Uelzen – Dannenberg railway line

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Uelzen – Dannenberg West
End of the line and junction of the Uelzen port railway.
End of the line and junction of the Uelzen port railway.
Section of the Uelzen – Dannenberg railway line
Route number (DB) : 1963
Course book section (DB) : 110g (1924–1950)
109g (1950–1970)
153 (1970–1975)
Route length: 42 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope : 10 
Route - straight ahead
Line from Hanover
Station, station
0.0 Uelzen 41.6  m
   
Route to Langwedel
   
Route to Hamburg
Road bridge
B 4
   
Ilmenau
   
3.15
   
3.25 Elbe Lateral Canal
   
6.6 Molten 48  m
   
8.2 Masendorf 50  m
   
11.3 Oetzen 53  m
   
15.7 Vest village (Kr Uelzen) 61.6  m
   
16.8 Vest (Kr Uelzen) 61.6  m
   
21.0 Push 66.5  m
   
27.7 Ceremonies 81.5  m
   
30.8 B 191 (viaduct)
   
31.7 Powderipp 79.9  m
   
37.4 Karwitz (Kr Dannenberg) 42  m
   
Connection to Neu Tramm
   
B 248a
   
41.2 B 191
   
Jeetzel
   
Line from Lüchow
Station, station
42.0 Dannenberg West 15.8  m
Route - straight ahead
Route to Dannenberg Ost

The railway line Uelzen-Dannenberg ( Ostheide-Elbe-Bahn ) is a 1924 opened and closed down since June 1, 1996 railway line between the stations Uelzen and Dannenberg West in Lower Saxony .

Route description

The railway line with route number 1963 is 42 kilometers long, single-track and not electrified .

At Uelzen station it branches off northwards at Weiche (W) 118 from the Hanover – Hamburg line and runs parallel to it to under the bridge on Bundesstraße 4 , which crosses both lines. There it swings in a wide arc, the "Dannenberger Bogen", to the northeast in the direction of Dannenberg. The route then crosses the Elbe Lateral Canal and leads in the Uelzen district through the communities of Oetzen , Weste and Stoetze . From Weste the railway line crosses the Drawehn mountain range in an easterly direction and runs through the Lüchow-Dannenberg communities of Zernien and Karwitz . After crossing the federal highway 248a , the track runs parallel to the Lüchow – Dannenberg Ost railway line (today “Jeetzeltalbahn”). Both routes cross the federal highway 191 and the river Jeetzel . South of the station at the Dannenberg West junction at W 2, the Uelzen – Dannenberg line joins the Jeetzeltalbahn. The switch is still there.

On the almost 15-kilometer stretch between Zernien and Dannenberg there is a difference in altitude of a good 65 meters, the maximum gradient is around 10 per thousand. The most striking structure on the route is just behind the apex at 81.5  m above sea level. NN the viaduct located in the middle of the forest and consisting of three arches over the federal road 191 west of Pudripp.

The route is almost completely preserved today, but it is no longer passable. Several level crossings were paved over and the route is overgrown in many areas. The rail line was separated at several road crossings (e.g. in Molzen and Weste). Only a short section of the route from Uelzen station to the Elbe Lateral Canal is still used. This section contains the installation group of the metronom railway company , the central depot of the Osthannoverschen Eisenbahnen (OHE) for the maintenance of the metronom double-decker trains and the connection to the Uelzen port railway, which is also operated by the OHE .

Prehistory and construction

Viaduct over the B 191 near Pudripp

Efforts to establish a rail link between Uelzen and Dannenberg began in the spring of 1885 when the Ludwigslust – Dömitz railway was being built . The construction was repeatedly rejected on the grounds that there was no general need for traffic.

The project was not taken up again until 1899, but it took until October 13, 1911, until the railway was finally approved by the Minister for Public Works in Berlin. The necessary land was provided by the communities along the route free of charge, the preliminary work was subsidized by the state of Mecklenburg with 75,000 marks .

The surveying work began in the summer of 1914 and was interrupted by the First World War. The continuation of the work did not take place until 1920 and took another four years until the completion in 1924. The last state railway in today's Lüchow-Dannenberg district was completed.

business

On April 15, 1924, traffic between Dannenberg and Uelzen was ceremoniously started. The opening train left Dannenberg at 7:00 a.m. Six months later, on October 16, 1924, the rail mail service began on the route.

Before the Second World War, the railway line connected the former districts of Uelzen and Dannenberg with each other and, through the connection to the Wittenberge – Lüneburg railway, also established a connection with Mecklenburg . During the Second World War, a two-track expansion was planned for the time after the war. After the war, however, the connection to Mecklenburg was interrupted and the route only opened up the north-eastern part of the Uelzen district and the western part of the Lüchow-Dannenberg district.

Passenger traffic was discontinued on May 30, 1975, the scheduled freight traffic in spring 1993. The line was closed on June 1, 1996. In March 2018, the line between the town of Törwe near Stoetze to Oetzen was completely dismantled, and the section from Törwe to Stoetze followed in early 2019.

Reichsbahn

Bridge over the Elbe Lateral Canal

The route Uelzen - Ludwigslust was until 1945 a section of the former railway guide track (KBS) 110g of the German National Railroad of Ludwigslust to Uelzen. The KBS 110g ran from Ludwigslust via Dömitz , Dannenberg East and Dannenberg West to Uelzen. In 1939 a pair of express trains ran all year round on the route between Uelzen and Rostock and two pairs of passenger trains . Another pair of express trains Uelzen – Ludwigslust was added in the summer months. In the 1944/45 annual timetable, an express train with a part of the Wehrmacht from Göttingen to Rostock and in the opposite direction from Stralsund to Göttingen as well as three pairs of passenger trains were listed.

Nothing is known precisely about freight traffic in the pre-war period. In the northern section of the German Reich there was only one continuous west-east route with the route from Hamburg via Lübeck , Bützow , Neubrandenburg and Pasewalk to Stettin at the beginning of the Second World War. After the Mecklenburgische Friedrich-Wilhelm-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft had been established , there was another continuous connection from the direction of Uelzen or Lüneburg over the Dömitzer Elbe bridge . In addition, two armaments factories had their rail connection on the line, so that it can be assumed that goods and military transports were carried over the line on a large scale during the war.

As air raids suggest, the Allies had also recognized the importance of the railway lines via Dannenberg. In an attack on February 22, 1945, the Dannenberg city center was partially destroyed, while the Jeetzel Bridge between the two Dannenberg train stations remained almost undamaged.

On April 20, 1945 at around 4 p.m., the Dömitzer Elbe Bridge was bombed in an American air raid. The eastern pillar next to the swing bridge was so badly damaged that its superstructure collapsed into the Elbe . The continuous connection between Ludwigslust and Uelzen was thus permanently interrupted, the bridge was not rebuilt.

Federal Railroad

Overgrown tracks in Weste station

Due to the interruption of the Dömitzer Brücke and the division of Germany , the railway line had lost its supra-regional importance and was listed in the course book of the Deutsche Bundesbahn as route book 109g from 1950, and later between 1970 and 1975 as route book route 153 .

Traffic between Uelzen and Dannenberg Ost was resumed after the end of the war on April 20, 1946. At the beginning, a pair of passenger trains ran Uelzen – Dannenberg Ost– Lüchow and back. Four pairs of passenger trains were already listed in the 1947 timetable. Some of the trains coming from Lüchow ran continuously to Bremen .

Passenger traffic reached its peak in the mid-1950s, when eight pairs of trains ran on the route every day. At this time, the additional Masendorf and Weste Dorf stops were set up in the Uelzen district . The travel time between Uelzen and Dannenberg was around 75 minutes in 1947/48 and has been reduced to 60 minutes over the years.

A local transport connection existed between Uelzen and Stoetze until 1960, on which accumulator railcars of the ETA 177 and 178 series were used. The locomotive-hauled passenger trains were increasingly replaced by rail buses due to the decreasing number of passengers . Before passenger traffic was discontinued, only class 795 railcars operated on the route .

In the mid-1950s, in addition to rail-bound passenger transport, rail bus services began. The buses took about 95 minutes for the Uelzen – Dannenberg route. The bus connections have been steadily expanded while reducing the number of rail connections. In 1958, eight pairs of passenger trains and three pairs of rail buses were listed in the timetable . In the summer of 1965 the relationship was reversed, with seven pairs of rail buses for every four passenger trains between Uelzen and Dannenberg. Today the bus service on the Uelzen – Dannenberg route is operated by the Braunschweig Regional Bus Company (RBB). From Monday to Friday there are six connections on the 1963 line, four on Saturdays and one continuous connection on Sundays and public holidays.

The freight trains on the line were carried by class 50 steam locomotives that were stationed at the Uelzen depot until the end of the 1974 summer schedule . From the winter timetable 1974/75 were diesel locomotives of the 212 series from the depot Lübeck used.

212 116-8 with a freight train in Dannenberg Ost towards Uelzen (September 30, 1983)

In the 1980s, a freight train from Dannenberg Ost station traveled the route every afternoon from Monday to Friday. The train started in the early hours of the morning in Lüneburg , drove via Dannenberg Ost to Lüchow and, if necessary, to Wustrow and then back via Dannenberg Ost to Uelzen. During the sugar beet and grain campaign, there were direct trains between Uelzen and Dannenberg, sometimes in double traction, which deviated from this timetable . At times, locomotives of the 211 series from the Osnabrück depot were also used.

On January 1, 1989, the year-round through freight trains between Dannenberg and Uelzen were discontinued. On the stretch Uelzen vest and back wrong from the moment only as needed early afternoon-covered with a locomotive from the 212 series transfer freight train . The siding of the potato warehouse in Pudripp had to be served due to contractual agreements. Until August 1, 1989, this happened in the morning hours if required by a transfer train from Dannenberg Ost, which was pulled by a Köf III small locomotive (series 332 or 333).

Only during the beet campaign ran in the afternoons from Monday to Friday a through 212- hauled local goods train Uelzen – Dannenberg Ost and back. The special tariff for sugar beet was terminated nationwide by Deutsche Bahn after the 1992 campaign, and goods handling in Uelzen was terminated in the spring of 1993. This also ended the demand-based freight traffic on the route.

The freight traffic from Dannenberg to Weste was officially suspended on May 29, 1994 and Uelzen to Weste on November 1, 1995. After the cessation of freight traffic, trains carrying radioactive waste for the Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility only ran occasionally . This also included the second Castor transport on May 8, 1996, which was also the last train on the route.

On April 18, 2009, the Ostheide-Elbe-Bahn e.V. association was founded in Weste-Bahnhof . V. , who works together with the German regional railway to reactivate the line.

Ostheide-Elbe Railway

Directed by Ostheide-Elbe-Bahn e. V., the route between Zernien and Pudripp was cut open again and several special trips with bicycle trolleys were carried out. The association has its own fleet of vehicles consisting of the former two-way Unimog of the Lüchow-Schmarsauer Railway , a Köf II locomotive and a small heavy-duty car (Skl) . The vehicles are stationed in Pudripp.

Sidings and sidings

Installation group for the metronom trains on the former transfer tracks of the Uelzen sugar factory; on the right next to it the track to Dannenberg, next to it the Hanover – Hamburg line
OHE-Bahnbetriebswerk for the maintenance of the metronom trains at Dannenberger Bogen (left)
Tracks of the port railway in Uelzen harbor. In the background the railway bridge over the Elbe Lateral Canal

During the Third Reich two military chain of the track sidings from, both shortly after the end of World War II have been completely dismantled. Today a connecting railway and three sidings branch off the line.

Sugar factory / installation group metronome

Up to and including 1992, beet deliveries to the Uelzen sugar factory were largely carried out by rail. The sugar factory therefore had its own standard-gauge factory railway. At the level of the factory shortly before the transfer of the federal highway 4, the main lines were east the transfer tracks . Today there is a set-up group for the metronom trains.

Depot metronome

At the so-called Dannenberger Bogen just north of the junction with the Hanover – Hamburg railway line , OHE operates a central depot .

This depot was built specifically for the maintenance of the metronom double-decker trains. Construction began on November 5, 2002, and commissioning took place a year later on December 13, 2003.

The factory was originally intended to be built at the former Uelzen freight station, but Deutsche Bahn could not acquire any space there.

Uelzen port railway

To the west of the bridge over the Elbe Lateral Canal , a connecting railway branches off in a northerly direction to the Uelzen harbor. Uelzener Hafenbetriebs- und Umschlags- GmbH (UHU), which 74% belongs to the Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen (OHE) and 26% to the district of Uelzen, handles goods there. The route is used by OHE for freight traffic.

Raiffeisen Potato Storage Company

In the 1980s, a potato warehouse with its own siding was built to the south of the line at Pudripp station. After the termination of the scheduled freight traffic at the turn of the year 1988/89, the siding was operated once a day from Dannenberg Ost until August 1, 1989, if required. In front of the hall, three locomotives - two Köf II and a fireless steam locomotive - and a freight car are parked on the siding.

Waaren-Commissions-AG

The Hamburger Waaren-Commissions-Aktiengesellschaft manufactured the explosive TNT in an ammunition factory near Dragahn from 1938 to 1945 and filled smaller bombs and grenades . The plant had extensive track systems and, including the line on the plant premises, was connected to the Uelzen – Dannenberg railway line by an approximately four-kilometer connecting line.

The siding branched off from the line in front of the Pudripp station west of the first switch, ran parallel to the loading lane of the Reichsbahn and then passed in front of the station building across the forecourt. The route then ran a few hundred meters parallel to the railway line, turned into a wide left-hand curve and then led as a dead straight north to the ammunition plant.

The railway systems were dismantled immediately after the war, the siding in Pudripp ends today as a loading siding at the station building.

Dannenberg air ammunition plant

In 1937 the construction of an ammunition plant in what is now the Dannenberg district of Neu Tramm began. Since the air ammunition plant was one of the more important armaments companies, it was decided to build a connecting railway from Karwitz to the plant. Although the Salzwedel – Dannenberg stretch passed the plant much closer, it was not possible to overcome the difference in height between the railway line and the plant.

Before the Second World War, Karwitz station had three side tracks in addition to the continuous main track, one of which was an intersection track with a total of six points . For the rail connection, two transfer tracks were laid south of the crossing track. The number of points rose to twelve, plus a single and double crossing points . In order to be able to forego the construction of a signal box at the western end of the station, the expansion was kept as simple as possible and the security systems were limited as much as possible.

The military connection line left the station at the eastern end and was approximately 2.2 kilometers long to the entrance to the plant. There were three parallel tracks on the factory premises, two 480 meters each, one 540 meters long, another 810 meter long track and a single locomotive shed .

After the end of the war, the entire connecting line was dismantled and the Karwitz station returned to its original condition.

literature

  • Ulrich Bornmüller, Dr. Rolf Meyer (Red.): Railway time in Wendland: Contributions to the railway history of the Lüchow-Dannenberg district . Hartmut Geller, Museum Association Wustrow e. V., 1990, ISBN 3-925861-06-8

Web links

Commons : Uelzen – Dannenberg railway line  - album with pictures, videos and audio files