Fire control tunnel
| Fire control tunnel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Portal of the Brandleitetunnel 2004 seen from the direction of Oberhof
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| use | Railway tunnel | |||
| traffic connection | Neudietendorf – Ritschenhausen railway line | |||
| length | 3039 m | |||
| Number of tubes | 1 | |||
| Largest coverage | 237 m | |||
| construction | ||||
| start of building | May 28, 1881 | |||
| completion | March 19, 1884 | |||
| business | ||||
| operator | DB network | |||
| release | August 1, 1884 | |||
| location | ||||
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| Coordinates | ||||
| West portal | 50 ° 41 ′ 5 " N , 10 ° 42 ′ 42" E | |||
| East portal | 50 ° 41 ′ 15 ″ N , 10 ° 45 ′ 16 ″ E | |||
Map with all coordinates: 
The Brandleitetunnel is a railway tunnel that crosses the top of the Thuringian Forest .
With a length of 3,039 m, it was the longest railway tunnel in Thuringia until 2013 (completion of the Finne Tunnel ) and at that time also the longest of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the GDR. The now partially modernized railway connection between the railway stations Gehlberg (route kilometers 35.58; 598 m above sea level ) and Oberhof (route km 40.06; 639 m above sea level ) of the railway line Neudietendorf – Ritschenhausen runs through the tunnel on two tracks . The Rennsteig, which is crossed under, is about 900 m high at this point. The tunnel itself runs straight and almost in a west-east direction, only the last few meters before the western portal have a slight curve to the south.
history
The groundbreaking ceremony was on May 28, 1881 on the Oberhof side. Around 1,500 workers were involved in the construction, five of whom officially lost their lives in accidents. The Belgian construction method was chosen for the tunnel construction . Here, a straightening tunnel was first created using blasting with drilling machines, after an expansion the crown vault was bricked and after its underpinning the entire vault was gradually completed with further excavation at the same time. In particular, a very strong rush of water made the advance difficult. The breakthrough of the tunnel opening, driven from both sides, took place on February 7th, 1883. A high level of accuracy for the time of construction could be achieved. The deviation in height was 21 cm and in the direction 2.5 cm. The last stone was laid on March 19, 1884, and the route was opened to rail traffic on August 1, 1884. In the times of steam locomotives, the tunnel was nicknamed “Vorhof zur Hölle”, because it rises from both sides towards the middle and so the smoke could not be removed, which often left the smoke of the trains in the tunnel.
At the end of the Second World War , in April 1945, the tunnel was to be blown up. The Reichsbahn chief secretary Ernst Kallert (1901–1947), whose gravestone in the cemetery in Gehlberg bears this information, is said to have made a significant contribution to the fact that the project was not implemented.
Since 2003, the crosses Rennsteigtunnel the A 71 motorway to Brandleite tunnel with six to seven meters distance between the bottom of the road and the apex of the vault of the railway tunnel. Although the media discussed again and again, it was decided not to build a rescue tunnel between the two tunnels or to include the fire control tunnel in the rescue system of the motorway tunnel.
Due to aging signs and damage in the area of the intersection with the Rennsteig tunnel on the motorway, the tunnel was renovated from 2004 to 2005 as part of the extension of the route to tilting technology. The track bed inside the tunnel was replaced by a slab track with concrete sleepers in asphalt . Due to technical problems during the renovation, it took a total of eleven months instead of the planned five.
To ensure fire protection, the fire control tunnel was provided with an extinguishing water pipe. The Zella-Mehlis base fire brigade received a special fire fighting vehicle, the HLF 24/14-S , for use in the tunnel , of which a total of 14 vehicles were procured nationwide by Deutsche Bahn for fire brigades on long railway tunnels. Before the renovation, a four-axle tank car with 63,000 liters of water was used to supply the fire water in the tunnel and a flat car to transport the fire engine of the Oberhof volunteer fire brigade . Originally, the Deutsche Reichsbahn had such vehicles in the Oberhof and Gehlberg stations. The tank wagons and flat wagons replaced the Suhl fire-fighting train, which was last stationed in Oberhof, consisting of two tenders and a fire-extinguishing vehicle. A single tender was available as a fire extinguisher at Gehlberg station. A special small car was also stationed in Oberhof for the first rescue and fire-fighting measures. For many years it was an SKL 24 , which was replaced by an SKL 26 in 1993 . A 250 kg powder fire extinguisher was carried on a trailer for fire fighting.
A special feature is that this is likely to be the longest standard-gauge tunnel of traditional design in Germany, which steam locomotives pass comparatively often. This is due both to the Meiningen steam locomotive works not far from the tunnel and to the special tourist trips with steam traction that take place on this route again and again. In this context, there is still an operational water crane in Oberhof today .
A renovation of the tunnel planned for 2020 had to be canceled by DB Netz because no suitable construction company could be found for the planned period. Water ingress regularly occurs in the tunnel, which requires regular renovation and stabilization of the wall cladding.
Data at a glance
- Length: 3039 meters
- Tunnel entrance at km 36.855
- Tunnel exit at km 39.894
- Clear width: 8.20 m – 9.00 m
- Clear height: 5.85 m - 6.05 m
- Maximum slope: 1%
- Minimum track radius: 798 m
- Track spacing in the tunnel: 3.50 m
- Maximum cover: 237 m
- Rocks passed through: porphyry , tuff , slate , sandstone
- Existing niches: 188 on the right and 189 on the left
- Former warning device: seven bells
literature
- Jens Weiske u. a .: From the construction of the Brandleitetunnel and the Rennsteig Tunnel. Heinrich-Jung-Verlagsgesellschaft, Zella-Mehlis 1999, ISBN 3-930588-50-1
- Bodo Kühn: Brandleite, story about the construction of the railway tunnel. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt GmbH, Berlin 1984, without ISBN
Web links
- Pictures of a special train ride through the Brandleitetunnel on the occasion of the 100th anniversary in 1984
- Tunnel portal pictures of route 6298: Neudietendorf - Arnstadt - Plaue / Thuringia - Gräfenroda - Zella-Mehlis - Suhl - Grimmenthal - Ritschenhausen