Novéant – Gorze electric train

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Novéant – Gorze
Route length: ~ 6 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system : 750  =
Legend
Route - straight ahead
 Lérouville – Metz railway line from Metz
Station, station
 0 Novéant SNCF
   
 Lérouville – Metz railway line to Lérouville
   
 Route de Gorze
   
 Route d'Arnaville
   
 ~ 1.5 Chemin de Bayonville
   
 ~ 6 Gorze Pont Briot

The Novéant – Gorze electric railway connected Novéant with Gorze , both municipalities with around 2,000 inhabitants each, in the Metz arrondissement in the Moselle department in the former Lorraine region .

Origin of the railway

When a large part of Lorraine became part of the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 , the new state border between Metz and Nancy ran southwest of the municipality of Novéant. Your station on the state railway line in the Moselle valley, which was opened in 1850, now became a border station, where all express trains also stopped.

In order to connect the small town of Gorze, located about six kilometers from Novéant, to the rail network and to better develop the border region for strategic reasons, the construction of a railway from Novéant parallel to the border in a north-westerly direction via Gorze-Rezonville-Gravelotte was planned at the end of the 19th century –Vernéville to Amanweiler. But initially there was no company that wanted to take over the construction and operation.

When an extensive small railway network was planned in the Diedenhofen area , which the railway construction and operating company Vering & Waechter GmbH & Co.KG in Berlin wanted to take over, they agreed to the state's request for a railway connection in the border region near Novéant fulfill. Together with the Eisenbahnbau-Gesellschaft Becker & Co. GmbH, she founded the Lothringische Eisenbahn-AG (LEAG) in Diedenhofen, which in 1911 received the concession for a railway line between Novéant and Gorze.

Because many residents in Novéant were against building a steam train through the town, an electric tram was chosen as a compromise; the freight traffic, which was to be carried out with electric locomotives, got a separate connection to the state railway outside the town center. The route outside Novéant was on its own track; the terminus in Gorze was on the outskirts.

Due to government pressure, operations on the six-kilometer, standard-gauge line had to be opened on December 28, 1912, although the vehicles were not yet available for passenger traffic; as a replacement initially an electric locomotive operated with passenger cars. Later the vehicle fleet consisted of two tram cars with two sidecars, an electric locomotive and three freight cars. The power supply consisted of a direct current of 750 volts. The timetable provided for 14 pairs of trains a day; four intermediate stopping points were served, evasions were not provided en route.

Further development and end

When the First World War began in 1914 , the border region was in the immediate vicinity of the combat zone. As a result, there were repeated restrictions and temporary shutdowns of operations. The trams were brought to Saarlouis in 1916, where they finally remained; the minor traffic was served with the electric locomotive.

After the Lorraine district was returned to French jurisdiction, the railway company LEAG, which now operated under the company "Liquidation de la Société Anonyme Lorraine des Chemins de Fer Electriques, Thionville", was placed under public administration and, after lengthy negotiations, the railway was handed over to the département in 1924 Moselle. On his behalf, the “ Société générale des chemins de fer économiques ” (SE) (German: Allgemeine Kleinbahn-Gesellschaft) in Paris took over the management.

After war damage had been repaired, the train ran again from July 1919, but with the electric locomotive and a converted baggage car; the end point in Novéant was at the freight station until 1920. When the number of passengers rose again, a combustion engine with a sidecar was procured in 1926; the number of trips was limited to five connections a day.

In the following years, the passengers migrated more and more to newly established bus routes, so that the council of the département decided to shut down the railway on July 1, 1933 "on a trial basis". However, that was the end of the line. The railway facilities were dismantled in 1935.

literature

  • Richard Lutz: The electric branch line Novéant - Gorze, a forgotten small train in Lorraine , in the tram magazine No. 77, Stuttgart, August 1990.
  • Henri Domengie / José Banaudo: Les petits trains de jadis - Est de la France , Breil-sur-Roya 1995.

Web links