Zinnowitz – Peenemünde railway line
| Zinnowitz – Peenemünde | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number : | 6774 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book section (DB) : | 194 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 12.8 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route class : | B1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 5 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 80 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Zinnowitz – Peenemünde line is a single-track, non-electrified branch line in the north-west of the island of Usedom . It gained fame above all as the Peenemünde works railway to connect the Peenemünde Army Research Center to the German railway network. The Usedomer Bäderbahn (UBB) is now responsible for the infrastructure, and the DB Regio Nordost since 2017 .
history
The line was built in the mid-1930s together with the Army Research Institute , when the Wehrmacht was looking for a suitable location for their missile tests. Since the so-called "Peenemünder Zipfel" was hardly populated and surrounded on three sides by water, the site was found to be suitable and construction was initiated. As a connection to the plant, the new railway to be built was to be used primarily for the transport of goods and military personnel. After around a year of construction, it was able to go into operation on July 28, 1937, but civilians were not allowed to travel as the train led into military restricted areas.
The route begins at the Zinnowitz train station , where it connects to the Heringsdorf – Wolgast route . The route then branches out to the north and runs parallel to the north coast of Usedom via Karlshagen to the southern edge of the former army research facility. Shortly before this, the train swings to the southwest and leads to the Peenemünde terminus on the Peenestrom of the same name .
In 1941 the railway was electrified with 1200 volts direct current and overhead lines. The electrical operation, however, like the passenger traffic, was limited to the main route and was not tied through to the research institute. 15 multiple units were used , which were similar to the ET 167 series of the Berlin S-Bahn . For this, the stops had to be equipped with elevated platforms .
After the first cars were moved to Thuringia before the end of the war and some fell victim to a bomb attack, the Soviet military administration in Germany (SMAD) ordered the cessation of electrical operations in the Soviet zone of occupation (SBZ) on April 21, 1946 . The systems were then dismantled and, like the remaining wagons, brought to the Soviet Union as reparations . The traffic then took place with steam trains , which were also released for public transport from 1955. Since these had a lower entrance than the electric cars, the platforms were dismantled. In some places, such as at the Karlshagen settlement stop , they are still there today. Between Karlshagen Dorf and Peenemünde, however, there was a restricted military area that could only be entered by passengers with a pass.
Because of the danger of explosion from ammunition residues and the tank farms located there, only diesel locomotives operated here; due to the lack of heating equipment in the locomotives, railcar trailers with stove heating were used for passenger transport.
The next few years, however, were characterized by the increasing deterioration of the route, so that the maximum speed had to be limited to 50 km / h. This was followed by the first renovation of the route by 1980, which was mainly carried out outside of the seasonal times.
The station and the town of Peenemünde were still in the restricted area of the army, so that only selected travelers could use the route to there. The trains were, however, in the normal timetable of the Deutsche Reichsbahn .
After the fall of the Wall, operations threatened to end, as the Reichsbahndirektion Schwerin applied to the state parliament in 1992 to shut down the entire island network. As a result, the Usedom project was founded on August 1, 1993 , from which today's Usedomer Bäderbahn emerged in 1994 . This took over passenger traffic on the island from June 1, 1995 and began to renovate the line in the period that followed. This was completed after around two years, which means that the trains can travel on the route again at 80 km / h.
In the first few years of operation, the UBB drove with DR rail buses that had become vacant elsewhere (popularly known as "piglet tax"). These were from 2000 through railcars of series 646 replaced (Stadler GTW 2/6).
An electric railcar of the Werkbahn has been on display in the Historisch-Technisches Museum Peenemünde since 2004 . The car was last used on the Deutsche Bundesbahn as 426 002 .
See also
literature
- Bernd Kuhlmann: Peenemünde - the missile center and its industrial railway. 3. Edition. GVE-Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-89218-100-2 .
- Bernd Kuhlmann: Railways on Usedom. 3. Edition. Alba, Düsseldorf 2005, ISBN 3-87094-241-X .
- Ludger Kenning: The Usedomer Bäderbahn. 2nd Edition. Kenning, Nordhorn 2010, ISBN 978-3-933613-51-6 .
Web links
- Railways in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - Zinnowitz – Peenemünde
- History of the island network on the homepage of the Usedomer Bäderbahn
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Terms of use for the rail network and service facilities of the Usedomer Bäderbahn GmbH (SNB / NBS UBB) - valid from April 10, 2012. (PDF; 733 KB) (No longer available online.) P. 20 , formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 15, 2012 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Wolf-Dietger Machel, Malte Werning: Island operation on the island . In: railway magazine . No. 8 , 2017, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 43 .
Map with all coordinates: