Buschtěhrad Railway

Buschtěhrad railway network

The Buschtěhrad Railway , in short: BEB (Czech: Buštěhradská dráha ; BD) was a private railway company in Austria and its successor state Czechoslovakia . The company operated a route network in northwestern Bohemia from 1855 to 1922. The Ore Mountains and the Egergraben were connected to Prague by the railway company .

history

Border station of the Buschtěhrad Railway in Weipert ( Vejprty )

Křimov station, disused line to Reitzenhain (2007)

The Krušovice brewery transported its beer in BEB refrigerated vehicles ( Railway Museum Lužná u Rakovníka ; 2008)

The boom in coal mining in the Kladno area in the middle of the 19th century made it necessary to replace the Prague – Lana horse-drawn tram with a modern means of transport for the removal of coal. For this reason, the Buschtěhrad Railway Company (Czech: Buštěhradská železniční společnost ) was constituted in 1852 , and on January 1, 1855 the concession to operate a steam railway was granted. Its name was derived from the socially significant Buštěhrad castle near Buckov, which belonged to the Fürstenberg family at the time.

On November 5, 1855, the company began operating its first line, which ran from Alt-Kladno (Staré Kladno) over 20.5 km northeast to Kralup on the Vltava , from where it was possible to ship on the Vltava and Elbe . At the same time, the old route of the horse-drawn tram between Alt-Kladno and Vejhybka (Kladno – Výhybka) was taken over and expanded. In 1863, the company also received the concession to convert the section of the horse-drawn tram between Prague and Vejhybka to steam operation, which was followed in 1867 for the Vejhybka– Lana section . The route was partially redesigned.

Due to the need for a railway connection to the sugar factories and hop producers in the Saaz and Laun area , as well as the emerging lignite mines in the North Bohemian Basin, the railway developed into a regional transport company that soon opened up the Bohemian Ore Mountains as well. On February 4, 1871, the railway company significantly expanded its route network with the double-track connection between Lana via Priesen to Komotau with a length of 83.8 km and thus established a direct connection between Prague and Komotau. In Komotau a separate train station was built, which was used together with the Aussig-Teplitz railway .

The next stretch of the Buschtiehrad Railway was the single-track connection, inaugurated on August 1, 1872, over 57.7 km on the ridge of the Ore Mountains from Komotau to Weipert ( Chomutov – Vejprty / Reitzenhain railway ) with the connecting line in Krima - Neudorf ( branch or branch line). Wing railway ) via Sebastiansberg to the Saxon railway network in Reitzenhain . The construction of this extremely winding connection is regarded as a technical masterpiece because of the rise in altitude on the steep southern slope of the mountain.

On March 1, 1873, the 12 km long route from Komotau to Kaaden - Brunnersdorf was put into operation .

In the years that followed, the company's route network continued to expand. In 1891 it reached its greatest extent of 465 km.

Nationalization of the BEB was planned even before the First World War. After 1918 the BEB routes were on the territory of the newly founded Czechoslovakia , which favored nationalization of all private railways as quickly as possible.

On January 1, 1923, the Buschtěhrad Railway was nationalized by law and became part of the Czechoslovak State Railways ČSD. The Buschtěhrad train station in Komotau merged with the stations of other former private railways to the Komotau main station and is today's passenger station.

Driving resources

Some locomotives of the Buschtěhrad Railway have been preserved to this day as exhibits in the National Technical Museum in Prague . The KLADNO locomotive from 1855 is the oldest surviving locomotive in the Czech Republic today. The former IIIa 272 (ČSD 324.391) and the Ia 419 (ČSD 300.619) are exhibited as inoperable museum locomotives in the Lužná u Rakovníka Railway Museum .

BEB steam locomotives
line	Track no.	design type	Construction year	Manufacturer	ČSD no.	image
I.	101-105	C2 'n2t	1855-1861	StEG locomotive factory
Yes	401-422	C n2t	1890-1906	Wiener Neustadt , Floridsdorf , Bohemian-Moravian machine factory	300.601-623
II	106-112	C n2	1863-1868	StEG locomotive factory
III	113-170	C n2	1870-1873	Locomotive factory of StEG , Floridsdorf	322.201-254
IIIa	180-277	C n2	1887-1907	Wiener Neustadt , StEG locomotive factory	324.301-396
IV	201-203 (to 1887) 301-306	D n2	1884, 1890	Wiener Neustadt	412.001-006
IVa	351-355	D n2	1909	Bohemian-Moravian machine factory	413.101-105
V	1-20	1B n2	1870-1872	Saxon machine factory / Chemnitz	232.201-220
Va	501-506	1'E1 'n2t	1918	Bohemian-Moravian machine factory	524.101-106
VI	81-84	1B n2	1873	Kessler / Karlsruhe
VII	90-96	2'B n2	1887-1897	Wiener Neustadt	253.301-307
VIII	51-73	2'C n2	1898-1914	StEG locomotive factory	354.425-447