Zeitz – Camburg railway line
Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 18.4 ″ N , 11 ° 54 ′ 46.1 ″ E
| Zeitz – Osterfeld – Camburg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route number (DB) : | 6813 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 589 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 37.34 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 25 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 232 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Zeitz – Camburg line was a branch line in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia . It ran from Zeitz an der Elster via Osterfeld to Camburg an der Saale and thus formed a cross-connection between the Upper Railway Leipzig-Zeitz-Gera-Saalfeld and the Saalbahn ( Großheringen- Camburg- Jena - Saalfeld / Saale ). The route has a character and history similar to that of the railway line from Crossen via Eisenberg to Porstendorf , which is a little south .
history
Prehistory and construction
The city of Zeitz had expressed the wish for a railway line from Zeitz in a westerly direction to Naumburg or Großheringen since 1870. Initially, a main line via Droyssig , Meineweh and Stüßen to Naumburg was planned, which in Naumburg would have a connection to a continuation line in the direction of Artern and for which a stock corporation with an initial capital of 1,500,000 thalers had been founded on September 17, 1870. This project was rejected by the Prussian Minister for Trade, Industry and Public Works, von Itzenplitz , for economic reasons. Instead, a plan arose in 1872 on the initiative of the Saale-Unstrut-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (SUEG), according to which the peppermint railway under construction was to be extended from Straussfurt to Großheringen via Schkölen, Osterfeld and Droy says to Zeitz. Since the Thuringian Railway Company applied for a route from Naumburg to Zeitz at the same time, this project also failed because of the ministerial objection from Berlin. The economic difficulties of the SUEG prevented a realization for good and the stock market crash of 1873 made further initiatives impossible for the next ten years, although the project received political support from the successor minister von Achenbach from May 1873 onwards .
Only a new advance in 1884, according to which a less expensive secondary line is to be built instead of a main line , finally leads to the resumption of concrete preparatory work. In 1887 von Achenbach advocated construction at state costs, which resulted in the signing of a state treaty between Prussia and Saxony-Meiningen in October 1889 . Due to the topographical conditions, the planned end point of the route from Großheringen to Camburg was relocated, although the Prussian state was inclined to let the route run exclusively through its territory. The planning now envisaged 12.38 km in the area of Saxony-Meiningen with a total length of 38.5 km. Considerations of having the line built by the Saal-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft were rejected, as a successful concession by Prussia to this private railway company with the intention of buying it cheaply later seemed unrealistic at that time. On May 10, 1890, the law to build the line was passed. Construction work began in April 1895.
The construction went relatively smoothly, with some considerable renovation work being necessary at the end stations in Camburg and Zeitz. The utilization of the existing platform tracks in Zeitz was so high that the line had to be routed to a separate "Camburg station". The Gera tracks had to be crossed in advance, which was initially carried out at the same level for cost reasons. The 37.34 kilometer long route was opened on the Zeitz - Kretzschau section on April 1 (3.65 kilometers) and on the Kretzschau - Camburg section on May 1, 1897 (33.69 kilometers) by the Prussian State Railways and belonged henceforth to the Royal Railway Directorate Erfurt.
In April 1914, the railway facilities in Zeitz were completely redesigned. A common train station was set up and the level-free introduction of the line via the Gera main line was established. There were no other structural changes.
business
The route mainly served local transport needs of all kinds, the most important being lignite transports for the briquette factories along the route and sugar beet transports for the sugar factories in Camburg and Zeitz. Selected freight trains continued to run to Jena -Göschwitz or in a mixed form to Großheringen / Naumburg . In passenger traffic, the timetables always list four to six pairs of trains up to the Second World War. Except in the years 1902 to 1905, when a pair of trains continued to run over the Saalbahn to Jena, these only took on local tasks. For the construction of the Reichsautobahn Berlin – Nuremberg , capacities were expanded in Weickelsdorf in 1935, and in 1940 a siding was built for the steel construction company in Kretzschau.
On April 11, 1945, the Saale bridge near Camburg was blown up shortly before the US troops moved in, but then rebuilt. However, the Molau – Camburg stretch was dismantled in May 1945 as a reparation payment for the Soviet Union. Until the sixties there was passenger traffic between Zeitz and Molau. On September 26, 1965, the route was shortened by a few kilometers to the connection between Zeitz and Osterfeld . Despite the closure of the briquette factory in Kretzschau, the trunk line even showed increasing numbers of goods transported, especially for agriculture. Passenger traffic concentrated on work and school traffic. From 1967 to 1970, the Zeitz – Kretzschau and Droyzut – Weickelsdorf sections were fundamentally renewed, and at the same time, train control operations began in 1967 .
Shutdown
Freight traffic between Kretzschau and Osterfeld was discontinued on December 31, 1994 and between Zeitz and Kretzschau on January 1, 1998. On May 30, 1999 finally drove the last passenger train, a railcar set of the Series 772/972 in mint green (modernized piglets taxi ). In 2000, the closure of the line finally ended its history. In the following period, demands were made sporadically that the route, v. a. reactivate due to their mostly very good condition. However, this failed not least because of the long-standing parallel bus traffic of the PVG Burgenlandkreis .
Todays use
At the beginning of 2007 it became known that the municipalities along the route had agreed to convert the route into a cycle path. To this end, in December 2008, the Friends of the Bike and Hiking Paths on the disused Zeitz – Camburg e. V. founded. The first section near Weickelsdorf was opened on July 6, 2012, and the Zuckerbahn cycle path has been paved continuously from the Herrmannschacht briquette factory in Zeitz to Schkölen since May 19, 2015 . The renovation was co-financed with money from the European Structural Fund ERDF .
In 2018, a modern replica of the railway bridge over the Crauschwitz - Sieglitz district road was built on the site of the earlier bridge, which was dismantled decades ago, but made of lightweight aluminum due to exclusive use by cyclists and pedestrians.
BLUE - part of the route that has been developed and signposted as a paved cycle path
PINK - Sections that can be hiked on foot and, with good tires, can also be driven by bike, parts that are not forested have high grass cover
GREEN - due to heavy bushes and very loose gravel, parts of the route are currently not suitable for pedestrians or cyclists
BROWN - Sections on which the embankment was removed a long time ago and the area was reintegrated into the surrounding farmland
YELLOW - Junction points of the former railway line that are not open to the public, privately owned land
Vehicle use
The originally used steam locomotives of the G 3 , G 4, G 5, T 3 and T 7 series were replaced in passenger and freight traffic from 1914 by the more powerful T 15 series . Towards the end of the 1920s, the heavier class G 12 locomotives followed , which were used together with the P 8 , G 8 and G 10 classes and for which the superstructure had to be reinforced for the first time. Until the early 1960s, the 58 series (G 12) had the main task of hauling trains over the route. The Zeitz depot, which was downgraded to a locomotive depot of the Leipzig Hbf-West depot in 1967, ran this series until June 1, 1971. After that, the series 52 , 110 , 118 and 172 dominated the scene . The last scheduled use of steam locomotives dates back to May 31, 1985, when the last time 52 8166 drove to Osterfeld. The decline in traffic led to the exclusive use of class 172 and 772 multiple units from September 29, 1991. From 1995, MAN rail buses were rented by the Karsdorfer Eisenbahngesellschaft , but operations continued to be run by the DB. In the last few months of operation, DB railcars of the 772 series were used alone again.
literature
- Gunther Wilde, Hans-Jürgen Barteld: The branch line Zeitz – Osterfeld – Camburg (= branch line documentation . Volume 28 ). Kenning, Nordhorn 1997, ISBN 3-927587-76-1 (96 pages).
Web links
- Website of the Zuckerbahn-Radweg municipal development association
- Zuckerbahn cycle route Zeitz – Camburg on bahntrassenradeln.de
- Pictures from the disused railway line Zeitz – Camburg. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018 ; accessed on July 1, 2019 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Werner Drescher: The Saal railway and its connecting railways . Transpress, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-344-00420-4 , chap. 3.4. The Zeitz – Camburg, S. 107-113 .
- ↑ a b The former “Zuckerbahn” Zeitz - Camburg. Retrieved January 29, 2020 .
- ^ Zeitz - Camburg. In: Reichsbahndirektion Erfurt. Retrieved August 1, 2012 .
- ^ A b c d e Gunther Wilde, Hans-Jürgen Barteld: The branch line Zeitz – Osterfeld – Camburg . 1997, p. 44 ff .
- ↑ Tom Zeretzke: First section released for cyclists. In: Bike and hiking trail on the disused Zeitz – Camburg railway line. Förderverein Rad- und Wanderweg on the disused railway line between Zeitz and Camburg e. V., July 26, 2012, accessed on July 31, 2012 .
- ↑ Zuckerbahn Cycle Path: Zeitz - Camburg , accessed on December 3, 2019.
- ↑ see the following discussion on www.drehscheibe-online.de: Vehicle use KBS 589 Zeitz-Osterfeld in recent years? Retrieved September 5, 2019 . - This also reports on mixed operation of DB and KEG vehicles.