Seelingstädt – Paitzdorf railway line

Seelingstädt (near Werdau) –Paitzdorf
Route number (DB) :	6660
Course book section (DB) :	-
Route length:	15.05 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Werdau 0.000 Seelingstädt (b Werdau) 330 m Ore bunker after Mehltheuer 1.400 Braunichswalde 6.500 Russdorf 8,747 Remorse Connection to Reust / Lichtenberg (depot) former tunnel (50 m) until 2012 connection 10.200 Schmirchau Pbf 11.375 Schmirchau Gbf from Gera Connection train to Raitzhain station 13.728 Raitzhain to Meuselwitz to Goessnitz 14.100 Paitzdorf Swell:

The Seelingstädt – Paitzdorf railway is a connecting line of the Wismut factory railway in East Thuringia, which was primarily built and operated for the transport of uranium ore by SDAG Wismut . Today it is still used for sand traffic as part of the bismuth remediation.

history

After the day shafts of the Schmirchau, Lichtenberg and Reust mines had been sunk by 1955, a connecting line to the DR transfer station Braunichswalde was built from Seelingstädt station on the Werdau – Mehltheuer railway line . From there, on April 1, 1957, a 12.5 km long track was opened with a junction station in Rußdorf to the Schmirchau terminus. First, the uranium ore was transported via Seelingstädt to the processing plant (AB) 101 in Crossen near Zwickau, before the Seelingstädter AB 102 south of the Werdau – Mehltheuer line was opened in the first months of 1960. Since there was not yet a direct connection from the Braunichswalde transfer station to the “New Factory”, the ore trains had to be directed to the Seelingstädt station and from there via the “Taiga curve”. Only with the completion of a double-track bridge over the Werdau – Mehltheuer line on June 15, 1960 was direct operation between the Braunichswalde and ore bunker stations possible.

As early as 1961, as part of the expansion of the Lichtenberg opencast mine, the route was redrawn to a length of almost two kilometers, creating a cut up to 23 meters deep and shortening the total length by 652 meters. The R 38 spring nail superstructure, originally designed for a service life of ten years, with bedding in roll gravel, had to be replaced by the K superstructure S 49 with ballast bed as early as 1966/67 due to the intensive freight traffic. On April 24, 1968, the 3.1 km long northern section from Schmirchau via Raitzhain to Paitzdorf was initially only operated by shunting. After the completion of the safety systems in the Paitzdorf train station, scheduled train operations with ore, sand and transfer trains with binders and coal began on February 5, 1969. On September 30, 1972, the passenger stations in Raitzhain and Schmirchau were put into operation, whereupon passenger trains commuted between Altenburg and Schmirchau three times a day according to the shift work rhythm with the possibility of changing trains in Raitzhain to and from Gera . With the completion of a second passenger platform in Schmirchau in 1973, direct shift worker trains could also run to and from Gera, whereby these trains were run as a sandwich train with two locomotives due to the change of direction in Raitzhain .

At the end of 1983, the Rußdorf station was shut down, as the sand trains for the reduction of the backfill had been running from the north via Raitzhain to Schmirchau since 1978 and the V 200 diesel locomotive series enabled higher train loads and thus fewer trains to run than the steam trains. It was only dismantled in 1989/90. The silica-containing concrete sleepers installed in the second half of the 1970s showed increasing damage and had to be replaced from 1984 onwards. On November 30, 1991, the last train loaded with uranium ore left for the Seelingstädt processing plant.

The track systems from Seelingstädt train station to kilometer 10.942 near Schmirchau, which were still owned by the Deutsche Reichsbahn and, from 1994, by Deutsche Bahn AG , were completely owned by Wismut in the spring of 1996. In 1998 sand trains were still being driven from Kayna to Paitzdorf for backfill production. In 2003, a tunnel was built between Reust and Schmirchau for about four years so that the large trucks could transport the overburden cone heaps of the Wismut from Reust. After all the spoil heaps had been renatured, it was dismantled again in early 2012.

Since March 1, 2014, operations management has been with Starkenburger Baustoffwerke.

Route

The line initially branches off to the north at Seelingstädt station, joins the line from processing plant 102 and leads around the village of Braunichswalde to the west. From Linda it leads north again and reaches the actual mining area at Rußdorf . Here connecting tracks branched off to the left to shaft 375 and to the right to shaft 374. After the exit from the Schmirchau train station, the Ronneburger Brunnenstrasse is crossed and the Gera – Gößnitz railway line touches in Raitzhain before the branch to the Paitzdorf train station takes place.

Vehicle use

In the early years, steam locomotives of the series 50 and 56 were provided by the Deutsche Reichsbahn from the Werdau depot. The shunting service was performed exclusively by rented 56 and Köf small locomotives until 1966 the first V 60 appeared. From 1971 the Wismut factory railway used its own large diesel locomotives of the V 200 series for route service . The shift worker traffic to and from Schmirchau, introduced in 1972, was carried out by the Deutsche Reichsbahn with the class 65 in connection with double-decker articulated trains . Later these trains were driven with the 118 series and double-deck coaches. From 1983 the replacement of diesel shunting locomotives and rope shunting systems with self-built electric towing vehicles began, two of which were used in AB 102 and one in Schmirchau station. Since 1997, the Wismut Werkbahn has been using six-axle locomotives of the 232 series, designated the V 300 and painted green and white, for sand train traffic .

Web links

Commons : Seelingstädt – Paitzdorf railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Seelingstädt (near Werdau) 0.0 - Schmirchau 11.6 - Paitzdorf 14.1. In: Reichsbahndirektion Erfurt. Retrieved August 14, 2012 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany 2007/2008 . 6th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9 .
3. ↑ Information and pictures about the tunnels on route 6660 on eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de by Lothar Brill
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Hans-Jürgen Barteld: The Wismut Railway around Ronneburg (=  secondary railway documentation . Volume 41 ). 1st edition. Kenning, Nordhorn 1998, ISBN 3-927587-92-3 .
5. ^ Eisenbahn-magazin, issue 5, 2014, p. 20