Reuth – Friedenfels railway line

Reuth – Friedenfels
Route length:	6.6 km
Gauge :	600 mm ( narrow gauge )
Maximum slope :	3.49  ‰
Minimum radius :	38 m
Top speed:	11 km / h
Legend of willows from Erbendorf 0.0 Reuth (b Erbendorf) to Oberkotzau Conn. Reuth wire hammer 5.0 Conn. Sawmill 5.1 Conn. Neumühlweiher 5.2 Friedenfels granite plant 6.6 Friedenfels Castle Brewery

The Reuth – Friedenfels railway was a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 600 mm in the former Kemnath district in the northern Upper Palatinate and was also called the Friedenfelser Bockerl . It led from Reuth near Erbendorf to Friedenfels in what is today the Upper Palatinate district of Tirschenreuth . Mainly granite stones and beer were to be transported from Friedenfels by train. The railway existed from 1894 to 1958.

history

Originally, the standard-gauge line was supposed to use the main line in the direction of Hof to the block in Rechenlohe and only branch off from the Weiden – Oberkotzau line there . For financial reasons - the route would have cost around 207,000  marks - the decision was then made to take a narrow-gauge route from Reuth. Construction work began in 1893, headed by Kommerzienrat Gustav Siegle from Stuttgart . In 1885, Siegle acquired the 2363 hectares of Friedenfels and Poppenreuth. In the years that followed, he expanded the estate's own operations, a quarry with stone grinder, a sawmill and a brewery. A first, several hundred meters long field railway with manual displacement from the quarry to the brewery was approved in January 1890. A second one for debris removal was built in the local area in the summer of 1892.

Operation began in 1894 as a horse-drawn tram on the 6600 m long route that led directly to Reuth station . The smallest radius was 38 m, the average gradient 2% with a maximum gradient of 3.49%. Light railroad track with a weight of 7 kg per meter was used for construction, 9430 steel sleepers were installed. The elaborate track substructure was created with a view to later operation with locomotives. The sawmill located directly on the route, where the route branched, the brewery and the granite plant were developed.

The increasing volume of transport, which the horses could no longer cope with, required those responsible to rethink the direction of locomotive operation. The necessary steam locomotive was at the locomotive factories Krauss & Comp. ordered in Munich . On November 28, 1900, the freight train drove for the first time with this locomotive (wheel arrangement C, curb weight 6800 kg, service weight 8200 kg, 35 hp, serial number 4287). For safety reasons, the government of the Upper Palatinate ruled on April 30, 1900 that the trains were not allowed to travel downhill faster than eleven kilometers per hour, that every car had a spindle brake and every second car had to be fitted with a brakeman . Spark arresters were required for the locomotive .

In 1910, as part of extensive track construction work, several brand new points were installed by Orenstein & Koppel , including a two-curved point for an ice transport track branching off at Neumühlenweiher. In 1913 a two-axle gasoline locomotive (machine no . 1391) made by Deutz was added, which was primarily intended for stone works.

On May 7, 1918, the brewery, quarry and sawmill as well as the railway line were sold to Freiherr Fritz von Gemmingen-Hornberg 's goods management. A new C-coupled steam locomotive from Krauss (curb weight 6800 kg, service weight 8200 kg, 40 hp, No. 8341) was purchased from this in 1925 , and a Benzollok, presumably from Orenstein & Koppel, was traded in for 2000 marks. For the transport of beer on the network of the Deutsche Reichsbahn , the goods administration procured refrigerated wagons, four of which were available in 1922, but which were scrapped in 1928 and 1929. Another beer wagon was in use from 1932 to 1952.

After 1945, the goods were increasingly transported by lorry - this meant reloading onto the standard gauge in Reuth. That is why the line was closed on July 1, 1953, with the exception of a small remainder, the connection to the Pöllmann sawmill in Reuth. This remaining operation lasted until July 1958. Locomotive 8341 was shut down in July 1956, locomotive 4287 in July 1958. Both locomotives were scrapped on site and the track systems dismantled between May and December 1958.

The route was still clearly visible in 2011. The engine shed on the premises of the brewery serves as a warehouse. In the stone processing company (now Granit GmbH Friedenfels ) there are still a few tracks, where hand-pushed tilting lorries are used for subordinate transport tasks.

Broken or worked stone blocks, wood from the sawmill and beer were transported to Reuth train station. In the opposite direction, mainly operating materials were transported, e.g. B. Ice from the surrounding ponds and coal for the brewery. The proportion of goods in the direction of Friedenfels was considerably larger than that in the opposite direction. There was no passenger traffic.

Route description

At the north end of Reuth train station there was a loading ramp, from where goods could be reloaded between narrow-gauge and standard-gauge from a loading platform on the Regensburg – Oberkotzau line. The line turned left from the train station in the direction of Erlhammer, a connection led to the sawmill in Reuth. Then the route went slightly downhill to Thumsenreuth. After Waffenhammer, the route from the east reached Friedenfels. There were connections to the sawmill, the granite works and the Friedenfelser Schloßbrauerei, where the locomotive shed was located.

Web links

• The former narrow-gauge railway Reuth b. Erbendorf - Friedenfels ( Memento from April 14, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
• Remnants of the train
• Railway line Reuth (b Erbendorf) - Friedenfels. In: bahnrelict.net Retrieved July 2, 2019 . 

literature

• Michael Ernstberger: North-East Bavarian field and mine railways and the history of their operations . 1st edition. 2005, p. 96-107 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Meißner: The former narrow-gauge railway Reuth b. Erbendorf – Friedenfels. In: heimatmuseum.erbendorf.de. Retrieved July 2, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Michael Ernstberger: Northeast Bavarian field and mine railways and the history of their operations. , P. 96.
3. ↑ Michael Ernstberger: Northeast Bavarian field and mine railways and the history of their operations. , P. 98.
4. ↑ Michael Ernstberger: Northeast Bavarian field and mine railways and the history of their operations. , P. 99.