Uelzen – Langwedel railway line

Uelzen – Langwedel
Visselhövede train station
Route number (DB) :	1960
Course book section (DB) :	116 (Uelzen – Bremen)
Route length:	97.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	80 km / h
Dual track :	Uelzen – Uelzen Fischerhof
Legend Route from Stendal Line from Hanover 0.0 Uelzen Route to Hamburg , route to Dannenberg 2.2 Uelzen Fischerhof 5.1 Westerweyhe 11.7 Ebstorf (Kr Uelzen) 22.5 Brockhöfe Line from Beckedorf 33.6 Munster (Örtze) Örtze Bundeswehr connection 41.4 Emmingen A 7 45.1 Soltau-Harber ( Awanst ) Lüneburg – Soltau line Heidebahn Hanover – Buchholz Böhme Heidebahn from Buchholz 52.1 Soltau (Han) Heidebahn to Hanover former line Neuenkirchen – Soltau 59.9 Frielingen (Kr Fallingbostel) 65.8 Riepholm 67.5 Visselhövede town (Awanst) former route from Walsrode 70.2 Visselhövede former route to Rotenburg (Wümme) Bremervörde – Walsrode railway line 73.8 Anything 79.1 Bendingbostel 88.4 Kirchlinteln Rotenburg – Verden route Line from Hanover 97.4 Langwedel Route to Bremen

The Uelzen – Langwedel railway opens up the Lüneburg Heath in an east-west direction. The route became known as part of the so-called America Line .

history

Land railroad time

The " Bremer Staatsbahn " was originally built by the Bremen Senate and opened in 1873.

The construction was initially directed by the engineer Rudolph Berg , who was appointed senior building officer in Bremen in 1872 . The line runs from Langwedel in Lower Saxony to the east through the Lüneburg Heath to Uelzen. In Langwedel it was connected to the railway line to Wunstorf, half of which belonged to Bremen and half of Hanover and was operated by the Royal Hanover State Railways . The profits made on the Langwedel – Uelzen section were initially divided in a ratio of two ( Magdeburg-Halberstädter Eisenbahngesellschaft , which operated the American line) to one (Bremen), until the operation was taken over by Prussia. At the beginning of the 20th century, the line came into focus as the shortest connection between Berlin and the Wilhelmshaven naval base , which is why several barracks and military training areas in Munster (Örtze) were set up and the line expanded to double tracks from 1904–1906.

Reichsbahn time

Between the wars, individual express trains continued to run between Berlin and Wilhelmshaven and Norddeich via this connection. During the Second World War, the stations were repeatedly targets of air raids. At the end of the 1930s there was a collision between a bus and Adolf Hitler's train in the area of ​​a now defunct level crossing near Walle - today there is a flyover of the B 215 over the railway line , which resulted in several deaths. After a short stop in Kirchlinteln, the so-called “Führerzug” continued its journey. In February 1945 a refugee train was destroyed in an air raid near the towns of Scharnhorst and Walle, resulting in numerous deaths. After all, the route was fiercely fought over between retreating armed forces and the advancing British army.

Federal Railroad Time

After the Second World War, the connection through the Lüneburg Heath was gradually dismantled to a single-track branch line by 1987 and some stops and stations were closed for passenger traffic, and many freight transport facilities were also closed. In 1987 most of the guard-operated barriers were replaced by automatic level crossing safety systems.

Todays situation

Route

Structural condition

Even after the fall of the wall, the connection is a non-electrified route of minor importance in the portfolio of DB Netz . It has hardly been modernized so far. Between Langwedel and Uelzen there are many structures that are attractive for railway enthusiasts, such as old signal boxes , telegraph poles , form signals and reception buildings .

Redevelopment

In spring 2009, renovation work on the route between Langwedel and Soltau was completed, which had been postponed again and again since the 1990s. The Federal Railway Authority (EBA) had threatened Deutsche Bahn by setting a deadline to completely ban operations between Langwedel and Soltau. As a result, train traffic in the 2008/2009 winter timetable was interrupted until February for the purpose of extensive work on the line and at Visselhövede station . These construction measures served to secure the existence of the route.

The importance of the route is increasing again today. This is due on the one hand to the new deep-water port JadeWeserPort and on the other hand to the increasing volumes of goods from the Bremen ports , for which this route represents a direct connection to the east / south-east. For this reason, the line between Langwedel and Soltau , which had previously been neglected for maintenance, was closed in the second half of 2012 in order to carry out extensive renovation measures, including 36 km of track renewal.

In the spring of 2013, the section between Soltau and Ebstorf was also extensively renovated, so that the track has now been renewed over its entire length, including all station tracks in Visselhövede, Soltau, Munster and Ebstorf. Electrification of this section is not yet in sight, although this would first create the actual load-bearing capacity of the line in order to attract the necessary traffic. The DB Netz AG to the timetable-construction corridors 2012th

passenger traffic

Hundertwasser station Uelzen

Passenger traffic took place until December 2008 in the form of a regional train service operated by DB Regio that was not continuously synchronized on the Uelzen – Bremen route. When the timetable changed in December 2008, the regional trains only ran between Uelzen and Langwedel for one year, where a change had to be made in the direction of Bremen. This supply restriction was justified with various construction measures. Continuous traffic from and to Bremen has been offered again since December 2009.

The route enjoyed modest long-distance traffic until the suspension of compulsory military service: Bundeswehr Intercitys from Cologne, after 1990 from Leipzig, IC 1960 from / to Munster from Berlin, drove for recruits who were on vacation at the weekend. Today Erixx serves the Bundeswehr in Munster on Sunday evening with the “late train” 83018 at 11:07 pm from Uelzen to Soltau.

The Osthannoversche Railways AG (OHE) has won the tender for the Heide Cross gained the traffic Bremen Uelzen and Buchholz Hannover. The newly founded subsidiary Erixx took over operations for eight years when the timetable changed in December 2011. With a few section-wise exceptions during rush hour on weekdays, the service runs every two hours.

The flows of commuters and schoolchildren do not run (anymore) along the American line, so occasional traffic predominates.

Freight transport

The only minor freight traffic, which includes timber transport trains, deliveries to a Visselhöveder mineral oil dealer and container trains, is operated by the Osthannoverschen Eisenbahnen and DB Cargo . Vehicles of the Mittelweserbahn or the Verden-Walsroder Railway also rarely get onto the route. Container trains (e.g. Enercon wind turbine trains) also ran the route until 2019 . The America Line is used for transporting NATO troops for special maneuvers.

future

The route is to be electrified and expanded for freight traffic, especially as a connection to the JadeWeserPort . It was recorded as urgent in the Federal Railways Expansion Act 2004 and in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 .

In Kirchlinteln there are efforts to set up a stop for passenger traffic. A more central location (“Kirchlinteln-Ort”) is required for this compared to the former train station. A re-establishment of a stop is currently planned there. This was agreed on March 28, 2019 between the state of Lower Saxony, LNVG and DB.

In Visselhövede, a closure of the train station and the establishment of a stop further to the east, closer to the city center, were occasionally suggested.

The section Tadel (between the abandoned train stations Jeddingen and Bendingbostel) –Langwedel should have been expanded to double -track as part of the Y-route Hanover – Bremen for high - speed traffic. However, the construction of the Y-route will no longer be pursued after the Alpha-E variant has been planned.

vehicles

In the past, the 03 and  50 series , which were stationed in Uelzen , among others , were regularly on the route  . Overall, the connection is considered to be one of the longest regular connections in western Germany that has been regularly used by steam locomotives.

Furthermore, on local trains, immediately after the war, trains hauled by steam locomotives and the Wittfeld accumulator railcar were encountered . These were later replaced by series 798 rail buses and series 628.0 pre- series multiple units. In the 1980s and 1990s, the 216 and  624 series and the 218 series  or occasionally  212 in front of locomotive-hauled express trains ran regularly  .

Class 634 railcars were in service until December 10, 2005, the 614 class railcars ended in December 2008, and the 628.2 and 628.4 class diesel railcars were also replaced on the route when the timetable changed in December 2011 .

Alstom Coradia LINT railcars are currently in service . The railway company is Erixx GmbH. Class 218 was used before the intercity trains between Munster and Uelzen, which ran until the 2013 timetable change. In freight transport, the mainline diesel locomotives of the ADtranz DE-AC33C series, labeled with Red Tiger , are found in front of timber and container trains, as well as the MaK G 1202 BB , MaK G 1204 BB or MaK G 1205 BB series in front of smaller OHE transfer trains .

See also

• List of railway lines in Germany
• Bremen State Railways

Web links

Commons : Uelzen – Langwedel railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• More information on the Uelzen – Langwedel section
• Course book from 1944 with express train connections
• Amerikalinie and Heidebahn
• America Line Depot Monument Ebstorf station

Individual evidence

1. ^ Aiko Schmidt: Berg, Theodor Friederich Rudolph ( online on the page of the Natural Research Society of Emden from 1814 ).
2. ↑ Web link on the history of the American line with accidents
3. ↑ Network News - December 2015 | Issue 4/15 ( Memento from January 13, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
4. ^ "Amerikalinie": Bahn expands the Langwedel – Uelzen line , Weser-Kurier from June 6, 2020, accessed on June 7, 2020
5. ↑ Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030
6. ↑ Reopening of the train station
7. ↑ NDR television: Bahnhof should upgrade Kirchlinteln
8. ↑ reactivation of stations. Retrieved March 30, 2019 .