Blankenberg light railway

Škoda locomotive on the banks of the Saale

Route length:

2 km

		Blankenberg paper mill
		with engine shed



		Brickworks Blankenberg
		State road

		Saale
		Blankenstein paper mill

LKM locomotive from the Blankenberg paper mill

LKM locomotive on the premises of the Blankenberg paper mill

The light railway Blankenberg is from Friends of the Park railway Syratal Plauen eV powered light railway in the district Blankenberg the community Rosenthal am Rennsteig in Saale-Orla in Thuringia . It has a track width of 600 mm.

Geographical location

This former works railway of the Blankenberg paper mill originally ran a little more than two kilometers directly along the Saale from the factory premises in a westerly direction to the main Rosenthal works in Blankenstein. After the division of Germany , the route ran directly along the inner-German border between the federal states of Thuringia and Bavaria .

history

After Gotthelf Anton Wiede , the owner of Wiedes Papierfabrik Rosenthal in neighboring Blankenstein , bought the paper factory at the end of 1894 , a light railroad was built between the two locations to transport raw and auxiliary materials from Blankenstein and finished products to Blankenstein as part of expansion measures . At Blankenstein the state road had to be tunneled under and the Saale had to be crossed with a bridge. Originally the wagons were pulled by horses , which is why the route is called "horse tram".

Two Bn2t steam locomotive deliveries for the light railroad in 600 mm gauge from the manufacturer Hanomag are known from the 1920s (Hanomag 9229 and 9965). In 1927 a type RL 2 diesel locomotive from Orenstein & Koppel was purchased. The steam locomotives pulled up to 15 truck wagons. These vehicles were in service until the 1960s, and in the event of a breakdown, they were said to have been operated by horses until then. Then they were replaced by two locomotives from the manufacturer VEB Lokomotivbau Karl Marx Babelsberg (LKM) and the Škoda company . These were in use until the end of service.

With the closure of the paper mill in 1993, the operation of this narrow-gauge factory railway also ended. Large parts of the factory were demolished in the following years and a smaller part was renovated by the municipality. The two last used diesel locomotives survived on the factory premises.

Museum train

Already four years after the cessation of operations, visitor trains with a horse-drawn tram and a gasoline-electric self-made multiple unit with a Honda generator and a three-phase motor were running on the route, which is interesting in terms of landscape. In the direction of Blankenstein, the railway ends at the former Blankenberg brickworks.

Soon after this tourist traffic was discontinued in 2012, light railroad fans from Plauen and Blankenberg began reactivating the original vehicles and track systems in the old factory premises. The machines last used, an Ns2h (serial number 262091, built in 1959) from LKM and a BN30R from Škoda, have been operational again since 2014, and the first public day of driving took place in the same year. During the season from Easter to October there are around six driving days, for example during the Blankenberg Castle Festival or the Open Monument Day .

Web links

Commons : Feldbahn Blankenberg - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

50.400011111111 11.718613888889Coordinates: 50 ° 24 ′ 0 ″ N , 11 ° 43 ′ 7 ″ E

[Historie-1] The light railroad of the paper mill Blankenberg: history

[2] Vogtland Railway Forum: Blankenberg field railway