Railway Amateur Club Jülich
The Eisenbahn-Amateur-Klub Jülich eV (abbreviated EAKJ ) is an association in Jülich that has been concerned with various aspects of the railroad since its foundation in 1976. In the early days, it was mainly through film evenings, the construction of a large model railway system and a series of books on local railway history in the public consciousness. From 1978 to 2001 he owned several rail vehicles taken over by the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB), including a class 50 steam locomotive , which he presented at numerous exhibitions and station festivals, which made the club known nationwide. Among the club's own vehicles also included driving enabled railcars with which the EAKJ km a large number of public special trips to destinations within 100 and undertook more, making him in the 1980s and 1990s, a fixture in Jülich and throughout the district of Düren made . After the end of the special rail bus trips, the focus of activities is now on the club's own model railway in the Jülich station building and the construction of numerous model railway modules, the constantly growing number and quality of which are usually presented to the public at exhibitions at least once a year.
development
History and environment
Although Jülich is a rather small town with around 30,000 inhabitants today, there were favorable conditions here for an active railway club to emerge. The former district town of Jülich was connected to the surrounding cities by federal railway lines in five directions and a district railway line. As a branch line junction, Jülich station had extensive track systems and, until 1962, its own depot to supply the steam locomotives that were common at the time. Freight traffic was considerable through the Jülich sugar factory and a large paper factory as well as numerous smaller companies until the late 1960s, and the Jülich Federal Railway Repair Works (AW) existed south of the city until 1964 . All of this led to a large number of people working for the Bundesbahn in Jülich, most of whom also lived in Jülich or the surrounding villages, which meant that the city had acquired the character of a railroad town by 1918 at the latest.
After the DB first repaired the war damage in and around Jülich in the 1950s and then tried to make operations more attractive and cost-effective by setting up several new stops and switching from steam trains to rail buses, the railway slowly but surely withdrew from the 1960s Jülich back: From 1961, there were no more trains to Aachen Nord and Stolberg on Sundays, in 1968 the DB stopped all passenger traffic in the direction of Linnich - Baal - Dalheim, and in 1971 passenger traffic on the Jülich circular railway ended . From 1975, there were no more trains to Düren and Mönchengladbach on Sundays and no more trains to Aachen North on Saturdays. In addition, in 1975 the DB board presented plans for a so-called economically optimal network , the implementation of which would have meant that thousands of kilometers of secondary lines would have been shut down. The residents of Jülich, who at that time still largely did not have their own car, realized that their local railroad as a guarantee of mobility was in danger of disappearing.
The German steam locomotive enthusiasts were also painfully aware that the DB would retire their last steam locomotive in the same decade. However , in the mid-1970s it was not known that the DB would issue a complete driving ban for steam locomotives on all of its routes in 1977 and enforce it for eight years.
Years of foundation: 1970s to 1990s
In this situation (after an unsuccessful first attempt in 1970) the EAKJ was founded on May 17, 1976 as a group of railway enthusiasts who in some way cared about the railway. While those interested in model railways began building a large-scale layout in the Jülich station building in 1977, the steam locomotive enthusiasts bought the locomotive 50 1724, which had been decommissioned by the DB, in 1978, and the company railroaders who enjoyed organizing and carrying out exhibitions, excursions and museum trips came from 1981, when the EAKJ was able to take over an old rail bus from the DB. Those who were more interested in theory found a field of activity in the numerous public film evenings of the EAKJ at the beginning and in the creation of the extensive railway history books of the EAKJ, which were published from 1977 to 1986.
The EAKJ expressly states the following goals in its statutes:
- Acquisition, maintenance and operation of historic railway vehicles,
- Research into the history of the railways in the home area,
- Establishment of a club library and creation of an archive taking into account the railway history of the Jülich region,
- Construction and operation of model railway systems.
The first few years were characterized by rapid growth in membership and rapid development in all fields of work. Particularly noteworthy is the purchase of the steam locomotive 50 1724, which the DB for the purpose of exhibition at the Düren station festival on 9/10. September 1978 and was bought by the EAKJ that same month.
In August 1979, the DB acquired the 795 627-9 rail bus with its 995 497-5 trailer car, which received a general inspection in the autumn of 1980 at the Kassel AW and was used for EAKJ excursions from 1981 onwards. These trips often led to Heimbach (Eifel) or other interesting tourist destinations in the region, which could be reached by rail within a reasonable travel time.
The route of the Jülich Kreisbahn (JKB) to Puffendorf played a special role in the special trips . Since the EAKJ did not have to coordinate with the DB, the journeys were much easier to organize, and the journeys on this route, which has otherwise been closed to passenger traffic since 1971, attracted many Jülichers who wanted to use "their" old circular route again or for the first time out of nostalgia . The JKB journeys originally planned only to the destination Barmen and the local recreation and nature reserve there were therefore extended to Ederen, which is of relatively little tourist importance, but where there were good maneuvering options. The first JKB trip took place on August 22, 1981.
The St. Nicholas trips on the JKB route (with children being given presents by a disguised St. Nicholas ) were particularly popular . In 1981 two journeys were sufficient, but this number increased to 19 journeys by 1995 and then decreased to 12 journeys by 1997. 1997 was the last year in which the EAKJ offered Christmas cruises. The EAKJ last traveled the JKB route on April 13, 1998 (Easter Monday).
For the steam locomotive 50 1724 there were initially ideas to make it operational again and to use it under steam on the JKB route, which would have circumvented the steam locomotive ban that only applies to DB routes. However, these plans could not be implemented because of the immense costs of a general inspection . The EAKJ therefore limited itself to maintaining the locomotive, keeping it rolling and presenting it as a stand copy at a total of 48 exhibitions throughout North Rhine-Westphalia and beyond.
Restructuring in the 1990s
With Deutsche Bahn AG, which was founded in 1994, classic station festivals in the old cross-divisional spirit of the Bundesbahn became increasingly rare, but at the same time transport to exhibition locations became more and more expensive and complicated, the EAKJ sold its steam locomotive to the Arbeitskreis Eifelbahnen eV, to which it received the locomotive Handed over September 16, 1998.
The takeover of the Jülich Bundesbahn routes by the Dürener Kreisbahn (DKB) in May 1993 meant that the DKB initially used old twin-engine DB rail buses as a temporary measure. After the 1995/96 received its new RegioSprinter , its rail buses became dispensable. With the support of local politics, the EAKJ received two twin-engine rail buses and a sidecar as a permanent loan from the DKB on August 30, 1996. The EAKJ was therefore able to hand over its old (single-engine) rail buses to the Cologne-Bonner Eisenbahnfreunde eV (KBEF) on September 28, 1996. From September 1996 to September 1998, the EAKJ carried out JKB trips with the new DKB rail buses on a total of 10 days and special trips to destinations in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate on a further 13 days. On October 15, 1998, however, the DKB ordered the rail buses to be shut down. The EAKJ took legal action against it and won in the second instance. Since no journeys could take place before the judgment, the DKB transferred the vehicles to the EAKJ in an out-of-court settlement on November 22, 2000 as compensation for the lost revenue.
On September 24, 2000, after a two-year break, an EAKJ rail bus trip took place again, which had to be canceled in Düren due to technical defects and never reached its destination Altenahr. In 2001 there was a general inspection of the vehicles. However, EAKJ's own journeys became more and more difficult for numerous reasons: DB Imm sold the Jülich locomotive shed rented by EAKJ, train path fees have now been due from DB Netz for special journeys, and station fees for stops at DB Station & Service, the Jülich start and finish line - Düren was increasingly occupied by the DKB regular traffic, and the JKB route from Kirchberg to Ederen was declared impassable by the DKB. The EAKJ therefore sold the vehicles and handed them over to EBM Touristik GmbH Gerolstein on October 12, 2001; the "Schuppenmannschaft" met for the last time on April 27, 2002.
Current state
To this day (as of 2019), the model railroad work area remained, which was initially maintained with the club complex in the Jülich station building. This system was presented in 2013 in the WDR program “Landesschau” on television. Traditionally, the EAKJ offers an open day of driving for everyone on its stationary facility at least once a year.
However, in order to address new members and especially young people, the EAKJ management relied on a new second pillar: the construction of modular systems. At the open day on April 17, 2016, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the EAKJ put its modules (and those of its members) together for the first time into a wide-ranging system, and the MEC Aachen and the model railway community Kerpen-Düren (MGKD) were also there their facilities at Jülich train station. Since then, the EAKJ has participated in larger exhibitions about once a year with its modular system, where it presents the current state of development. In addition, in the summer of 2019, work began on integrating modules on the stationary club complex so that the advantages of both concepts can be combined.
In October 2019, the EAKJ had 45 members between 14 and 84 years of age. Of the four board members in the founding year, long-time chairman Hans-Dieter Walter was still active as honorary chairman of the association at that time. For comparison: In April 1977 the EAKJ had 36 members, 6 of whom were in a special youth group.
literature
- Eisenbahn-Amateur-Klub Jülich eV: Jülich, the old railway town, 2nd edition, Jülich 1986
- Eisenbahn-Amateur-Klub Jülich eV: 5 years Eisenbahn-Amateur-Klub Jülich, Jülich 1981
Web links
- Literature by and about Eisenbahn-Amateur-Klub Jülich in the bibliographic database WorldCat
- EAKJ website , for the history see especially "The Club" - "30 Years EAKJ" and "The Club" - "Big Vehicles" - "Rides"
Individual evidence
- ↑ Railway Amateur Club Jülich: Between platforms and tracks. In: Aachener Zeitung online. Zeitungsverlag Aachen, March 14, 2019, accessed on October 3, 2019 .