Rinteln – Stadthagen railway line

Rinteln – Stadthagen Railway
Route number :	9177
Route length:	20.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	40 km / h
Legend 0.0 Stadthagen West (67 m) Hanover – Minden railway line 2.8 George shaft Mine connection Mine train 4.4 Nienstädt 5.9 Sulbeck Briquette factory 8.8 Obernkirchen (134 m) Glass factory, quarries 11.3 Krainhagen tubular box Connection to the Bad Eilsener Kleinbahn 12.9 Bad Eilsen 15.1 Buchholz (Kr Bückeburg) Federal motorway 2 Quarries 16.6 Steinbergen (111 m) Weserbahn Connection DB 20.4 Rinteln North (58 m) Extertalbahn port

The Rinteln – Stadthagen railway is a 20.4 km long standard gauge railway from Rinteln on the Weser to Stadthagen .

history

Special rail bus trip in Obernkirchen station

The Rinteln-Stadthagener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (RStE) received the concessions to build the line on November 28, 1898 from the Kingdom of Prussia and on April 10, 1899 from the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe . The West German Railway Company built the railway and after the opening in 1900 also took over the management. The latter was owned by the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft from 1945 onwards .

On January 1, 1995, the railway line was taken over by Rinteln-Stadthagener Verkehrs GmbH (RStV), in which the state-owned East Hanoverian Railways (OHE) held a 75% stake. The OHE also took over the management. The change in ownership at OHE in 2006 meant that operations were stopped on July 1, 2007 because the new shareholders did not want to bear the deficit of the RStV.

Route

The workshop and vehicle shed were located in the area of the Rinteln train station on the right bank of the Weser. In the first four kilometers, the distance from Rinteln the web increases with a slope of 1:57 to the valley terrace of Vesdre valley up, crosses in Steinberger pass the Wesergebirge and then performs on the north edge of the Bückebergs along before it down going back Hagen. The highest point of the route is reached in Obernkirchen.

Rail operations

Operation on the single-track line was opened on March 3, 1900 for passenger and freight traffic.

In freight transport, the removal of hard coal from pits near Obernkirchen was of the greatest importance until 1961, when production was discontinued; For the mines, a 4 km long mine railway had existed since 1873 before the Rinteln – Stadthagen railway line was built and was incorporated into the new railway. But stones from several quarries and quartz sand for a glass factory were also important transport goods. The railway also connected the Weser port in Rinteln to its rail network. Since 2006, almost exclusively wood has been loaded in the Rinteln Nord, Nienstädt and Stadthagen West stations ; the stone traffic came to an almost complete standstill. The last self-operated freight train ran on June 19, 2007; On this day a wooden train was picked up for the Heggenstaller company in Uelzen.

Weserbergland steam train during museum journeys on the RStE, here between Rinteln and Steinbergen

The long-time important passenger traffic by rail was stopped on May 29, 1965. Due to the closure of the pits, rush hour traffic had decreased in the early 1960s, and the railway's own bus line operated by entrepreneurs, which in 1964/65 already took over half of the journeys, took away passengers. Since then, almost only special journeys by the Weserbergland steam railway have taken place on the rails . On August 23, 2009, special trips with a modern local railcar were offered, with which the Verkehrsclub Deutschland, among others, underscored the potential for a reopening of the line for passenger transport.

A railway-owned bus line existed from September 19, 1952; from 1978 it was outsourced to the subsidiary Schaumburger Verkehrs-Gesellschaft .

For the construction of a relief road in the Rinteln urban area, the railway tracks are being relocated to the north in order to maintain museum railway operations.

A Bückebergbahn Rinteln – Stadthagen support group has leased the line since 2010 . The Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn has been the operator since then . The route is used by trains of the Weserbergland steam railway and the Hildesheim steam train operating association.

The route is now used again for freight traffic: In Obernkirchen, wood is loaded onto freight wagons.

Railcar VT 61 at the entrance to Nienstädt station

vehicles

The railway had a total of 21 steam locomotives . The last D-coupled Henschel machines were sold from 1960 or canceled in 1969. From 1954, the railway company purchased its first diesel locomotives. A total of three railcars were used for passenger transport.

literature

• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways, part 2 Lower Saxony . Zeunert, Gifhorn 1973, ISBN 3-921237-17-3
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 11: Lower Saxony 3 . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-670-4 .

Web links

• Website of the steam railway Weserbergland eV "
• Website of the Förderkreis Eisenbahn Rinteln-Stadthagen
• Data collection via the RStE, at www.lokomotive.de
• Historical information on the route at mec-stadthagen.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ From top to top. Schaumburger Zeitung, January 21, 2014, accessed on February 12, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Eisenbahn-Magazin 5/2010, p. 33
3. ↑ "Else" steam locomotive at work. Retrieved on November 7, 2018 (German).