Borkum small train

Borkum - Roadstead
Regular train in the "Borkum" city station
Route number (DB) :	9153
Course book section (DB) :	10,000
Route length:	7.5 km
Gauge :	900 mm ( narrow gauge )
Top speed:	50 km / h
Dual track :	Borkum - Roadstead
Legend Ostlandbahn , to the Barbaraweg depot until 1958 0.00 Borkum Nordstrandbahn , Postgleis until 1975 0.30 Locomotive shed / depot Freight depot Nordstrandbahn, until 1953/1968 0.35 Car hall 0.4 Beach battery / Fort Lüderitz, until 1972 1.0 Electric lighthouse , rescue Boat shed u. South battery, until 1933 Electric lighthouse, rescue Boat shed u. South Battery, 1933–1957 1.80 Jakob-van-Dyken-Weg 2.2 Gasworks u. Slaughterhouse, 1910 to 1972 Schlüter track (eastern bypass from Borkum), 1944–1947 3.2 Ammunition depot sea flight station 3.4 Battery Strasser 3.83 Dike passage 4.0 formerly: pile bridge, 1896 5.2 Battery Borkum II to the new port 6.5 New port 7.0 formerly: pile bridge, 1895 Connection to the Borkum-Roadstead barracks, until 1965 7.42 Port (goods loading) 7.44 Roadstead AG Ems ferry to Emden Außenhafen u. Eemshaven

Overview map of the island of Borkum with the route of the island railway

The Borkumer Kleinbahn (BKB) is a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 900 mm on the East Frisian North Sea island of Borkum . There are three stations. The line is still an important traffic artery on the island. The Borkumer Inselbahn is now a branch line , but is still called the Kleinbahn . The Borkumer Kleinbahn is the last double-track narrow - gauge railway in Lower Saxony .

history

Horse tram

In 1879, a horse-drawn tramway with a gauge of 900 mm was built to bring the building material for the construction of the New Lighthouse from the unloading point of the ships on the Hopp, on the east side of the island, to the construction site on the west side of the island.

→ Main article : Borkum horse tram

Local railroad

Borkumer Kleinbahn- und Dampfschiffahrt-AG, share over 1000 marks, founder share from September 23, 1903

In 1885, after lengthy negotiations between the construction company and operator of the horse-drawn railway, Habich & Goth , the city of Emden and the Hanover Financial Directorate, the former was granted a license to operate a railway on the basis of the Prussian Railway Act from 1838 for 30 years between a newly built landing stage and the community Borkum granted - originally for horse-drawn tram operation. From 1887/1888 this line was built for locomotive operation after capacity bottlenecks at Habich & Goth initially delayed the start of construction work. For this purpose, the eastern part of the route was re-routed and a landing stage for ferries from the mainland was built at the point where it is still today. This railway was put into operation on June 15, 1888 and made it possible for Borkum to become an important seaside resort in the first place.

"Instead of rumbling into the village on a hard wooden wagon from the landing site, you [now] travel gently by train."

- Hermann Nöldecke, 1904

A number of sidings were laid from the main line and a line was connected with which the Waterways and Shipping Authority transported material for the expansion and maintenance of the western protective structures against storm surges . This was later also used for passenger traffic to the north beach and was given the name Nordstrandbahn .

→ Main article : Nordstrandbahn

In the early days of the railway, the operators had to react again and again to the destruction of the railway by storm surges . The eastern part of the route was first laid in the mudflats , then on a fortified sand dam and, when this did not withstand storm surges, it was replaced in two places by a pile bridge in 1895 and 1896, which in turn was converted into a dam again by 1910. The economic risk of the railway therefore turned out to be too high for a private company like Habich & Goth . Promoted by the state, a joint-stock company was finally founded in 1902 between Habich & Goth and AG Ems , which was named Borkumer Kleinbahn- und Dampfschiffahrt-AG . This was licensed to operate the railway in 1903 according to the Prussian Small Railway Act for 75 years . By 1905, the BKB also succeeded in acquiring all company property from the state or taking it over on a long lease .

Naval railway

After Kaiser Wilhelm II had given the island of Borkum the status of a sea fortress in 1902, the trunk line between the pier and the village of Borkum was expanded to double-track with the help of the German Empire for the transport of building materials and military traffic. It was initially operated in such a way that only civil traffic ran on one track, and construction trains for the military on the other. The connecting switches were locked. The exact point in time from when mixed civil and military traffic took place here is unclear, probably since 1912. The line thus became one of the two narrow-gauge railways in Germany that had double-track operation alongside the Zittau narrow-gauge railway . Numerous military installations have now been built on the island by the Imperial Navy and all of them have a siding. So that was possible, the Navy built in continuation of the trunk line, beyond the station Borkum , the Ostlandbahn , a marine railway .

→ Main article : Ostlandbahn

The Borkum sea fortress played no role in the First World War . Not a single shot was fired at the island. The railway lines there, on the other hand, had grown to a length of more than 30 kilometers. In 1938 there were 45 kilometers of track on Borkum and up to 50 journeys per day were made on the main line between roadstead and train station. The BKB fleet at that time consisted of six steam locomotives and 70 wagons.

From 1942 the operation of the BKB was subordinate to the transport commander of the Borkum Fortress, Lieutenant Schlüter. The damage caused by air raids in World War II was limited. During the violent air raid on the railway facilities on August 5, 1944, some tracks in the local area of ​​Borkum and a steam locomotive were destroyed.

After the Second World War

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  The island railway as a means of mass transport - Borkum station

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  Stop at Jakob-van-Dyken-Weg

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  Train on the move

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  Hafenbahnhof: change between ship and train

After the Second World War, the BKB was able to resume traffic on June 8, 1945 - but only to a very limited extent due to the lack of coal. Numerous military railway vehicles , including diesel locomotives , a multiple unit , 32 passenger train cars and 175  freight cars from its inventory were given to the BKB by the military government of the British zone of occupation .

In 1953, regular traffic on the north beach tram was abandoned because the beach had moved back in front of the promenade and the bathing business had shifted again in front of the promenade. In 1968 the route was used one last time with a special train and then it was broken off.

Since the 1950s, the economic pressure on the railways caused by competing traffic on the road that ran parallel to the railway line from the roadstead to the village of Borkum, which was built by the military during the war and opened for civil traffic since 1944. This led to constant rationalization measures and, for the first time in 1960, to a study as to whether the traffic volume of the railway could not be shifted to the road. The impossibility of having a sufficient number of buses available for traffic peaks made the plan disappear again in the drawer. In 1961, the Ems AG also took over the shares in Kleinbahn AG , which they did not yet own, and converted the Kleinbahn into a GmbH .

The storm surge of February 17, 1962 destroyed around 900 meters of the Watt dam on which the railway line runs immediately west of the port. Initially for the transitional period until the damage was repaired, but finally also permanently, the BKB acquired omnibuses for city traffic and started the regular bus service that still exists today.

On the left the eastern track from 2007 with a massive superstructure , on the right the western track from the winter of 1993/1994 in a simple design with wooden sleepers laid in the sand

In the 1970s, the island railway got into economic turbulence. In 1968 the first car ferry to Borkum was put into operation. As a result, freight traffic was increasingly being carried out by truck and rail freight traffic came to a standstill in the long run. The Borkum freight yard was abandoned in 1972. Also in 1968 the railway traffic was limited to the summer season, outside the season until 1994 rail replacement traffic was carried out. In 1978 BKB's 75-year license expired and was extended by 50 years until 2028.

A study in 1980/1981 examined whether the small train should not be replaced by a magnetic levitation train . However, this was refrained from for various reasons. The last structural relic of these considerations are the new workshop halls of the railway depot, which were constructed in such a way that they could also have been used for a magnetic levitation train.

In an attempt to save the costs of the small train, the second track in the port section was expanded to the so-called Weertsgatt in 1989 and operations there continued on a single track. But that didn't work. Since the trains connect to ferry connections that depend on the tide , the schedule in single-track operation was very prone to failure. The importance of the railway increased as a result of the ever increasing tourism, so that considerable investments were made in the railway. These include for the passengers , the new reception building of the station Borkum (1991), the re-laying of the second track in 1993 and the acquisition of two nine per car strong train sets for the scheduled service, which are in use for the 1994th Since then, the train has been running all year round again. In 1998, the last company properties, which were only held in long lease by the state of Lower Saxony , were bought by the BKB. In the summer of 2006, extensive construction work was carried out on the railway infrastructure . The “Jakob-van-Dyken-Weg” stop was given new platforms and new shelters. In the winter of 2007/2008, the eastern track from the 1980s was completely rebuilt, with a heavier profile and, for the first time, with concrete sleepers in gravel. In winter 2013/2014 something similar happened with the other track: the old rails were laid with new concrete sleepers in a new ballast bed.

business

Securing a level crossing on the track side

Securing a level crossing on the street side

Deichtor that secures the passage of the route through the outer dike

route

Today the railway is operated by the Borkumer Kleinbahn und Dampfschiffahrt GmbH. The only remaining route from the port to the town is around 7½ kilometers long. The route is used in normal operation in right-hand traffic, but is equipped in such a way that track changing operations are possible. The route goes through the outer dike of Borkum. This can be blocked by a dyke gate in the event of a storm surge .

Train protection

The route is divided into block sections with trapezoidal panels . Since December 2015, train protection on the Borkumer Kleinbahn has been carried out by technically supported train control operations. In order to be allowed to enter a section, the driver needs a license from the train control center . The driver and the train control center communicate by radio .

The level crossings in the entire city area - with the exception of one not technically secured before - were equipped with half barriers and traffic lights from 2004, most of them in 2006 . The level crossings are provided with monitoring signals on the track side . The systems are automatically switched on by the train when it passes an induction loop at the appropriate distance in front of the level crossing. Before 2006, there were an average of two to three collisions between trains and motor vehicles per year .

traffic

Since July 2007 the regular passenger trains have been running with sandwich covering: locomotive - wagon - locomotive. The locomotive at the front pulls the train, while the locomotive at the end of the train only runs along. This procedure saves having to move the locomotives at the terminus. In addition to this regular service, there is scheduled once a week during the season a trip on the Wismar rail bus T1 (built in 1940, "pig's nose") and - usually on Saturday or Wednesday - a trip on the nostalgic train (restored, historic wagons covered with the Steam locomotive BORKUM ^III ) offered. In September 2019, the 99-2331 steam locomotive, borrowed from the Molli spa, came into operation.

The small train has 39 employees (2013) and transports around one million passengers each year, including bus services.

Vehicle fleet

→ Main article : List of locomotives of the Borkumer Kleinbahn

The vehicle fleet was renewed in 1993/1994 as part of a long-term investment program. Until then, the trains only braked with the locomotive and a handbrake in the baggage car . The new vehicles are braked by a continuous air brake.

Locomotives

Since then, the main load of the traffic has been carried by the three two-axle diesel locomotives Hanover , Berlin and Münster ^III, built by Schöma in 1993/1994 , and the similar locomotive Aurich, which was procured in 2007 to save locomotive changes at the terminus stations . All three new diesel locomotives ran on biodiesel made from rapeseed oil from 1993 to 2006 . All four locomotives are painted red, but each has a different colored exhaust pipe: Under the shipping company colors red-blue-black, the exhaust pipe is red for "Hannover", gray for "Berlin", black for "Münster" and blue for "Aurich".

There are also three older diesel locomotives in Leer (built in 1935), Münster ^II (built in 1957) and Emden (built in 1970). The Emden locomotive is in regular use and pulls a reinforcement train at peak times during the main season.

Passenger coaches

Train on its way to port

In 1993/1994, two sets of wagons , each consisting of eight passenger coaches and a baggage wagon with a compartment and access for wheelchair users, were delivered by Waggonbau Bautzen . In their external appearance, they were adapted to the old Weyer- type wagons that had operated on Borkum . In contrast to the previous type of coupling, the trains are equipped with a Scharfenberg coupling. The cars are painted in different colors. These different colors have no meaning - apart from the three yellow-painted cars that run on every train. The yellow color, on the other hand, marks wagons with brakes and a built-in tail signal .

In addition to these two sets in regular traffic, there is also a third train that operates as a reinforcement train at peak times. It usually consists of seven of the ten surviving four-axle passenger cars from the years 1908 to 1928 (manufacturers were Weyer, HAWA , Waggonfabrik Oldenburg ) and the old baggage car no. 39 or 48.

Exit of the historic train with steam locomotive Borkum ^III from the Borkum station

"Kaiserwagen" of the Borkumer Kleinbahn

The Wismar rail bus T1 in Borkum train station

Historic vehicles

The nostalgic train , assembled from the oldest surviving BKB wagons, is regularly used with the two-axle BORKUM ^III steam locomotive . This steam locomotive was originally called "Dollart" (built in 1942) and was in use until 1962. From 1978 to 1995 it stood as a monument in the spa gardens and has been operational again since 1997 after extensive refurbishment in the Meiningen steam locomotive works . The historical wagons preserved are:

• Car 1, a four-axle former naval railway car
• Car 2, a two-axle former naval train car
• Car 17, a two-axle passenger car (built in 1889), the oldest surviving vehicle
• Car 18, a four-axle passenger car (built in 1925, Weyer), renovated in 2016
• Car 38 (so-called "Kaiserwagen", built in 1905) is a two-axle saloon car
• Car 42, which was fundamentally renovated and rebuilt in 2008, in particular it was given upholstered benches (normally the BKB wagons only have "wood class")
• Car 45 was converted into a bistro car and was given its own generator and counter

Finally, the Wismar T1 rail bus (built in 1940) is part of the vehicle fleet.

Freight wagons

The stock includes two covered two-axle freight cars (33 and 55), two four-axle flat cars (60 and 62) and a two-axle flat car that emerged from the baggage car 9 and was "dismantled" in 2007. All of these vehicles have the traditional Borkumer coupling with two external buffers and a central coupling hook and are used, for. B. used in (track) construction work. A funnel wagon has also been in the inventory since the track construction work in 2007 , which was taken over by the Kerkerbach Railway and is provided for occasionally required ballast transport.

Operating facilities

Billboard at the train station in the center of Borkum

End of the route at the port

Workshop / engine shed

At the southern head of the Borkum train station (Stadtbahnhof) you will find the three-track workshop and three-track locomotive shed of the BKB on the left when entering from the south . All Kleinbahn vehicles are serviced and refurbished in the workshop.

Car hall

Directly behind the workshop and engine shed follows (separated by a street) the four-track wagon hall of the BKB, with a short open-air siding next to it. In contrast to the workshop or the locomotive shed, your entry and exit is towards the south. The journey between the locomotive shed and the vehicle hall is only possible with two changes of direction and one drive on the main track.

literature

• Bernd Kappelhoff, Maximilian Graf von Spee: The ferry to the mainland. A cultural-historical view of the Borkum traffic on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Borkumer Kleinbahn and the shipping company Aktien-Gesellschaft “Ems” in 1989 . Self-published by Aktien-Gesellschaft Ems, Emden 1989, esp. P. 41 ff., 67 ff.
• msm: 125 years of Borkumer Kleinbahn . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , Issue 8–9 (2013), p. 430 f.
• Jörg Reith: The Borkumer Inselbahn . In: Die Museumseisenbahn , issue 2/1975. Reprint as a special print for the commissioning of the steam locomotive BORKUM, Borkum 1997.
• Manfred Richter: It's steaming again . In: Die Borkumer Inselbahn - special print for the commissioning of the steam locomotive BORKUM, Borkum 1997, p. 10.
• Christoph Riedel: The locomotives of the Borkumer Kleinbahn . In: Yearbook Lokomotiven 2011 , Verlag Podszun, Brilon 2010, ISBN 978-3-86133-574-0 .
• Hans Wolfgang Rogl: Archives of German small and private railways: Lower Saxony . transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71022-2 .
• Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The North Sea Island Railways. 6th edition, alba, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87094-230-4 .
• Hans Schweers: The Borkumer Kleinbahn and the ships of the AG "Ems" . Schweers + Wall, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-132-1 .
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 9: Lower Saxony 1. Between Weser and Ems , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 3-88255-668-4 , pp. 13–33.

See also

• Baltrum island railway
• Langeoog island railway
• Spiekerooger Inselbahn

Web links

Commons : Borkumer Kleinbahn  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the Borkumer Kleinbahn
• The Borkumer Kleinbahn Inselbahn.de; with photos, vehicle list and lots of information
• Route map
• photos
• news

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Schweers: The Borkumer Kleinbahn: and the ships of the AG "Ems" . Schweers + Wall, 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-132-1 , p. 26f
2. ↑ Schweers, p. 22.
3. ↑ Quoted from: Jan Schröder: Borkum. An illustrated travel guide . Bremen 2001, ISBN 3-86108-416-3 , p. 69.
4. ↑ Schweers, pp. 24, 39.
5. ↑ Kappelhoff, p. 67ff.
6. ↑ ^{a b} Schweers, p. 113.
7. ↑ Reiner Preuß: Two-track operation on a narrow-gauge railway . In: Sächsische Heimatblätter , 5/1990, pp. 277–280.
8. ↑ Schweers, p. 37.
9. ↑ Schweers, p. 114.
10. ↑ Volker Apfelt: Borkum - fortress in the sea. The interesting history of the Borkum sea fortress from its beginnings in 1902 to the closure of the Bundeswehr base in 1996 . Eigenverlag, 2008, DNB 1003566537 , p. 61; Schweers, p. 59.
11. ↑ Schweers, p. 60.
12. ↑ Reith, p. 8.
13. ↑ Schweers, p. 71.
14. ↑ Schweers, p. 75.
15. ↑ Schweers, p. 92.
16. ↑ Schweers, p. 81ff.
17. ↑ msm: Technically supported train control operation introduced on Borkum . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 3/2016, p. 110 f.
18. ↑ Schweers, p. 101.
19. ↑ https://www.t-online.de/region/id_86424780/ostsee-dampflok-molli-erreich-borkum-per-inselfaehre.html
20. ↑ eisenbahn-magazin , issue 6/2013, p. 30.
21. ↑ Judge.
22. ↑ msm, p. 430.
23. ↑ Historic Weyer cars back in service . In: railway magazine . No. 8 , 2016, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 37 .

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