Krefeld Railway Company

Moers – Hüls – Krefeld
Course book section (DB) :	252a (1944)
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D3
Top speed:	30 km / h
Legend from Hoerstegen-Sevelen and Rheinberg from the Xanten – Duisburg line Moers small train station 25.5 Moers Homberg – Moers until 1908 24.16 Moers KE 20.95 Holderberg Tram Krefeld – Moers 19.2 Chapels 17.1 Silver lake 16.25 Never 14.36 Hülser Berg Connection to the cement factory 11.72 Hüls Nord from Kempen 9.35 Sleeve 6.55 Inrath 5.35 Krefeld Moritzplatz 4.43 Krefeld North old route to Krefeld Süd (old) 3.63 Krefeld West formerly St. Töniser Str. Kleve – Krefeld to Viersen 2.17 Krefeld- Lindenthal Mönchengladbach – Krefeld to Krefeld main station (today's handover) 0.0 Krefeld South to Krefeld main station (handover from 1908)

Viersen – Krefeld
Course book section (DB) :	252 (1944)
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend Viersen State Railway Station * to Krefeld / to Venlo 18.04 Viersen KE 17.21 Viersen Rahser 15.01 Addicts to Grefrath Channel III C 10.14 Vorst Willicher Fleuth 6.4 St. Tönis West 5.73 Anrather way 5.13 St Tönis (Tönisvorst) 2.95 from / to Moers (company workshop) 2.17 Krefeld- Lindenthal Mönchengladbach – Krefeld to Krefeld main station (new handover) 0.0 Krefeld South to Krefeld main station (old handover)

Share of more than 1,000 marks in the Crefeld Railway Company on December 1, 1885

Seal of the Crefeld Railway Company

Seal mark

Grefrath – Süchtelnvorst
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Kempen 6.4 Grefrath to Kaldenkirchen from Kempen 1.85 Suchtelnvorst to Viersen

Süchteln – Kempen – Krefeld
Course book section (DB) :	252b (1944)
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Viersen 0.0 Addicts to Krefeld 1.85 25.93 Suchtelnvorst to Grefrath 23.11 Oedt 19.28 Schmalbroich Kempen-Krefeld route 16.24 Kempen to the state railway 15.0 Connection Kuhlendahl 13.77 St. Hubert from Moers 9.35 Sleeve to Krefeld

The Krefeld Railway Company was founded on July 19, 1880 as the successor to the bankrupt Crefeld-Kreis Kempener Industrie-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (CKKIE), which had built up a 46 km long network of standard-gauge branch lines from Krefeld .

The Crefeld-Kreis Kempener Industrie-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft

The CKKIE was founded in 1868 with predominantly English capital in order to develop further routes in the vicinity of the town of Crefeld (since 1925 finally Krefeld), which had been connected to several railway lines since the middle of the 19th century . There was a need to cope with the heavy rush hour traffic from the surrounding area into the city, the center of German velvet and silk manufacture at that time; in addition, agricultural products and products of local industry should be transported in the Kempen district .

Starting from today's district of Hüls in the north of Krefeld, from November 1, 1870, a train headed south via Krefeld Nord and Krefeld West to Krefeld Süd station (on Saumstraße) near the state main station. There, the trains had to change direction to continue their journey to the west via St. Tönis and Tönisvorst to reach Nierstal with Süchteln and finally after 25 km Viersen . At the same time, the 6 km long branch line from Süchteln was used in a northerly direction parallel to the Niers via Süchtelnvorst to Grefrath.

Then the 16 km long cross-connection from Hüls via Kempen to Süchtelnvorst was completed and officially opened on February 18, 1872.

Although the time conditions were favorable and, above all, the passenger traffic generated good income - twice as much as the freight traffic - the company ran into financial difficulties which led to bankruptcy in 1874. The Süchteln - Grefrath company was closed on July 1, 1874; on the remaining stretches he apparently continued to do so in a restricted manner; the course book contains a timetable from July 15, 1879. However, the sections under construction from Süchteln to Straelen and from Hüls to Moers were initially discontinued.

The Crefeld Railway Company

After several unsuccessful attempts to find someone interested in rail operations, the "Crefelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft" (CEG) (Krefelder EG since 1927) was founded on July 19, 1880 by the Frankfurt banking house Erlanger & Söhne. This brought the CKKIE tracks and vehicles that it had acquired in an auction into the new company. On October 1, 1880, operations were resumed on most routes.

The 14 km stretch from Hüls to Moers, which was very important for transporting the coal from the mines there to Krefeld, has now been completed. It was opened on May 15, 1881 to Niep and on June 3, 1882 to Moers. However, the construction from Grefrath to Straelen did not take place, which was only reached from Kempen via the Geldern circular path from 1901 . On May 15, 1881, passenger traffic to Grefrath was resumed. However, the Süchtelnvorst - Grefrath section was the first to be completely shut down on November 15, 1916.

In 1886 a transfer track to the state railway in Moers was built, and in 1890 in Viersen. In the course of raising the Krefeld main station , a new transfer track was laid from Krefeld West to the new Krefeld Süd station south of the state railway and opened on July 19, 1907, while the previous transfer station in the north of the station was given up.

The new company flourished until the First World War, after which the business was subject to considerable fluctuations, which did not result in permanently favorable earnings. After the Allgemeine Deutsche Kleinbahn-Gesellschaft AG (ADKA) had been running the CEG since 1912 , it was taken over by the city of Krefeld itself on March 1, 1921, which now has more than 90% of the Kempen district (Kempen-Krefeld since 1929) Owned shares. From 1933 onwards, it united the management of the city transport company, the Krefelder Verkehrs-AG (Krevag).

In 1924/25 the CEG endeavored to make passenger traffic more profitable through the use of railcars on the one hand, and the opening of omnibus lines parallel to the railways and from Süchteln to Brüggen and Kaldenkirchen on the other . In addition, on October 1, 1930, she took over the management of the Geldern circuit. There, in 1932, it shut down rail passenger traffic and in 1935 acquired the entire company, which was subsequently dissolved. Krevag buses took over the transport of passengers there as well as on the bus routes of the CEG, now KEG.

The end of passenger transport also seemed to have come on the tracks of the Krefeld Railway Company. While only omnibuses were planned for the route from Moers via Hüls and Kempen to Süchteln in 1932/33, the Krefeld - St. Tönis - Süchteln - Viersen section followed in 1935.

The Krefeld Railway Company since the Second World War

After just a few years, rail passenger traffic was resumed in September 1939 because the Second World War had begun. In the following decade, the number of people carried reached considerable heights, although the railway had suffered considerable damage - especially in the air war.

After the normalization of economic life, the number of passengers and goods transported fell drastically. Especially in the outskirts of Krefeld and Viersen, the competition from the parallel traffic of electric trams was felt. Compared to other railways, this resulted in the discontinuation of passenger transport by rail very early on: At the beginning of the winter timetable in 1949, this affected the Moers - Niep and Kempen - Süchteln - Viersen sections. May traffic had stopped. In 1950, it affected the Niep - Hüls line from May 15 and the connection from the north station to the south station in Krefeld from October 9. On May 19, 1951, the rest of the passenger traffic on the Krefeld - Hüls - Kempen and Krefeld - St. Tönis - Süchteln sections ended, as did freight traffic from Kempen to Oedt.

After a break of more than ten years, the remaining freight traffic was reduced by withdrawing bit by bit from the respective endpoints: It began at the end of 1961 with the short stretch between Süchteln and Viersen. On May 1, 1965, traffic between Oedt and Süchtelnvorst was stopped, and on September 1, 1972 between Hüls and St. Hubert. In 1974 the time had come on February 15th in the north between Kapellen and Moers, and on December 1st between St. Hubert and Schauteshütte / connection Kuhlendahl. The next year, on April 3, the Süchteln – Süchtelnvorst section and on December 31, Hülser Berg – Kapellen were closed. In 1978 the time had come between Süchteln and the Tempelshof industrial area in St. Tönis. In 1981, the remaining traffic in Kempen was stopped, only the Arnold connection directly at the station was still served until August 19, 1985. On October 25, 1982, the Tempelshof industrial area in Tönisvorst (formerly St. Tönis) was also no longer served, and on August 19, freight traffic between Hüls and Hülser Berg was stopped, but this route was retained for excursion traffic. The volume of goods on the remaining network is very low, and train journeys are correspondingly rare. The St. Tönis - Krefeld Nord - Hüls - Hülser Berg route, which is still in operation today (2011), is 13.6 km long and serves almost exclusively the historic steam trains, which are affectionately known as Schluff and which have been carrying many passengers on summer Sundays since the centenary in 1968 in the area around Krefeld, since 1980 regularly every weekend in summer. On the route from Hülser Berg to Moers train station, the Grafschafter bike and hiking trail was laid out, which is only interrupted by the Autobahn 57 near Lauersfort Castle between Holderberg and Kapellen.

In view of the low volume of traffic, the previously independent railway company was incorporated into the Krefelder Verkehrs-AG on August 8, 1978, in which the city of Krefeld and the district of Viersen, the successor to the district of Kempen-Krefeld, were involved. This resulted in the Städtische Werke Krefeld AG (SWK) on September 30, 1990, whose subsidiary, SWK Mobil GmbH, now looks after the transport sector. Between 2008 and 2010, the Niederrheinische Verkehrsbetriebe were responsible for the rail traffic, since 2010 the port and rail operations of the city of Krefeld .

literature

• Gerd Wolff and Lothar Riedel: German small and private railways, Volume 5 North Rhine-Westphalia (northwestern part) . Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-88255-662-5 , pp. 214–245

Web links

Commons : Krefelder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Krefeld Railway Company in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .