa – Bredebro section, which was discontinued from May 15, 1933 because it was not used enough, but possibly because it was on weekdays from Aabenraa was driven as a mixed train, so that the travel time was relatively long because of the shunting work on the way. All other trains only carried 3rd class. From 1931 onwards, passenger and freight transport services sank drastically due to competition from cars.

In 1934 a train traveled the entire route Tønder – Løgumkloster – Aabenraa, but not in the opposite direction.

Shutdown

In the reporting year 1931/32, income of 133,000 kroner and pure costs for driving operations of 275,000 kroner were recorded. For the net loss of 142,000 crowns and after taking into account interest and depreciation, there was a shortfall of 300,000 crowns.

Nobody saw opportunities to bring income and expenditure into balance in the future. There were only two options, either cost savings through simplified operation or closure of the route. The decision was made to shut down.

The line was closed on May 15, 1936 and was therefore only in operation for about 8½ years. Only the Hvalsø – Frederikssund railway line had a shorter lifespan. In 1938, all of the rails were dismantled, although DSB had previously considered leaving the Bredebro – Løgumkloster section to exist for some time.

Preserved stations and embankment sections

Despite the rail dismantling that took place in 1938, some parts of the former railway embankment are clearly visible, such as west of Klovtoft towards Grenvej and in Grenegården. A section that is used as a path is on Aaspevej in Bredebro and leads to the former train station.

Of the station buildings designed by DSB architect Knud Tanggaard Seest still exist: Nørre Hostrup: Egvadvej 4; Hellevad: Søndervænget 10; Klovtoft: Klovtoftvej 43; Bedsted: Lundbyesvej 14; Alslev Kro: Krusåvej 17; Løgumkloster: Stationsvej 16 and Ellum: Ellum Bygade 27.

literature

• P. Thomassen: Klosterbanen / Rømøbanen . pt bøger, 1982 (Danish).
• Niels Jensen: Sønderjyske jernbaner . Clausens Jernbanebibliotek, 1975, p. 22-25 (Danish).

Web links

Commons : Klosterbanen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Henning Haugaard: Brudstykker af Bedsted Sogns historie. (PDF) July 9, 1985, accessed on November 21, 2016 (Danish, issue No. 9). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henning Haugaard: DSB's Klosterbane 1927-1936. (PDF) July 9, 1985, pp. 257–262 , accessed on November 22, 2016 (Danish, issue No. 9).  
2. ↑ Connecting railways security position north ( Memento from January 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive )