Wiesbaden West freight yard

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The Wiesbaden West freight yard was the main freight yard in the city of Wiesbaden . It was on the border between Wiesbaden and Dotzheim and branched off from the Aartalbahn . It has now been closed, the railway facilities have been removed and the artistic quarter was built on the site .

history

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With the redesign of the Wiesbaden rail connection at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the construction of a new freight station for Wiesbaden was also necessary. The Taunusbahnhof , Rheinbahnhof and Ludwigsbahnhof facilities, which had been built next to each other in Wiesbaden up to that point , each had their own cargo handling facilities , which, like the stations as a whole, were no longer sufficient for the rapidly growing city of Wiesbaden at the end of the 19th century.

The re-planning for the Wiesbaden rail connection provided for the Prussian State Railways to build both the new main passenger station and a central freight station about 800 meters south of the existing facilities. This plan met with resistance from the municipal authorities , who wanted to see a freight station, the associated ambience and its emissions , dust and noise, not so close to the facilities for the spa - and this also included the passenger station in the broader sense. He pleaded - against the resistance of the local residents - for a site in the west of the city on the Aartalbahn . However, the railway administration refused to accept this solution, as this area, due to the topography in Wiesbaden, a strong basin in the city, is about 50 meters higher than the area of ​​the main train station.

The factual planning freeze that resulted from this conflict hindered the further development of the railway connection from Wiesbaden. Its Lord Mayor , Carl Bernhard von Ibell , therefore used a stay by Kaiser Wilhelm II in Wiesbaden in May 1900 and first presented the problem to the Oberhof and House Marshal, Count August zu Eulenburg , on May 21, 1900 . The very next day Ibell was received by the emperor, who had the plans presented and explained to him and arranged a meeting “on site” for May 25th. Here he decided in favor of the arguments put forward by the Wiesbaden magistrate in favor of a freight station west, although the present Minister of Public Works, Karl von Thielen , who was responsible for the railways , objected that this solution cost two to three million marks more. This is how the system was built. The city of Wiesbaden bore some of the additional costs.

The Aartalbahn , which was re-routed for the new construction of the main train station , went into operation on May 2, 1904. The old route had crossed the terrain at right angles. On November 28 of the same year the freight yard was opened, which branched off the line north of the Waldstrasse station. The connection to the Curve train station did not take place until October 1, 1906.

business

The operation of this freight yard was problematic for the railroad. Most of the freight trains came from Mainz , from the right Rhine route or from the Taunus Railway from Frankfurt am Main . These trains all had to go through Wiesbaden Ost station and then negotiate a relatively steep ramp to the higher freight station, which often required an additional, second locomotive , which was time-consuming and expensive.

The goods delivered in this way were then distributed by carts from the freight yard to the city. This had the advantage that the spa district remained almost undisturbed by goods traffic.

A siding led to the neighboring barracks area, where the Europaviertel is located today . The connection is no longer recorded on a plan of the site from the late 1970s.

Decline

Gatekeeper house and level crossing ⊙ (panoramic photo from March 2009)

With the decline of rail freight traffic in the 1960s, the freight yard was abandoned at the end of the 20th century. In 2006 it was exempted under railway law , ie the "railway" operating purpose was canceled. After the buildings and tracks were demolished, a new district called the artists' quarter was created on the site .

Web links

Commons : Güterbahnhof Wiesbaden West  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Bernd-Michael Neese: The Kaiser is coming. Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II in Wiesbaden . Wiesbaden 2010. ISBN 978-3-928085-55-7 , pp. 54f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ odenwald-bahn.de: The Railway in Wiesbaden , accessed on July 9, 2011
  2. ^ Lindsey Air Station, Wiesbaden, early 1960s , usarmygermany.com, accessed on August 18, 2013.
  3. ^ US Military Installations - Wiesbaden Facilities, Early 1960s , usarmygermany.com, accessed August 18, 2013.
  4. ^ Lindsey Air Station, Wiesbaden, late 1970s (US Military Installation Atlas, 37th Trans Gp, 1980), usarmygermany.com, accessed on August 18, 2013.

Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 25.8 ″  N , 8 ° 12 ′ 57.4 ″  E