Bleckeder's circular path

Dahlenburg – Bleckede – Echem
Route length:	47.25 km
Gauge :	750 mm ( narrow gauge )
Legend 0.0 Dahlenburg Stbf Rollbockgrube on State Railways 3.3 Dahlenburg place Nets 7.14 Horndorf 9.97 Tosterglope 12.8 Forester's lodge Schieringen 14.74 Barskamp 16.88 Goddingen 18.54 Nindorf Connection to the Breetze brickworks to Bleckede harbor 21.55 Bleckede train station 22.34 Bleckede Market 25.63 Garze 26.3 Connection Karze to Lüneburg 27.1 Karze 32.0 Brackede 34.5 Garlstorf 37.0 Wendewisch 42.07 Jürgenstorf 43.5 Ludersburg 47.24 Echem railway line Lübeck – Lüneburg
Lüneburg – Karze connection
Gauge :	750 mm ( narrow gauge )
Legend 0.0 Lüneburg North trolley pit on the state railway 3.4 Erbstorf brickworks 4.7 Erbstorf 7.3 Scharnebeck 8.9 Rullstorf 10.8 Bockelkathen 11.7 Boltersen 16.0 Nets 19.1 New Neetze 20.3 Bleckeder Moor from Wendewisch 22.0 Connection Karze to Bleckede

The Bleckeder Kreisbahn was owned by what was then the Bleckede district in the Prussian province of Hanover . It owned a 60 km (from 1904) small railway network with a gauge of 750 mm, which was built by the Bahnbau- und Betriebs-Gesellschaft Lenz & Co. GmbH and operated until 1910.

history

Most of the network was opened on December 17, 1895. The northern connection to the state railway was in Echem station on the Büchen – Lüneburg line . From here the Kleinbahn led eastward over turning wiping the railhead Brackede on the Elbe, then turned south and reached over Karze connection station first the district town Bleckede and finally over Barskamp and Dahlenburg place the state railway yard Dahlenburg along the route Lüneburg-Dannenberg . In Bleckede there has been a freight track to the port on the Elbe since 1900 , and for Horndorf a track connection to the local sand pit north of the railway line is already in use in 1899.

It was not until August 25, 1904 that a direct line was opened from Lüneburg via Scharnebeck and Neetze to Karze . The connection in Echem lost its importance and was shut down from here to Wendewisch (11 km). At that time five steam locomotives and three four-axle steam railcars were used. The timetable provided for four to five journeys a day on all sections.

After the management contract with Lenz & Co. had expired, the district took over management of the company in its own hands.

During the First World War, the Lüneburg – Bleckede line was to be converted to the regular gauge for military reasons . The Kreisbahn was converted into a GmbH on September 29, 1917 under the name Bleckeder Kleinbahn GmbH, in which the Prussian state, the province of Hanover and the Bleckede district each held a third. The GmbH took over the operational management and subsequently reduced the rail network and switched the remaining part to full gauge. It temporarily shut down the connection from Lüneburg to the district town on August 24, 1918 and reopened operations after the reconstruction on the tracked and 3 km shortened route that no longer took the detour via Karze; freight traffic on January 15, 1919, passenger traffic on February 15, 1919. On the still existing narrow-gauge lines - a total of 37 km - the trains ran until January 21, 1922, between Wendewisch and Brackede only until September 1, 1921 they dismantled.

On December 1, 1921, the Lower Saxony State Small Railway Authority was in charge of operations.

Bleckeder Kleinbahn GmbH was incorporated into Osthannoverschen Eisenbahnen AG on July 10, 1944 .

vehicles

The traffic was started with four locomotives of the Lenz type m , to which a fifth locomotive was soon added, but which was passed on in 1897. In 1906, after the line to Lüneburg was opened, a mallet locomotive of the Lenz type mm was purchased. This locomotive had to be handed over to the Heeresfeldbahnen in 1916.

The steam railcars were a specialty . The first was purchased from Ganz & Cie in Hungary in 1905 , but it was unsatisfactory. In 1910, three steam railcars were purchased from the Esslingen machine factory , which then remained in operation until 1920.

In 1912 the same company bought a two-axle locomotive with a Kittel standing boiler, and a four-axle locomotive from Maffei to replace some of the Lenz locomotives. The last locomotive purchase was made in 1919, two years before it was finally closed.

literature

• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2. Between Weser and Elbe. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2007, pp. 350-360, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8

Individual evidence

1. ^ Prussian land survey 1899, sheet 2830 Dahlenburg, published in 1901