Butzbach-Licher Railway

Lines of the Butzbach-Licher Railway
GTW 2/6 of the HLB (ex BLE), as a special train on the main route
Route number :	9371 (Butzbach Ost – Münzenberg) , 9372 (Butzbach Ost – Pohl Göns) , 9373 (Griedel – Bad Nauheim Nord)
Route length:	56.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	C2
Maximum slope :	Butzbach North – Münzenberg: 28 ‰ Griedel – Bad Nauheim North: 38  ‰
Minimum radius :	180 m
Top speed:	HLB part: 40 km / h EFW part: 25 km / h
Legend 7.6 Upper clover 6.5 Ebersgöns 4.2 End of the route B 3 3.2 Connection to Magna Park (formerly Ayers barracks) 3.1 formerly B 3 3.0 Pohlgöns 1.6 Connection of BLE friends (EBN) 1.5 Butzbach Nord private owner of the Pintsch-Bamag 1.2 Butzbach North 1.0 Connection to voestalpine BWG 0.9 Connection perforated sheet 0.8 Branch to the Main-Weser-Bahn 0.7 Connection cost 0.3 Connection to Gerhardt / Wulffen Butzbach Main-Weser Railway 0.0 Butzbach West 0.0 1.2 Butzbach Ost workshop / washing facility HLB Limit HLB / EFW B 488 (in the roundabout) A 5 3.2 0.0 Griedel 0.3 Griedel center Weather (2 ×) 3.0 Rockenberg 4.4 Oppershofen 7.1 Steinfurth Bad Nauheimer Str. 7.2 Steinfurth Rosenbahnsteig (Bft) B 3 P&R car park at the train station Main-Weser-Bahn to Butzbach / Kassel Bad Nauheim 10.6 Bad Nauheim North (Pbf) Connecting track 11.0 Bad Nauheim North (Bbf) Main-Weser-Bahn to Frankfurt 5.7 Gambach (Hess) 5.9 Connection of quartz sandwork (will be reactivated) 7.1 Oberhörgern - Eberstadt 9.1 Munzenberg wood loading A 45 10.5 Trais Munzenberg 12.6 Muschenheim B 488 14.3 Farm and village manure B 488 Stretch of pouring formerly B 457 (common barrier post) 19.1 Lich (Oberhess) South Lich (Oberhess) Route to Gelnhausen Weather 24.2 Niederbessingen 26.7 Oberbessingen 27.9 Munster (Oberh.) 29.1 Ettingshausen 30.6 Harbach 33.1 Queckborn Weather B 49 Vogelsbergbahn from Giessen 38.1 Grünberg (Oberh.) South (goods area) Londorfer Strasse 38.2 (BLE platform) / Grünberg (Oberhess) former Lumdatalbahn to Lollar Vogelsbergbahn to Fulda

The Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn (BLE) is the railway line from Butzbach to Lich and was the name of its construction and transport company based in Butzbach until 2005. Since 2006, this has been part of HLB Basis AG, whose transport services are carried out by HLB Hessenbahn GmbH and HLB Hessenbus GmbH.

history

Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn-AG bond for 1,000 marks from April 1, 1904

Locomotive 146 of the BLE type ELNA 2 (retired in 1970)

Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn AG was founded on April 14, 1902 by the then leading railway construction and operating company Lenz & Co GmbH , which took over 87% of the shares, and eight neighboring communities. The name remained unchanged for around a hundred years, although the majority of the shares had been transferred to the AG für Verkehrwesen (AGV) in 1929 and to the State of Hesse in 1954. From December 28, 1971 to July 27, 2005, the BLE was a subsidiary of the state-owned Hessische Landesbahn GmbH (HLB), which held 94.4% of the shares. Then the BLE merged with the HLB subsidiaries Frankfurt-Königsteiner Eisenbahn and Kassel-Naumburger Eisenbahn to form the Frankfurt-Königsteiner Eisenbahn AG, which was renamed HLB Basis AG on March 8, 2006. The new companies HLB Hessenbahn GmbH and HLB Hessenbus GmbH have taken over the operative business.

Infrastructure

The eponymous first 19 km long route through the Wetterau , sometimes also called the Wettertalbahn, was opened on March 28, 1904 from Butzbach West (next to the state train station) via Butzbach Ost, where the administrative center is still today, and Griedel to Lich ( Oberhess) South opened next to the Gießen – Gelnhausen railway line (Lahn-Kinzig-Bahn). On July 15, 1909 the line continued to Queckborn and on August 1, 1909 to the terminus Grünberg (Oberhess) Süd, where there was a connection to the state railway line Gießen – Fulda ( Vogelsbergbahn ) and the line to Lollar ( Lumdatalbahn ). Another BLE railway line branched off in Griedel through the Wettertal to Bad Nauheim Nord; it was open to traffic from April 2, 1910. The line from Butzbach Ost to Ebersgöns was originally supposed to open on May 1, 1910, but the opening had to be postponed to May 13, 1910 at short notice. The last stretch from Ebersgöns to Oberkleen in the Prussian district of Wetzlar was completed on June 1, 1910.

The railway opened up a predominantly rural area with a few small towns and so little traffic that the founders' expectations could not be met. Nevertheless, the railway survived two world wars and economic crises and today plays an important role in local rail transport and in bus transport within the Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund (RMV).

Until the end of the war in 1945, operational management was with Lenz & Co GmbH and then passed to the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft . After an interlude of the German Federal Railroad from 1974 to 1982, the Hessian State Railroad (HLB) took over the management.

Dismantled route near Lich

From 1953 the route network began to shrink. It began with the closure of the line from Lich (Oberhess) south to Grünberg (Oberhess) south on October 4, 1953. On September 30, 1956, passenger traffic from Butzbach Ost to Oberkleen followed. On May 27, 1961, the main line between Butzbach West and Butzbach East as well as Griedel and Lich (Oberhess) Süd lost its passenger traffic, the section from Hof- and Dorf-Güll to Lich (Oberhess) Süd was completely closed. On January 1, 1969, the line from Pohlgöns to Oberkleen was closed and from kilometer 4.8 - the former border with Prussia - dismantled. The former track will continue to be used as track 4 of the Pohlgöns train station. In the course of the construction of a connection to the Limes cycle path from Ebersgöns to Pohl-Göns, the remaining route was further dismantled in mid-June 2014 and shortened by approx. 600 meters.

With the cessation of passenger traffic between Butzbach Ost and Bad Nauheim Nord on May 31, 1975, rail passenger traffic on the BLE ended. The section from Trais-Munzenberg to Hof- and Dorf-Güll was closed on June 12, 1975, and the section from Munzenberg to Trais-Munzenberg on September 26, 1985 and then dismantled. More than half of what was once the 56.4 km rail network has now been dismantled.

From June 18, 2001, operations between Griedel and Bad Nauheim Nord and Butzbach Nord and Pohlgöns were suspended. The operation of freight traffic between Butzbach Ost and Münzenberg was given up by the BLE on June 1, 2003, but it is continued by the Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau.

Today's meaning

GTW 2/6 between Rodheim and Burgholzhausen

The Hessian railway used by the original route of the BLE only the connecting curve to the Main-Weser Railway in Butzbach and the piece from there to the garage for a modest freight transport to voestalpine BWG (course work, formerly Pintsch Bamag) and weekly tank, washing and Workshop trips of the railcars stationed in Butzbach to and from the operational area.

In the course of the regionalization of rail traffic, the Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn AG took over services in passenger traffic on several routes in the Wetteraukreis and the neighboring districts: since May 24, 1998 Friedrichsdorf – Friedberg line , since May 30, 1999 Friedberg – Wölfersheim-Södel and Friedberg – Nidda (with a train on weekdays from Frankfurt Hbf), since January 8, 2001 Gießen – Gelnhausen (Lahn-Kinzig-Bahn) and from June 11, 2001 to December 2012 Friedberg – Hanau (now part of the Mittelhessen-Express -Linie Hanau– To water). 26 Stadler GTW 2/6 diesel multiple units are used as rolling stock on the routes .

The original passenger traffic was largely taken over by HLB Hessenbus, which also serves the city traffic in Butzbach. A total of eight HLB Hessenbus bus routes operate in the Wetterau district and the Gießen district .

Museum traffic

EFW museum train with locomotives 1 and 2 near Steinfurth

Timber train from EFW near Gambach

→ Main article : Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau

The Griedel – Bad Nauheim Nord and Griedel – Münzenberg routes have been sold to the Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau e. V. (EFW) leased. The border to the Hessische Landesbahn between Butzbach Ost and Griedel lies at the level crossing of the L 3053 (formerly B 488). In summer, museum passenger trains run on the routes on two Sundays a month, plus several special trains on festive days such as St. Nicholas and New Year. Traditionally, there has been special traffic for the biennial rose festival in Steinfurth since 1980 . At the Landesgartenschau Bad Nauheim 2010 (LGS), a half-hourly shuttle service to the well-attended "Rosendorf" Steinfurth, which does not belong to the LGS, was offered on all weekends. Freight traffic, especially in the form of wooden trains, was resumed by the association in 2004. The handover to the HLB takes place in the Griedel train station; from there the goods are transported via Butzbach Nord to the Main-Weser-Bahn. Loading takes place in the Munzenberg station. The depot with a locomotive hall and pit is also located in Bad Nauheim. In addition to the museum train, some construction vehicles and draisines are parked there.

In the Butzbach Nord station, a selection of earlier BLE vehicles is stored after the railroad needs in Bad Nauheim, which are looked after and refurbished by the Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahnfreunde . The association has set itself the goal of preserving these vehicles and documenting the history of the BLE.

literature

• Andreas Christopher: Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn  : Transport service provider with over 100 years of tradition between Taunus and Vogelsberg. Arbeitsgem., Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-929082-24-1
• Klaus-Peter Quill: The Butzbach-Licher Railway . Uhle & Kleinmann, Lübbecke 1976
• Rolf Löttgers: "Private Railways in Germany - The German Railway Company 1960-1969", Franckh, Stuttgart 1983, pp. 105ff.

Web links

Commons : Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Hessische Landesbahn (HLB)
• Website of the Butzbach-Licher Eisenbahnfreunde e. V. with photo archive
• Website of the Eisenbahnfreunde Wetterau e. V. with timetable of the museum trains and route information
• Pictures of the route
• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Butzbach-Licher Railway in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Official notices. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations, Volume 50, No. 33 (April 30, 1910), p. 557.
2. ↑ Official notices. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations, Volume 50, No. 35 (May 7, 1910), p. 590.
3. ↑ Official notices. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations, Volume 50, No. 42 (June 4, 1910), p. 706.