Charlottenburg depot

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Car hall of the former depot in Charlottenburg, 2013

The Charlottenburg depot is a former depot of the Berlin tram . The courtyard, which was opened by the BVG in 1930 , was the last of its kind still in operation when the West Berlin tram network was closed on October 2, 1967. The former car sheds and the housing estate built around the depot are listed as a whole in the Berlin State Monument List. The system was designed according to plans by Jean Krämer with the assistance of Otto Rudolf Salvisberg and Gerhard Mensch .

Location and structure

South access, 2013
Garage yards on the north side, 2013
Corner development at the corner of Königin-Elisabeth- and Knobelsdorffstraße , north side, 2015
Corner development at Königin-Elisabeth-Strasse / Corner Knobelsdorffstrasse, south side, 2013

The facility is located in the east of Berlin 's Westend district in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district and encompasses the four streets of Königin-Elisabeth- / Soor- / Fredericia- / Haeselerstrasse . The Knobelsdorffstraße crosses the plant in east-west direction. While the actual depot with a floor area of ​​27,500 square meters was located in the south inner courtyard , the outer border was completely surrounded by blocks of flats with space for around 400 families. The intersection between Knobelsdorffstrasse and Königin-Elisabeth-Strasse is flanked by two gate buildings, in front of which two larger-than-life sculptures entitled “Work and Home”, consisting of a naked woman with a child and a naked, muscular man, are placed. The sculptures were created in 1928 by Josef Thorak . Individual residential buildings, for example in Königin-Elisabeth-Straße 13-17, are not part of the property.

The entrances to the courtyard are on Königin-Elisabeth-Straße. The former carriage hall comprised 27 hall tracks, four more tracks led into extensions to the side of the hall. The three-aisled wagon hall comprised a smaller, heated part with eight mounting tracks and the larger, unheated part with 19 mounting tracks. It measures 97 meters × 120 meters in the area with a clear height of eight meters. The workshop rooms were located in the rear part of the hall. Since the terrain rises to the west, the hall had to be built up to seven meters into the slope in order to achieve a level installation surface. A total of up to 320 trams could be stationed in the depot. A shed for storing road salt was located between the two track harps . There are garage courtyards on the inside to the edge development .

history

After the merger of the individual tram companies to form the Berlin tram , the latter and its successor, the Berliner Straßenbahn-Betriebsgesellschaft, began to further merge smaller depots. The first new building of this type was built in 1927 with the Müllerstraße depot in Wedding . In the same year, construction work began on another depot in the west of the Charlottenburg district , today's Westend district, to replace the Spandauer Straße and Spreestraße depots . The property was acquired by the non-profit Heimstättengesellschaft der Berliner Straßenbahn-Betriebsgesellschaft and the Berliner Spar- und Bauverein two years earlier. Individual properties had already been sold at this point in time, which is why the block does not have a uniform architectural style. The construction initially met with resistance from residents, who feared noise pollution in the upscale residential area. The Berlin tram therefore promised to lubricate the curves and switches in the depot area particularly frequently.

At around the same time as the construction, the Halensee depot on Westfälische Strasse was converted from 1929 onwards . As a result of the global economic crisis triggered in the same year , both projects were delayed, which is why the BVG decided to stop the work that had begun at the Halensee depot and to concentrate the funds released on the new building in Charlottenburg. On September 1, 1930, the farm went into operation with a one-year delay. At the same time, the BVG closed the old depot 16 on Spandauer Strasse. This was opened in 1865 as the first street station in Berlin by the Berlin Horse Railway . From around 1935, the farm received the internal abbreviation Char .

The yard was equipped with numerous technical devices. Among other things, he had hydraulic jacks , a wheelset grinder and a rotating crane. At the southern entrance there was a car wash, which was dismantled after the Second World War .

The feed line in the Königin-Elisabeth-Strasse also went into operation on September 1, 1930. It initially served as a purely operational line with a connection to the existing lines in Spandauer Strasse (today: Spandauer Damm ) and Kaiserdamm . From April 15, 1935, line 62 traveled the street to the Knobelsdorffstrasse intersection and from November 1, 1937 to the Kaiserdamm intersection. The overhead line systems in the depot and on Königin-Elisabeth-Straße were designed not only for use with roller pantographs but also for operation with bow-type pantographs . In the spring of 1932, the Cape Hope railcar, designed by the Swiss engineer Roman Liechty , made its test drives from the Charlottenburg depot to Heerstrasse .

The plant survived the Second World War relatively unscathed. The southern corner house on Knobelsdorffstrasse / corner of Königin-Elisabeth-Strasse was destroyed and later rebuilt. The depot could be used again from June 14, 1945. Passenger traffic to the depot began again on July 9, 1945. From April 1, 1950 until the cessation of passenger traffic on May 2, 1962, line 60 drove to Schöneberg . The line then served as an operating line until it was completely closed on October 2, 1967.

The vehicles that were based in the 1950s and 1960s included the prewar articulated wagons of the type TG 29/38/51 as well as the open- plan wagons of the type TED 52 / BED 52 , which were in use from 1952. After the Britz depot was closed on October 1, 1966, Charlottenburg was the last West Berlin depot to operate on a regular basis. On the weekend before the final cessation of regular service on October 2, 1967, the BVG organized a large vehicle parade in the courtyard with numerous museum vehicles. Two years earlier, took place for the 100th anniversary of the Berlin tram a car parade from the depot to Nollendorfplatz instead. Until December 21, 1967, there were still individual transfers to the Moabit depot , where the wagons were scrapped. The museum vehicles stationed in Charlottenburg remained on site until May 1968 and were then transferred to the Britz depot.

The inspection pits were covered in the summer of 1968 and the hall floor was then asphalted . The hall served then as a grain warehouse of BEHALA as part of the Senate Reserve . In the summer of 1970, part of the side buildings were converted into offices and workshops for the VVR Berek . From spring 1977, a storage space for advertising pillars was created behind the former salt shed. The BVG used the courtyard forecourt from the end of the 1970s for decommissioned buses and the operating reserve .

From the 1980s onwards, the BVG tried to use the site for other purposes. The premises were not converted into a tennis hall or used as a backdrop for the Deutsche Oper . Around this time the salt shed was demolished in advance and the front of the former workshop hall was rebuilt. The BVG rented parts of the hall from 1992 to 2000 to the Traditionsbus consortium and the surrounding residents for parking vehicles. In 1995 the BVG gave up the use of the premises and transferred the property to DIBAG Industriebau on a heritable building lease . From 1999 onwards, it presented plans for the conversion of the former depot. After several corrections, the hall was gutted and then restored. A consumer market and a bicycle dealer have been using the halls since 2001 . The former track apron serves as a parking area.

literature

  • The new tram depot 16 . In: Berliner Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (ed.): The journey . No. 19 , 1930, p. 417 ff . (Digitized version [1] [accessed on December 5, 2015]).

Web links

Commons : depot Charlottenburg  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Christian Winck: The tram in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district . VBN Verlag B. Neddermeyer, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-933254-30-6 , pp. 177-179 .
  2. ^ Reinhard Schulz: Tram in turbulent times. Berlin and its trams between 1920 and 1945 . In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter . Volume 5, 2005, pp. 133-143 .
  3. ^ Christian Winck: The tram in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district . VBN Verlag B. Neddermeyer, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-933254-30-6 , pp. 78-97 .
  4. ^ Siegfried Münzinger: The depots of the Berlin trams . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Volume 6, 1969, pp. 89-103 .
  5. ^ Siegfried Münzinger: The depots of the Berlin trams . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Issue 8, 1969, p. 141-147 .
  6. ^ Heinz Jung, Wolfgang Kramer: Line chronicle of the Berlin tram 1902–1945. Episode: 62 . In: Berliner Verkehrsblätter . Issue 8, 1967, p. 140-141 .
  7. ↑ Marcel Götze: Post-War History 1945–1949. In: Berlin-Straba.de. Retrieved December 8, 2015 .
  8. ^ A b Marcel Götze: Post-War History 1950–1959. In: Berlin-Straba.de. Retrieved December 8, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Marcel Götze: Post-War History 1960–1969. In: Berlin-Straba.de. Retrieved December 8, 2015 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 43 ″  N , 13 ° 16 ′ 44 ″  E