Gelpetal tunnel
| Gelpetal tunnel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| use | Tram tunnel | |||
| traffic connection | Tram line 23 ( Elberfeld - Ronsdorf ) |
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| place |
Wuppertal (residential area Grifflenberg ) |
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| length | 258 m | |||
| Number of tubes | 1 | |||
| construction | ||||
| Client | Bergische Kleinbahn AG | |||
| business | ||||
| release | 1902 | |||
| closure | 1953 (filled in in the 1980s) |
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| location | ||||
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| Coordinates | ||||
| 51 ° 14 ′ 30 ″ N , 7 ° 10 ′ 12 ″ E | ||||
| 51 ° 14 ′ 21 ″ N , 7 ° 10 ′ 16 ″ E | ||||
Map with all coordinates: The Gelpetal Tunnel was a 258 meter long tram tunnel on the southern heights in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal .
Location and history
The double-track tunnel of tram line 23 (Elberfeld - Ronsdorf), opened in 1902, branched off from the (old) Ronsdorfer Straße at the junction of Straße Am Walde and crossed under the 328 meter high Freudenberg in a southerly direction .
The reason for the complex tunnel construction lay in the effort to avoid the urban area of the large city of Barmen (today part of Wuppertal) , which was still independent at the time of construction, for concession reasons . A simple connection without artificial structures further along Ronsdorfer Straße via Lichtscheid to Ronsdorf would have been much easier to implement, but was ruled out for the political reasons mentioned above.
The southern tunnel portal was on Dorner Weg in the upper Gelpe Valley , where the route swiveled to the east in the direction of Lichtscheid. Another tram route in the direction of Cronenberg branched off at the south portal. Immediately next to the south portal is the workshop and car hall of the Bergische Kleinbahnen, also built at the beginning of the 20th century . The spacious brick building was abandoned on August 1, 1933 and is now used as a stable for a riding stables . After further planning, another route was to be built from the south portal through the Gelpe valley to Remscheid - Hasten , but this never got beyond the project stage.
The route of line 23 along Ronsdorfer Strasse was closed in 1953 and the tunnel was abandoned. In the 1980s, both portals were filled in and the cuttings filled. The tunnel is still there today, but no traces of the structure or its accesses are visible, nor is it accessible.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b 130 years of local public transport in Wuppertal, wsw-online.de ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Tramtrack ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - On the trail of disused trams
