Mettmann – Gruiten trolleybus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mettmann – Gruiten
Route length: 5.770 km
Minimum radius : 12 m
Legend
   
 0.000 Mettmann depot
   
 0.400 Mettmann Breite Strasse
   
 0.600 Düsseldorf-Derendorf – Dortmund Süd railway line
   
 0.800 Weiche Leyer Straße (from here two lanes)
   
 3.100 Potherbruch
   
 3.200 District boundary
   
 4.100 Düssel
   
 4.200 Gruiten village
   
 5.770 Gruiten Reichsbahnhof
   
 Transition to the Düsseldorf – Elberfeld railway line

The Mettmann – Gruiten trolleybus , initially called the Mettmann – Gruiten trolleybus , was the first modern trolleybus operation in Germany. The 5.770 kilometer long overland route was operated from 1930 to 1952, initially by Kreis Mettmanner Straßenbahnen GmbH , and from 1937 by Rheinische Bahngesellschaft AG .

prehistory

With the route from Mettmann to Gruiten , German industry tried to re-establish the trolleybus in Germany. Between 1901 and 1912, a total of 14 trolleybus systems were built on the territory of the German Reich within the borders before 1914 , but only one of these companies survived the end of the First World War, the Ludwigsburg trolleybuses . In 1926 this was finally also discontinued, from then on there was not a single trolleybus operation in Germany for several years.

history

The trolleybus route in the Mettmann district was opened on August 26, 1930. It was initially called the catenary bus and no longer a trackless railway like its predecessor. This should make it clear that, from a legal point of view, it is a road-based means of transport and not a railroad . In this way, those responsible wanted to ensure that the Prussian Small Railroad Act does not apply to the route. The name trolleybus used today, however, was not officially introduced until September 1937.

The connection between Mettmann and Gruiten was initially more a test route than a line for passenger transport. The demanding route in the Bergisches Land was selected by the German transport scientist Gustav Kemmann , Kemmann came from Mettmann. Due to its undulating topography, it was particularly suitable for these tests because it had all possible operating situations that were intended to be tested. The Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG (RWE) was responsible for the power supply of the line , the overhead line was constructed by the AEG .

Since the test drives had priority, only eight trips per day were carried out in each direction for passenger transport, but between 9:00 and 13:00 there was a break in operation. Later there were nine pairs of trips, two of them early in the morning, the rest from afternoon to late evening. The last course ran from Gruiten to Mettmann half an hour before midnight. The one-way ticket cost 30 pfennigs, the return ticket 60 pfennigs.

Line number 5 was initially used until 1937, after which it was renamed line 59. During the Second World War , ten trips a day were made due to the considerable increase in passenger numbers . In the years 1942/43 the trolleybus carried around 400,000 passengers a year, after the war it was more than 700,000. At the end of the war, however, operations had to be temporarily interrupted.

The travel time over the entire route was 23 minutes, which corresponds to an average speed of around 15 km / h. One car was sufficient for the scheduled traffic. A total of twelve stops were served, the mean station distance was thus around 550 meters.

After the takeover by the Rheinische Bahngesellschaft AG along with the tram, the trolleybus route was given the number 59. Since there was little interest in the route in Düsseldorf, it only carried 0.17 percent of all passengers on the Rheinbahn May 17, 1952 together with the tram and from then on operated the route with ordinary buses . These in turn operated from May 10, 1953 as line 41 continuously from and to Haan .

The Mettmann – Gruiten connection was thus also the first modern trolleybus in Germany to be discontinued. The high point of the development he initiated - between 1954 and 1959, 57 trolleybus systems were operated simultaneously in what is now the Federal Republic of Germany - the Mettmann – Gruiten line no longer experienced.

Route

Gruiten station, end point of the trolleybus route
Catenary rosette at the Catholic Church of St. Nikolaus in Gruiten

Mettmann the trolleybus route began on jointly by tram used depot in Bismarck 53, this depot facility referred existed since 1909. There used by the cars catenary triangle . From the depot she followed Bismarckstrasse with the tram. Then the trolleybus and tram parted in the Freiheitsstraße. The former branched off to the right and reached the Düsseldorf-Derendorf-Dortmund Süd railway line via Breite Straße and Brücker Straße , the tracks of which were passed through a tunnel-like passage. At the intersection with Leyer Straße there was an air switch , which made the route into two lanes. We continued through Gruitener Straße, Flurstraße and Gruitener Weg in an open field over to Gruiten. In Gruiten the route led through Mettmanner Straße, Pastor-Vömel-Straße, Parkstraße and Bahnstraße to Gruiten train station . There was a turning loop next to the reception building . It was driven on in an anti-clockwise direction, i.e. without crossing overhead lines. The entire route is now served by the 742 bus line.

After it was closed, the depot on Bismarckstrasse was used as a bus depot until 1966 and then demolished. The German Federal Post Office acquired the site and set up a telecommunications and post office there.

To this day, several ornate catenary rosettes are reminiscent of the former trolleybus route, one of which is located at the Catholic Church in Gruiten.

vehicles

Two six-wheeled trolleybuses with electrical equipment from AEG, built on Krupp chassis by Waggonfabrik Uerdingen , were used; they bore the numbers 1 and 2. The chassis of the two cars were later sold to the Osnabrück trolleybus . The one -and-a-half-decker trolleybus with the number 209 was built on one of them in 1957 and was finally retired in 1967.

literature

  • Wolfgang R. Reimann : From the chronicle of the Mettmann trams . Verlag Bernd Neddermeyer, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-933254-03-5
  • Arthur Schiffer: Electric overhead line omnibus company Mettmann-Gruiten . RWE Essen, 1930
  • North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse . In: Ludger Kenning, Mattis Schindler (Ed.): Trolleybuses in Germany . tape 2 . Kenning, Nordhorn 2011, ISBN 978-3-933613-31-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mettmann - When the tram was still running on www.rp-online.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rp-online.de  
  2. ^ Westdeutsche Zeitung: Gruiten-Dorf yesterday and today in 40 minutes
  3. ↑ Ludger Kenning - The Obuszeit in Osnabrück