Barmer mountain railway
| Barmer mountain railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 1.6 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power system : | 600 V = | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 185 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rack system : | System Riggenbach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Barmer Bergbahn was a meter-gauge rack railway in Wuppertal - Barmen intended for public passenger transport and existed from 1894 to 1959.
location
The mountain railway ran from the center of Barmens near the Alter Markt to the Toelleturm on the southern heights of today's city of Wuppertal . Large sections of the route led through the area of the Barmer facilities , at the lower end of which the Barmer town hall was located. The railway overcame a difference in altitude of 169.5 meters on its 1.6-kilometer route and had a gradient of 18.5 percent at its steepest point.
Starting in 1894, it was supplied with electricity from its own power station , which also supplied the surrounding industry. Thanks to four independent braking systems, apart from collisions with individual motorized traffic, the train ran without any accidents until its end.
history
On April 16, 1894, the mountain railway was officially opened by the Barmer Bergbahn AG . However, plans for the railway go back to the end of the 1880s when the aim was to connect the excursion destinations south of the Wupper with the towns of Barmen and Ronsdorf . Since this incline could not be mastered with the adhesive webs of that time, a different solution was sought. In addition to the rack railway, a funicular operated by water was also up for discussion . Ultimately, a decision was made in favor of a two-track system without switches proposed by Siemens & Halske .
During the Second World War , the mountain and valley stations with the six railcars inside burned down. The railway was idle from May 30, 1943 to February 20, 1944. After the invasion of the Allies, traffic stopped again between April 16 and June 20, 1945.
Despite war-related damage, she was able to resume service shortly after the end of the Second World War. In 1954 the council of the city of Wuppertal decided to discontinue the operation of the railway due to inefficiency and high renovation costs. The responsible parties put forward various reasons for this (including the outdated fleet of vehicles and the planned expansion of the railway's own power plant at the valley station to a thermal power plant for the entire Barmen district), but these were probably rather dubious both from then and from today's perspective.
The shutdown was delayed by five years following public protests. The originally planned re-gauging of the railway and routing of tram lines 4 and 14 over this route was started, but canceled when it was decided on March 12, 1958 to use the cog railway together with lines 4, 10, 10E and 14 by a trolleybus line to replace. The train ran one last time on July 4, 1959 amid popular protests and was dismantled in 1960.
All but two of the cars were scrapped. The preserved wagons were used as play equipment for about two years on playgrounds in the Wuppertal Zoo and in the Barmer Nordpark . There have been suspicions since 2015 that the wagon that was in the zoo was buried under an embankment, which was supported by preliminary investigations in November 2015.
Municipal station of the mountain railway
Motor car number 6 around 1898
Location map
Elevation plan
Track system
The Barmer Bergbahn was built with two tracks from the start and largely had its own railway structure. It was operated electrically with direct current from the start and was the first electric mountain railway in Germany. The track width was 1000 millimeters; in the middle was a ladder rack based on the Riggenbach system (see also rack railway systems ). At the two end stops, the wagons were moved onto the parallel track with the help of a sliding platform and were then able to start their way in the opposite direction.
business
The trains of the mountain railway ran according to a fixed timetable, with usually two trains on the route. Since the entire line was double-tracked, there was no need to wait for the return train at a certain point en route. In addition, the vehicles were able to feed electricity back into the grid during the downhill drive by using the motors as generators . However, this current then had to be absorbed by a train traveling uphill. In this way, almost half of the energy required for an ascent could be used. The travel time in each direction was between 12 and 14 minutes.
Stations
- The valley station was located directly next to the “Am Clef” power plant in Barmen, which was built almost at the same time. It was reached via a staircase from the street of the same name running along the Wupper .
- After about 600 meters, the “ Planetarium ” station was reached, approximately at the level of Untere Lichtenplatzer Straße . Due to its location on the southern edge of the development of the former town of Barmen and at the same time at the entrance to the Barmen facilities, it had a very high passenger potential. The popular excursion destination Meierei Fischertal was also nearby .
- The “Talblick” stop was just a few hundred meters before the terminus. Far from any development and in the middle of the forest of the Barmer Anlagen, it was only sparsely frequented as an exit station for walks.
- At the terminus of the Toelleturm with the villa settlement was the observation tower of the same name and the high area of the Barmer facilities with numerous hiking trails and a few excursion restaurants. At the same time, this was the starting point for the Ronsdorf-Müngstener Railway , which initially operated as a small train , later as a tram, providing the further connection via Ronsdorf to Müngsten or Remscheid .
Traffic importance
The mountain railway connected the city center of Barmer with the upscale residential area and the popular excursion destination Toelleturm. At the same time, it provided a connection to the residential areas in Barmen, a little further south of the city center, and made Ronsdorf and Remscheid more accessible through the transition to the tram.
today
After the closure in 1959, the rails were quickly removed. Remnants can still be seen here and there under brittle asphalt, for example at the Wettinerstraße / Adolf-Vorwerk-Straße intersection . The tram line to Ronsdorf was also dismantled shortly after it was closed. The course of the route of the mountain railway in the Barmer facilities can, however, still be traced over long distances. In the lower part of the Barmer facilities, a monument, consisting of a piece of track and an axis, reminds of the former mountain railway. In the course of the Regionale 2006 , the route through the Barmer facilities was made visible again by setting up 180 steles on both sides of the route and adding a gravel bed. As a result, the route can now be hiked well and, compared to the surrounding hiking trails, with a relatively gentle gradient.
The citizens' initiative "Barmer Bergbahn eV" has existed since October 2009 and is committed to the reconstruction of the railway, following the example of the Wuppertal movement. The new Barmer Bergbahn is to be largely modeled on the old one. The only fundamental change would be to relocate the valley station, as the original area has now been built on. A positioning near the Barmen train station is being considered. The feasibility study was prepared as part of the master's thesis "Planning study for the revitalization of the Barmer Bergbahn" at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal .
Louisenstrasse, west of the Lower Barmer facilities, between the valley station and the planetarium , was renamed An der Bergbahn in 1930 and has retained this name even after it was closed.
literature
- The electric rack railway from Barmen to Töllethurm . In: Deutsche Strassen- und Kleinbahn-Zeitung, Volume 11, No. 22 (June 2, 1898), pp. 392–395.
- Daniel Buth: Planning study for the revitalization of the Barmer Bergbahn . Edition Köndgen, Wuppertal 2015, ISBN 978-3-939843-57-3 (Master's thesis / Bergische Universität Wuppertal / Faculty D - Civil Engineering Department).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hope for a lost relic - Is the mountain railway buried? Retrieved October 12, 2015 .
- ↑ Wuppertaler Rundschau from November 1st, 2015: Mountain railway located? Retrieved November 3, 2015 .
- ^ Website of the citizens' initiative
- ↑ Feasibility study on bergbahn-barmen.de, accessed on April 10, 2020