Voxna – Lobonäs railway line
| Voxna – Lobonäs | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Course book range : | WLJ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 28.86 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 802 mm ( narrow gauge (Sweden) ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 25 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 300 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 30 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The narrow-gauge railway line Voxna – Lobonäs in Gävleborgs län in Sweden was built in 1908 by Woxna-Lobonäs Järnvägsaktiebolag between Voxna (old spelling: Woxna ) and Lobonäs. As early as November 30, 1932, the line, popularly known as Våran Lilla Järnväg ( German Our Little Railway ), was closed and dismantled shortly afterwards.
history
As the main artery for the region, the Bollnäs – Voxna railway had been available since November 4, 1899 , and the section between Voxna and Orsa was opened to traffic on January 18 of the following year. One of the most ardent supporters of the new railway line to be built was the main owner of Ljusne-Woxna AB, Count Walther von Hallwyl from Switzerland . Hallwyl ran sawmills and smelters and made chains.
Then there were the forest areas north of Voxna, which also belonged to Ljusne-Woxna AB. There were large areas where wood was felled and used to produce charcoal. These forests became interesting after the construction of the Orsa – Bollnäs line, as it became easier to transport the timber from Voxna station. In 1899, Ljusne-Woxna AB also founded a factory for the degassing of wood waste at the Voxna train station. The plant produced tar and turpentine .
As early as 1899, Hallwyl commissioned Vägoch vattenbyggnadskåren to design a narrow-gauge railway between Voxna and Lobonäs. This task was carried out by Captain Werner Bäckström, who was the traffic director of Dala-Helsinglands Järnvägsaktiebolag , in the autumn of 1899. Since the planned costs were too high, we waited.
In early 1905, Nora-Bergslags Järnväg (NBJ) decidedto discontinuemost of the Bredsjö – Degerfors (Bredsjö – Degerfors Järnväg, BDJ) railway in 1907. The track width of the BDJ was 802 mm. From this point on, the material for this route was for sale. With these used rails, locomotives and wagons, the initial situation changed. With the NBJ's proposal to hand over the material for 350,000 kroner , the construction of the railway was re-calculated.
The management board of Ljusne-Woxna AB decided to build it in the first half of 1906. On this basis, the concession for a railway line between Voxna and Lobonäs was applied for on October 22, 1906 and granted on September 6, 1907.
Woxna-Lobonäs Järnvägsaktiebolag
The concession was immediately taken over by the newly established Woxna-Lobonäs Järnvägsaktiebolag . The company had a share capital of 400,400 kroner, of which Ljusne-Woxna AB subscribed for 400,000 kroner and Count Hallwyl a share of 400 kroner. Hallwyl became chairman and managing director of the public company .
Railway construction
Before the concession was granted, the preparatory work for the route construction began. In May 1907, Per Persson from Ljusne became the material manager in Voxna. The engineer Axel Hagman, who previously worked as a department manager at Nybro-Sävsjöström-Vetlanda järnvägsbyggnad (German railway construction company), was responsible for the construction . Construction workers were hired and at the end of July the first locomotive and a few freight wagons arrived in Voxna, loaded onto standard-gauge freight wagons. The wagons were unloaded by hand. Used rails and switches were also delivered to Voxna.
Voxna became the construction center. which expanded along the river Voxnan towards Lobonäs. The Voxna bruk station was quickly set up. In the autumn of 1907, the rails reached Vinströmmen , a few kilometers north of the station in Njupa. A large bridge with a span of 34.7 meters was built here. The bridge was bought second-hand from Stockholm-Rimbo Järnväg ; she was previously at Stocksund . It was reinforced and built in during the winter so that it was ready in spring 1908. The bridge had a downward arch, so that in the following years when the Voxnan was flooded in the spring, the water level reached the bridge. Therefore, the driftwood had to be constantly removed and at times the bridge was guarded by guards during this time.
In addition to this bridge there were two more, one about 2.5 kilometers north of Voxna. It led over a stream with a span of three meters. The second bridge led over the Selmån and had a span of 10.8 meters. The main parts of this bridge had been acquired second-hand from Nora-Karlskoga Järnväg . The foundations of the bridges were made of granite .
After New Year 1908, the second locomotive came from the BDJ, along with additional rails and cars. The track construction was provisionally completed in the summer and the line could be used provisionally. The station buildings were erected and the acceptance test took place on November 4, 1908. On November 10th of the same year Väg- och vattenbyggnadsstyrelsen approved the public use of the route after the tariffs had already been approved in December 1907. On November 13, 1908, the railway line was inaugurated for public use.
route
The route length was 28.86 km with 2.98 km of siding and 400 m of industrial tracks. Rails with a weight per meter of 23.1 kg / m were laid over 11 km , 17.9 km had a weight of 20.6 kg / m. The largest threshold distance was 0.75 m; about 37,000 sleepers were used that were 1.65-1.80 m in length. These lay on a 3.2 m wide embankment . The curve radius in the stations was 150 m. The maximum axle pressure was 6 t for cars and 5.8 t for locomotives.
Although only two locomotives were available during the entire operating time, a two-room locomotive shed with a turntable and the main workshop in Voxna bruk and a single locomotive shed with a turntable in Lobonäs were built. There was a 5-meter turntable in Voxna; for the access to the coaling plant there was a three-rail track that was used together with the standard gauge locomotives on the main line. Water was taken from a shared water crane . The railway company's gravel pit was in Kilen.
The total cost was 543,876 crowns. The share capital covered 400,400 crowns. Count Hallwyl paid the difference.
vehicles
Most of the vehicles used were bought second-hand from Bredsjö-Degerfors Järnväg (BDJ). The used vehicles were much cheaper than new ones. The locomotives with a service weight of 19 tons cost 18,000 crowns including a replacement boiler and the rest of the vehicles 21,053 crowns including the new wagons from the ASJ.
| number | Surname | design type | Wheel alignment | Manufacturer | Fabr.-No./ year of construction |
Special |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tank locomotive | 1 C t | Helsingborgs Mekaniska Verkstad , Helsingborg | 16 1899 |
Scrapped in 1907 by Bredsjö-Degerfors Järnväg , BDJ 6 , 1934 to Hällefors-Fredriksbergs Järnväg , HFJ 9 , 1957 | |
| 2 | Tank locomotive | 1 C t | Helsingborgs Mekaniska Verkstad, Helsingborg | 17 1900 |
Scrapped in 1907 by Bredsjö-Degerfors Järnväg , BDJ 7 , 1934 to Hällefors-Fredriksbergs Järnväg , HFJ 10 , 1959 |
Three cars, one used by BDJ and two newly built, were procured for passenger transport:
- BC1 passenger car: sixteen seats in third class and six in second class, manufactured by Nora in 1899 and bought by BDJ in 1907. The car weighed 4.8 t.
- C2 passenger car: 38 seats in third class. The car was newly built for WLJ in 1908 by AB Svenska Järnvägsverkstädera (ASJ). The car had a weight of eight tons and was equipped with a screw brake. After it was sold to the HJF, the car was retired in the 1960s and was used as a summer house. It is being renovated at the Jädraås – Tallås Järnväg museum railway .
- BCD passenger car: in addition to eight seats in the second and 16 in the third class, the car had a mail compartment . It was rebuilt by ASJ for WLJ in 1908 and weighed 8.6 tons.
All cars were sold to the HFJ when the line was closed.
The freight wagons were almost exclusively taken over by the BDJ.
- Covered freight cars F12 and G11, 13 and 14:
- Baggage car F11 (1908 by BDJ), wheelbase 3.6 m, weight 4.5 t and 4 t payload, with screw brake. The car had a boiler with which the passenger coaches could be heated. The kettle was manufactured by Vulcan Foundry in 1894.
- Baggage car F12, without brakes (1908 by BDJ).
- Freight car G13, wheelbase 3.6 m, weight 3.1 t and 3.5 t payload (1908 by BDJ).
- Freight car G14: bought new in 1914, weight 3.6 t and 4.4 t payload. The car cost 1,615.74 crowns.
After the WLJ was shut down, all four cars were sold to the HFJ as F511-514. BDJ also acquired 30 gondolas, which were given the numbers 21 to 50. 20 of them had a brake (including 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39, 42 and 45 with a wheelbase 1.8 m, weight 1.7 t and 6 t payload) and ten did not have their own brake. In addition to these freight cars, a number of older, small cars with a wheelbase 1.8 m, weight 1.5 t and 6 t payload were purchased.
There were also 14 bogie cars for transporting coal. These were numbered L 81 to L 94. They consisted of former wagon chassis that were connected with long iron rails. The structure contained 300 hectoliters. The two bogie wood transport wagons of the NNo series, No. 61 and 62, were built in a similar manner. These were delivered by ASJ in 1909 as new constructions. The distance between the bogies was 5.35 m, the wheelbase 1.05 m, the weight 3.7 t and the payload 8 t with a length over buffers of 7.5 m. The cars were not braked. When the line was closed, the majority of the cars went to the HFJ.
Operation and adjustment
At the beginning three pairs of trains ran daily between Voxna and Lobonäs, in the morning, at noon and in the evening. The trains were mixed trains consisting of both freight and passenger coaches. From October 1, 1914, there was only one daily mixed train running over the entire route and a few trains that only ran on different days. One of these special trains went to Voxna every year on Christmas morning for church visitors. This traffic restriction was mainly due to the large volume of freight. The largest customer was the owner company Ljusne-Woxna AB, whose freight consisted entirely of wood . The products were wood and charcoal, as well as tree stumps and roots for wood gasification in Voxna.
In 1930 there was only one pair of trains running between Voxna and Voxna bruk and one pair of trains on the entire route. At all stops, there were sidings connected on both sides, which were normally only used for loading traffic.
Over the years, the calculation of the stock corporation showed that the railway was not economically justified. In 1932 the company applied for the license to be returned and operations to be discontinued. The request was supported by both the municipality and the county . On November 30, 1932 the last train left Lobonäs. Then there was a special trip during the winter of 1933, a train for athletes for a ski race in Voxna. In the summer of 1933 the line was dismantled.
literature
- Voxna-Lobonäs Järnväg 1908-1932, Göran Engström, Verlag Rimbo Grande AB, Huddinge 1996, ISBN 91-630-4608-3 (Swedish).
Web links
- Rolf Sten: Woxna-Lobonäs Järnväg. In: historiskt.nu. Retrieved May 18, 2020 (Swedish).
- Voxna - Lobonäs järnväg. Track plans of the stations. In: ekeving.se. Retrieved May 18, 2020 (Swedish).
- Voxna – Lobonäs. Bandel 145. In: banvakt.se. Retrieved May 18, 2020 (Swedish).
- Ljusne-Woxna Aktiebolag. In: Project Runeberg . Retrieved March 20, 2013 (Swedish).
- Photos. In: jvgfoto.se. Retrieved May 18, 2020 (Swedish).
- Locomotive 2 as HJF 10, 1955 in Frederiksberg. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Voxna – Lobonäs. Bandel 145. In: banvakt.se. Retrieved May 18, 2020 (Swedish).
- ↑ a b Route description WLJ. In: historiskt.nu. Retrieved May 18, 2020 (Swedish).
- ^ Ljusne-Woxna Aktiebolag. Project Runeberg , Nordisk familjebok , accessed March 20, 2013 (Swedish).
- ^ Locomotive statistics Pospichal. Retrieved May 29, 2013 .
- ^ Passenger car C2 as a summer house. Archived from the original on September 26, 2013 ; Retrieved February 8, 2016 (Swedish).
- ↑ Renovation of the C2. Archived from the original on September 26, 2013 ; Retrieved February 8, 2016 (Swedish).
- ↑ Drawing of the NNo series. Retrieved March 20, 2013 (Swedish).