Celle tram
The tram Celle was from 1907 to 1956 the backbone of public transport in the Lower Saxon town of Celle . The responsible transport company was the Celler Straßenbahn GmbH , which is still responsible for the omnibus traffic that has been introduced as a replacement . On September 29, 2002, the company and two other bus companies founded CeBus , which since then has been organizing local public transport in the district of Celle .
founding
The history of local public transport in Celle began in 1900, when a private horse-drawn bus first ran in the city. Due to the increasing demand for transport, the city's citizens decided in 1903 to found a tram commission. Among them was the entrepreneur and later Senator Harry Trüller . On May 21, 1905, the Celler Straßenbahn GmbH was founded by 79 citizens. On October 3 of the same year, this company received the necessary concession to build a tram . The city of Celle and the company provided the money for the construction in equal parts. The city had the meter gauge tracks and the overhead line built, the company built the tram depot and provided the rolling stock. On November 1, 1907, after receiving the operating permit for a period of 100 years, the railway went into operation with three vehicles on a 3.8 kilometer network of two lines.
business
The route led from the train station via the market in the old town to the Berggarten depot . A branch line led from the market to the district in the southeast of the old town. There was a red (Neustadt – Berggarten) and a green line (Bahnhof – Kreis). In 1913 the route was extended by a few hundred meters from the previous terminus in the Neustadt street over the Fuhse to the edge of the Neustädter Holz forest . On November 23, 1924 an extension was added from the depot to the cemetery in Lüneburger Heerstraße and on June 10, 1928 from the old town to the Blumläger Church . With a length of 6.2 kilometers, the railway had reached its greatest extent in 1928. The routes were single-track and had several switches.
The closure of the line to Neustädter Holz from August 1, 1921, which was due to the construction of the new railway underpass at the station, resulted in a significant decrease in the number of passengers. Other problems arose between May 1, 1922 and July 1, 1924 when inflation forced the company to cease operations. In 1933 the section between the depot and the city cemetery was closed again.
The first buses started running on March 23, 1935. They ran between the new military airfield near Wietzenbruch and Neustädter Holz.
Due to the Second World War , operations were inactive between April 9 and August 7, 1945. Then the tram ran again, but initially only between Neustädter Holz and Blumläger Church. The regular service to the Berggarten could not be resumed until 1946. Even after the railway was back in operation, there were repeated interruptions to operations, namely at the beginning of 1946 due to a lack of wagons and in 1947 when the Allerbrücke had to be repaired. The bridge was finally replaced by a new building in 1951, which resulted in slight shifts in the tram route.
attitude
On February 14, 1954, the sections between Markt and Blumläger Church and between the Fuhsebrücke and Neustädter Holz were discontinued. The route from the depot to the market was only used as an operating route. On April 30, 1955, the section between Fuhsebrücke and the train station followed. On June 2, 1956, the last tram route between the market and the train station was shut down, so that Celler Straßenbahn GmbH has only offered bus services since then. The Berggarten depot was abandoned in 1964.
vehicles
When operations opened, railcars (Tw) 1 to 3 were available, two-axle vehicles with open platforms that had been built by the Busch company in 1907. In the following year the similar railcars 4 and 5 were added, in 1910 the number 6 from Bergmann. The platforms were later glazed. In 1926, a slightly larger railcar was purchased from Waggonfabrik Fuchs , Tw 7 , and in 1929 Tw 8 from Heine & Holländer. In 1938 the Karlsruhe tram , which sold part of its meter-gauge fleet, was able to acquire two 26-year-old railcars, which were given the numbers 9 and 10. These vehicles were originally sidecars that were converted into railcars. Sidecars were never used in Celle.
Tw 10 was handed over to Küstrin in 1943 , where it did not survive the Second World War . In 1954, Tw 2 was scrapped, two years later Tw 6, the remaining vehicles after the decommissioning.
depot
The depot with the workshop was in the Berggarten . For reasons of space, two three-track wagon hangars were laid out one behind the other. The access to the rear hall was via a turntable which, with a diameter of three meters, could only barely accommodate the two-axle vehicles. Particularly for the somewhat longer wagons that were added later, driving on them meant “centimeter work”. In 1926 a new structure with four tracks was built.
Web links
- The Celle tram on the homepage of the city of Celle, with historical photos
- Cellesche Zeitung: In-Memoriam-Celler-Tram
- City map and route plan with switches and stops
literature
- Old half-timbered house, romantic tram. Memories of the tram in Celle. In: Tram Magazine 5/2016, pp. 60–67.