Varde – Nørre Nebel – Tarm railway line

Varde – Nørre Nebel – Tarm
MB 53 and MB 52
Route map of the VNJ
Route length:	38 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend Esbjerg – Struer railway from Esbjerg 30.0 Tarm (formerly Bhf.) Esbjerg – Struer railway to Struer 27 Kyvling 25th Lønborg 22nd Vostrup 13 Sønder Vium 17th Hemmet 7th Nørre Bork 5 Obling 4th Sønder Bork Nymindegab 0.0 37.6 Nørre Nebel 32.2 Lunde 29.1 Løftgård 27.7 Outrup 25.0 hen 23.7 Dyreby 21.8 Søvig Sund 19.6 Jegum 18.2 Vrøgum 16.0 Baunhøj 15.2 Oksbøl Military connection Oksbøl Sydlejr Nørre Oksby ( Tirpitz position ) 14.2 Hesselmed 11.7 Billum 8.9 Janderup 7.3 Hyllerslev 5.6 Elkærdam Boulevards 2.4 Varde Vest Frisvadvej Esbjerg – Struer railway from Struer 73.7 Arnbjerg Varde Å Varde – Grindsted railway from Grindsted 0.0 Varde Esbjerg – Struer railway to Esbjerg

Ys 81 and Ym 71

The Varde – Nørre Nebel – Tarm railway is a standard-gauge private railway in Denmark , which was built by various companies. Therefore her name changed several times over the years. The current route (2020) runs from Varde via Varde Vestbanegården and Oksbøl to Nørre Nebel . It is called Vestbanen .

history

On October 3, 1874, the first part of Den vestjyske længdebane , the state railway from Esbjerg to Varde, and on August 8, 1875 the extension from Varde to Ringkøbing , opened. This brought the sparsely populated West Jutland into contact with the rest of the country. The previous possibility of traveling by sailing boat around Skagen could now be dispensed with.

A few years after the opening, the first plans for a route from Nymindegab to Varde were made. In the following years, several route variants were discussed. The Railway Act of May 8, 1894 contained a railway line from Nymindegab via Billum to Varde with a branch line from Billum to Esbjerg. Nymindegab was one of the most important fishing ports on the west coast south of the Limfjord in the 1870s . From here, fish should be transported away. As it became more and more difficult to keep the end of the Ringkøbing Fjord clear in Nymindegab due to increasing siltation , the town lost its importance. In 1900 the Reichstag decided not to build the section between Nørre Nebel and Nymindegab. The fish transport was never particularly large and ceased completely after the First World War . Were transported hollow bricks , feed , fuel and last but not least marl from Ringkøbing.

Varde-Nørre Nebel Jernbane (VNJ)

The Varde-Nørre Nebel Jernbane (VNJ) - also known as the Nebelbanen - opened the line between Varde and Nørre Nebel in 1903 . The extension from Nørre Nebel to Tarm in 1913 gave the company the name Varde-Nørre Nebel-Tarm Jernbane (VNTJ). After the closure of this section in 1940, it was renamed back to its original name.

The construction cost was 1½ million crowns , half of which was paid by the state and the other half by the office and the municipalities. Work on the line began in the summer of 1901 and was completed in March 1903 without any problems.

The opening of the Varde – Nørre-Nebel line took place on March 14, 1903, and public service began one day later. The route begins at the state train station in Varde, where a platform with two tracks was built on the west side, which ended on a turntable until 1961 . The route led north across Varde Å and then west to Vestbanegård ( Westbahnhof ), which, like the other stations on the route, was designed by the architect of the Danske Statsbaner (DSB), Heinrich Wenck . The building contains the company's administration; to the west of the station there is a locomotive shed , a workshop and a turntable. At that time, the line from Varde Vest headed west to Elkærdam station, followed by Hyllerslev, Janderup, Billum, Hesselmed station and Oksbøl station. From Oksbøl the route leads north towards Baunhøj via Vrøgum, Søvigbæk, Dyreby, Henne, Outrup, Løftgårde, Lunde to the terminus in Nørre Nebel.

Three trains ran in each direction on the route. The entire traffic could be covered with one train set. In 1908, the year of the royal visit, the company was expanded to include another pair of trains.

Nørre Nebel-Tarm Jernbane (NTJ)

The transport of marl was an important argument in favor of extending the route from Nørre Nebel to Tarm. This section was incorporated into the Railway Act of May 27, 1908 . The law stipulated that the Nørre Nebel-Tarm Jernbane (NTJ) should be operated together with the VNJ. Vehicles, operations managers, railway foremen and train staff were all involved, the station staff were provided by the respective companies. The stations of the Tarmbane were all served by female expeditions, the wives of the railroad workers.

Varde-Nørre Nebel-Tarm Jernbane (VNTJ)

In 1913 the line from Nørre Nebel to Tarm was opened. Both companies agreed on a joint operation that was run by a joint operations manager. Vehicles and personnel were also used together. In 1924 the company acquired the first railcar from Triangel, followed by two more cars in 1926 and 1927. This enabled steam operation to be restricted. When a diesel-electric locomotive was bought by Frichs in 1932, steam locomotives were only used for heavy freight trains.

The new route did not bring any significant additional traffic to the route, so that a deficit was the result. The Transport Commission, which carried out investigations in 1939, suspended further state aid. When the line from Nørre Nebel to Tarm was closed in 1940, VNJ took over some of the vehicles and some employees.

Varde-Nørre Nebel Jernbane

After the closure of the Nørre Nebel – Tarm section, the name was changed back to Varde-Nørre Nebel Jernbane in 1940 .

Vestbanen

The most recent name change took place on May 10, 1977, when the Vestbanen in Vestbanen A / S has been renamed.

Oksbøl – Oksby railway line

During the Second World War, during the German occupation of Oksbøl, a 14-kilometer route to Oksby was built to transport building materials for the Tirpitz position by rail. The heavy trains skidded on the route and in some places only 10 km / h could be driven. The bridge over Varde Å had to be reinforced. Steam locomotives had to be rented from the Danske Statsbaner as well as from other private railways.

In 1941, for military reasons, the 12-kilometer connection from Nørre Nebel to Nymindegab was made to serve a warehouse.

German activities on the line attracted Danish saboteurs , who attacked lines, bridges, locomotive handling systems and locomotives on a large scale from 1943 until the end of the war. On August 27, 1943, there was an attack on the DSB J 8 and VNJ 8 locomotives in the locomotive shed in Varde Vest and on September 5, 1944, a train transporting workers to Nymindegab was attacked on the Hyllerslev dam. Two meters of the right track were blown away and the DSB G machine and the three DSB cars CT 3109, CT 3119 and CT 3122 derailed. There were no injuries and operations were resumed four days later. A large number of explosions in the track bed followed before the surrender.

win and loss

Until 1930 profit was made with the railway operation, while it showed a slight deficit every year from the 1930s. The Second World War brought enormous income and from 1952 onwards the business was again at a loss.

The Second World War became a great challenge for society because the volume of traffic increased immensely. In 1938/39, 91,000 travelers used the railway every year. That number rose to 776,000 in 1944/45. Freight traffic increased from 19,000 tons to 245,000 tons in the same period. The reason was the intensive construction work on the Atlantic Wall on the west coast, for which material and crew were required.

After the Second World War

At the end of the war, both the tracks and the vehicles were completely worn out. In June 1945, only Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday were operated, but in autumn 1945 there were five pairs of trains on each weekday.

In 1948, two newly purchased rail buses from Scandia could be used, which significantly shortened travel times and increased the number of train pairs to six. The deficit grew from year to year. As a savings measure, it was decided in 1952 to run the business together with Varde-Grindsted Jernbanen . The military was VNJ's largest customer after the war and in 1956 VNJ carried 180 special trains with military transports. In the 1960s, the competition between cars became noticeable, the number of passengers fell from year to year, although in 1963 seven pairs of trains drove daily. The line was worn out again and the rail buses built in Denmark were replaced by four newer Swedish rail buses in 1973.

The railway company Varde-Nørre Jernbane changed its name to Vestbanen A / S on May 10, 1977 . However, this name is ambiguous as it is used by the Danish State Railways (DSB) for the Copenhagen – Korsør railway line . In the following year a new siding to the shooting range in Oksbøl was built.

When the Swedish rail buses were no longer satisfactory in the early 1980s, Vestbanen - like many other private railways in the country - bought the Y-tog from the Uerdingen wagon factory . These were sold to Peru in 2012.

From 1985 to 1989 the entire route was renewed with rails weighing 37 kg per meter . The armed forces remained a big customer of Vestbanen and in 1993 troops with tanks were sent from Oksbøl to Bosnia .

In 1997 the company took over the freight traffic between Varde and Esbjerg from DSB as part of the liberalization of the Danish rail network. In 2001 two MY locomotives with ATC were purchased from DSB and received inquiries regarding the rental of both machines and drivers. The major projects included an aluminum enforcement wagon from Grenå to Tønder and the transportation of freight wagons to Grindsted, which ended in May 2012 when the line was closed. In 2004 the two large diesel locomotives were sold again.

Operated by Arriva

On 1 June 2002 took over Arriva Danmark operation for Vestbanen A / S . The infrastructure and equipment as an independent company, but managed by Sydtrafik , was retained. In 2012 Vestbanen acquired two new Lint 41 multiple units that fit the Arriva fleet and were given the road numbers AR 2052 and AR 2053.

On July 1, 2012, cooperation was agreed with the state for the section Varde – Esbjerg, according to which most trains run from Vestbanen to Esbjerg .

Web links

• Varde - Nørre Nebel Jernbane (Vestbanen). In: jernbanen.dk. Retrieved July 30, 2020 (Danish). 
• Erik V. Pedersen: VNJ - Rullende materiel. In: evp.dk. Retrieved July 30, 2020 (Danish). 
• Erik V. Pedersen: VNJ - Stationer. In: evp.dk. Retrieved July 30, 2020 (Danish). 
• Skinnecykler mellem No. Nebel and Nymindegab. In: visitvesterhavet.dk. Retrieved July 30, 2020 (Danish). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vestbanen A / S i CVR registered. In: cvr.dk. Retrieved July 30, 2020 (Danish).