Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway line
| Gera-Pforten-Wuitz-Mumsdorf | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 30.98 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 35.7 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 100 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway, operated by the Gera-Meuselwitz-Wuitzer Eisenbahn-AG (GMWE) , was a meter- gauge narrow - gauge railway in what is now the federal states of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia . It led from Gera - Pforten station to Wuitz-Mumsdorf station on the standard gauge line from Zeitz to Altenburg . The 31.2 km long route in Gera-Pforten had a siding to the meter-gauge Gera tram , over which goods traffic to the Gera Süd state train station ran.
location
The route begins in Pforten , which was later incorporated into Gera. The route then runs through what is now Thuringia. This is followed by the section via Kayna , today part of Saxony-Anhalt. The Meuselwitz district of Zipsendorf is now back in what is now Thuringia. The same applies to Mumsdorf. The now defunct place Wuitz is today in the area of the municipality Elsteraue , which is in Saxony-Anhalt.
designation
The name of the company is incorrect because the railway did not go to the city of Meuselwitz. There was from the station Spora a standard gauge freight line of the State Railways, which until 1902 a 1880 siding was the sugar factory Spora and 1923 back to the works railway was. The designation as Wuitz-Mumsdorfer Kleinbahn was also incorrect; because the railway ran over both Prussian territory and that of Sachsen-Altenburg and Reuss younger line . Therefore, the railway was not licensed as a small railway under Prussian law , but as a railway .
history
From the beginning to the Second World War
In the second half of the 19th century, the mining of lignite began in the area around Meuselwitz . Above all, Gera as an up-and-coming industrial city should benefit from the railway construction. As early as 1878, committees were founded in Meuselwitz and Gera to discuss the construction of what was then known as the "Secondary Railway Meuselwitz - Gera". Neither the Prussian nor the Saxon state railways showed any significant interest in this railway. The planning dragged on until 1884 and was then not pursued further for the time being. In 1894 the project was taken up again. A meter-gauge narrow-gauge railway was to be built in order to save reloading costs on standard-gauge trains, because many briquettes from Meuselwitz were delivered to customers via the Gera tram, which opened in 1892 . On the other hand, reloading from the narrow-gauge railway for goods transported on the state railway was of course also associated with high costs!
The company was founded on July 6, 1900, with the substantial contribution of the railway construction company Vering & Waechter , after several variants of the route had been examined. In Gera, the railway company did not have a transfer station, only a tram. The construction time was about a year and on November 12, 1901 the line went into operation. On December 12th of the same year, a siding was put into operation that branched off from the Söllmnitz station. It was 2.04 kilometers long and was used exclusively for freight transport to the Reußengrube roof tile plant. The traffic volume developed on average in the early years of the route. The number of vehicles used grew. After the First World War , the next few years were marked by stagnation. GMWE ceased operations on the line at the end of the 1920s.
But in Gera one still saw the need for this railway line. Gera industrialists now bought the railway. They bought new equipment and in 1929 introduced the trolley operation, which, however, did not take place everywhere on the route. In the same year, a newly acquired rail bus was also used for passenger transport. Since the rail vehicle did not prove itself, it was only used sporadically. In 1948 the railcar was moved to the former Franzburger Kreisbahnen route .
In the 1930s, the route was straightened (including in Schwaaraer Grund) and new self-unloading wagons were purchased. GMWE ensured the transport of coal to Gera during the Second World War .
From 1945 until it was closed
Due to the regional importance in passenger traffic, the line was not dismantled for reparation purposes to the Soviet Union . In 1946, the owners of the railway were expropriated without compensation and GMWE AG became public property. From now on it was subordinate to the Thuringian Landesbanken based in Weimar . As a private railway , it was incorporated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1949 .
The operating resources were insufficient for passenger transport in the post-war years, so that several four-axle passenger cars had to be relocated from other routes. Other wagons were also moved by Saxon narrow-gauge railways, but they first had to be re-gauged from 750 to 1000 millimeters. The steam locomotives that have been moved include: 99.191, 99.223, 99.234, 99.235, 99.6011 and 99.183.
Decommissioning and dismantling
Due to the decreasing supplies in the Meuselwitz coal area, the corresponding transport services decreased. Motor transport was also very competitive. In the mid-1960s, the profitability of the route was checked several times. A shutdown was initially planned for 1970.
On May 3, 1969, a passenger train from Söllmnitz left Gera-Pforten at 2:21 p.m. At this point in time it was not foreseeable that this would be the last scheduled train. Shortly thereafter, a severe storm developed between Gera-Pforten and Gera-Leumnitz. There were major floods. Railway embankments were washed away and the Gera-Pforten train station was under water. All points and tracks were badly damaged by rubble. The vehicles were up to their axles in the mud. The locomotives could no longer drive into the locomotive shed in time. At 16:44 the next passenger train should arrive in Gates. In Leumnitz he had to be held back until the storm was over. A relocated train locomotive, with a passenger car at the head, drove slowly to the undermined tracks at the gates. The passengers had to cover the rest of the route on foot, which was also difficult, as Meuselwitzer Strasse was almost completely covered with mud.
The following day the Deutsche Reichsbahn decided to shut down the line. It was the last meter-gauge narrow-gauge railway operated by the Reichsbahndirektion Dresden . On the same day, replacement rail services were set up between Gera and Wuitz-Mumsdorf. From May 10th, passenger transport by bus was finally guaranteed. Motor companies in the Gera, Leipzig and Halle districts took part. The locomotives 99.183 and 99.191 were at the time of the storm with several freight and passenger cars in the Gera-Pforten station . The transport should take place over the street to Leumnitz. The vehicles should be put on the rails again there and drive to Wuitz-Mumsdorf. An inclined plane made of sleepers was built for loading. But when loading it turned out that there wasn't enough space between a workshop building and a cultural space. On May 7, the Ministry of Transport in Berlin approved the temporary restoration of the tracks for the transfer of vehicles. Sand was brought in by truck from the Kayna quartz works. After various work on the provisional operation had been completed, seven passenger cars were able to leave the station. The journey lasted into the evening hours, so the journey to the Kayna quartz works had to be interrupted. The next day the journey to Wuitz-Mumsdorf began.
On May 19, 1969 at 3:00 p.m. a train left Gera-Pforten station for the last time. An hour and a quarter later he reached Leumnitz. Five more cars were added there. After the locomotives and cars were parked in the direction of Wuitz-Mumsdorf, the provisional fixtures on the line were removed. Another severe storm in the last week of May severely damaged the remaining facilities. Several cars remained in the gates and were immediately scrapped when the track systems were dismantled. The same thing happened with cars from Leumnitz, two railway staff vehicles and a snow plow. The wagons that were parked in Wuitz-Mumsdorf were scrapped by 1971.
Freight traffic continued for a short time. Up until December 28, 1969, a train ran on weekdays, often with six hopper cars, between the Kaynaer Quarzwerke and Wuitz-Mumsdorf. The Deutsche Reichsbahn was contractually bound to the gravel works, and funds for transport by road were not yet available. The wagons were unloaded into standard gauge wagons on the bulk goods ramp. The empty trains were brought to the connection of the quartz movements and stayed there overnight. On December 28th there were three more trips to get all the remaining cars to Wuitz-Mumsdorf station . They have not been used in traffic since then. In the spring and summer of 1970, minor shunting work took place. Some vehicles were taken away.
The dismantling of the track system took a long time. Work began in wickets. A bus depot should then be built there. In Brahmenau and Söllmnitz, local agricultural production cooperatives dismantled the tracks. Workers from the Cretzschwitz roof tile factory dismantled the siding there. In the summer of 1970, the dismantling work had already progressed to Spora. The last section to Wuitz-Mumsdorf was removed by student brigades up to 1975. Some of the dismantled points from Wuitz-Mumsdorf were later used during renovations from the Wernigerode Westerntor station to the reloading yard.
Route description
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Route
The route began at the train station in Pforten , which was later incorporated into Gera. Then the route ran along the Zaufensgraben to Leumnitz . Between Trebnitz and Schwaara was Bundesautobahn 4 passes under. Then the railway ran in the valley of the Brahme and the Söllmnitzbach. The present state border between Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt was passed between Pölzig and Wittgendorf . The route then led along the Schnauder valley . From Zipsendorf , it ran parallel to the Zeitz – Altenburg standard-gauge railway to the Wuitz – Mumsdorf station .
Operating points
Gera doors ⊙
The Gera-Pforten station on the narrow-gauge Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway was opened in 1901. Up until this point in time, the train station known today under the name Gera Süd at the separation of the regular-gauge railway lines Leipzig – Probstzella and Gößnitz – Gera had this name. The construction of the Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway in the same gauge as the meter-gauge Gera tram offered the advantage that coal deliveries from the Meuselwitz-Altenburg lignite area and other goods could be delivered directly to the Geraer without reloading via the narrow-gauge railway and the Gera tram Farms could be transported. As a result, there were no reloading costs for the transported goods. The reason for the location of the train station in the south of Gera is that the Prussian State Railways refused to connect to their train station in the north of Gera. The location in Pforten offered the advantage that most of the industrial companies were in the south of Gera. A special feature of the Gera-Pforten station was that it did not have a transition station to a regular-gauge railway. The connection to the regular-gauge freight yard of the Royal Saxon State Railways in Reichsstraße (today Gera Süd ), where the trolley pits were located, could only be made via the Gera tram. For this purpose, the Lindenthal route was extended to the Pforten station on November 8, 1901, where the Gera-Meuselwitz-Wuitzer Railway opened four days later. The tram got a siding on this line, over which from now on rail freight cars were transported to the Gera industrial enterprises. From Pforten the railway line led in the direction of Leumnitz through the valley of the Zaufensgraben in a north-easterly direction.
At the Gera-Pforten station there were high-rise buildings in addition to the reception building that still exists today. a. a locomotive shed and a railway workshop that was demolished in 2013. Only one track used to lead into the latter. The vehicles were then brought to their place by means of a transfer table. The neo-Gothic entrance building shows great similarities to the Wörlitz train station in Dessau , which opened in 1894 and which was also built by the construction company Vering & Waechter , in many elements of its striking front with stepped gable and clock tower , especially on the back (former platform side) but also in many elements .
The planned closure of the station and the entire railway line for 1970 was preceded by a major storm on May 3, 1969. The nearby Zaufensgraben flooded the station area and made it very muddy. As a result, all tracks and points were badly damaged by rubble. The vehicles were up to their axles in the mud. The following day the Deutsche Reichsbahn decided to shut down the line. For the transfer of the vehicles in the Gera-Pforten station to Wuitz-Mumsdorf, the tracks were temporarily restored. The last train left Gera-Pforten station on May 19, 1969. The wagons remaining in Gera-Pforten were scrapped immediately when the track system was dismantled.
The area of the Gera-Pforten train station served as a bus station with a bus depot for the Gera transport company until shortly after the turn of the millennium . After that, a housing estate with the name “Am Pfortener Bahnhof” was built on the station grounds.
Gera-Leumnitz ⊙
The reception building of the former Gera-Leumnitz train station is now the seat of a construction company that stores building materials on the station premises. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the area has been cut by the southeast tangent. The former siding to the brickworks in Wuitzer Strasse is still partially available.
Trebnitz ⊙
The Trebnitz stop was on the south-eastern edge of Trebnitz. It existed between 1901 and 1969.
Schwaara ⊙
Although the narrow-gauge railway Gera-Pforten-Wuitz-Mumsdorf had been running through the Schwaara corridor since 1901, the place only got its own station in 1953. It was located west of the place on the road to Trebnitz and was used exclusively for passenger traffic. The construction of the bus shelter could not be finished until the rail traffic was closed. In the town of Schwaara, a small memorial was erected in memory of GMWE: two axes on a short section of track. The rails on this section of track come from the level crossing on the Trebnitz - Schwaara road, which was only recovered a few years ago when the road was expanded.
Brahmenau South ⊙
The Brahmenau Süd stop was located south of the district of Zschippach , which was incorporated into Brahmenau in 1950 and whose name the station originally bore. At the former location there are now warehouses.
Brahmenau ⊙
The Brahmenau station went into operation under the name of Culm . When the line was opened in 1901, the station had only one siding, which was connected to a continuous main track by two switches. Due to the opening of the "Geraer Kalkwerke GmbH" in 1902, a transfer track was built with a length of 170 m. Thus, the station served the cost-effective transport of the fuels and the brickwork products of the Culm brickworks. At the time of the First World War, the station was also used to move grain, for which a separate grain house was built. After the community of Culm was renamed Brahmenau in 1937, the station name was also changed to Brahmenau . At the location of the former station and the brickworks in the north-west of Brahmenau there is now an industrial park.
Söllmnitz ⊙
Söllmnitz station was opened in 1901 on the south-eastern edge of the town. It had the function of a separation station , since the siding to the former roof tile factory Reußengrube in Cretzschwitz branched off in the station. At the station there was a clay loading system and a loading ramp that have been preserved to this day. The clay was transported to this by means of a mine train. The planned closure of the line for 1970 was preceded by the devastating floods of May 3, 1969. The last train, which was not public, passed through Söllmnitz in mid-May 1969. He fetched the wagons that had remained in the Gera-Pforten train station to Wuitz-Mumsdorf. In 1977 the steam locomotive 99 555 (see IVK) and two passenger cars were erected as a - not quite fitting - memorial for the GMWE in Söllmnitz. They had a track width of 750 mm and came from Mügeln in what is today the district of Northern Saxony . In August 2002 they were taken over by the Zittau narrow-gauge railway . The reception building has been used as a cultural center and restaurant since 1974.
Wernsdorf ⊙
The Wernsdorf stop was outside the village in the east on the road to Hirschfeld . In the area of the former station, only three chestnut trees planted at the opening of the station remind of the location. The embankment that used to run through a field was leveled. The station was the last station in the Principality of Reuss from the direction of Gera until the state of Thuringia was founded in 1920 .
Pölzig ⊙
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The Pölzig train station was on the corridor of what is now the Pölzig district of Beiersdorf, northwest of Pölzig . The station had the special feature that it was the only station on the route in the area of Saxony-Altenburg and thus the state border from Reuss to Saxony-Altenburg and from Saxony-Altenburg to Prussia was passed once before and after Pölzig . From 1952 the Thuringian Pölzig train station from the direction of Gera-Pforten was the last train station in the Gera district . The station had a reception building, which has been used as a small museum since 2010 and as the domicile of the association "IG GMWE Bahnhof Pölzig". On June 17, 2012, the two-axle box car 99-61-01 was set up in front of the station building. It is the former GMWE car no. 17. A commercial area was created near the train station. The area of the station is used by a construction company.
Wittgendorf ⊙
The Wittgendorf stop (Kr Zeitz) was located south of the outskirts. Coming from Gera, it was the first stop in the Zeitz district of the Prussian province of Saxony and later the Zeitz district in the Halle district . Today the street “Am Bahnhof” is a reminder of the former station.
Kayna ⊙
The Kayna station was on the northwestern edge of the village of Kayna. Today the streets “Am Bahnhof” and “Bahnhofstraße” are a reminder of the former station. The station's reception building is used as a residential building. The fire station of the Kayna Volunteer Fire Brigade is located on the site of the former train station.
Kaynaer quartz works ⊙
The connection of the Kaynaer Quarzwerke was in the valley of the Große Schnauder east of Würchwitz . He is not to be confused with the 1978 built train yard Kayna / sand quarry of railway Meuselwitz-Ronneburg beu Kraasa in Altenburger Land (Thuringia). Shortly before the station, the Schnauder was crossed in the direction of Wuitz-Mumsdorf. The quartz factory had loading facilities for the freight trains, the remains of which have been preserved to the present day. After the cessation of passenger traffic on May 19, 1969, a freight train with often six self-unloading wagons ran between the Kaynaer Quarzwerke and the Wuitz-Mumsdorf station on weekdays until December 28, 1969. At the former location of the loading point, the remains of the sleeper of the through track are still located today.
Oils ⊙
The Oelsen stop was in the northwest of the town on Sporaer Strasse south of the Große Schnauder . The site of the station is now privately owned.
Spora ⊙
The Spora train station was not located directly in the village, but in the northern settlement of Spora near the Leonhard II lignite mine . In addition to the narrow-gauge tracks of the Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway line , the standard-gauge Meuselwitz – Spora railway line , which was used for lignite mining from the Leonhard II mine to the Meuselwitz station , led to the Spora station . The station building has been preserved to this day, but like the other abandoned houses in the settlement, it is very dilapidated. The briquette factories in the vicinity of the station were demolished, only ruins of the sugar factory remain.
Zipsendorf ⊙
The Zipsendorf stop was to the west of the town of Zipsendorf . In this area, the narrow-gauge railway led in a curved track to the standard-gauge Zeitz – Altenburg line . The freight station and the stop were only on the narrow-gauge railway and went out of service when the railway line was closed. The station initially belonged to the district of Zeitz in the administrative district of Merseburg in the Prussian province of Saxony . It was not until 1952 that it was reclassified to the Altenburg district in the Leipzig district , whose area has belonged to Thuringia since 1990 . The area of the former Zipsendorf stop was backfilled in the years after 1975, including the cuts for the mine railways, so that today nothing points to the station.
Wuitz-Mumsdorf ⊙
The Wuitz-Mumsdorf station was put into operation on July 15, 1872 shortly after the opening of the Zeitz – Altenburg railway line as a stopping point. With the commissioning of the narrow-gauge Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway line, the now gauge changing station was dedicated to the stop in 1901 and the station in 1905. The station building was built in 1901. In 1925 the station received a signal box. The station was between Mumsdorf, which belongs to Sachsen-Altenburg and Thuringia , in the north and the Prussian Wuitz in the south. Only the Wuitz-Mumsdorf station in the Wuitz corridor survived the demolition of the village of Wuitz between 1954 and 1956 caused by the lignite mining of the Zipsendorf-Süd opencast mine . With the closure of the narrow-gauge railway line to Gera-Pforten, the station was downgraded to a stopping point in 1969.
On September 29, 2002, the station was taken out of service. All high-rise buildings, such as the massive waiting hall, were demolished. Today only the chestnuts planted at the opening are a reminder of the former location.
vehicles
The 99.571 and 99.591 series were used . The planned use of the 99.23-24 series was quickly rejected.
Picture gallery
99-61-15 Georgenthal September 9, 2012
99-62-65 Georgenthal September 9, 2012
99-62-68 Georgenthal September 9, 2012
See also
literature
- Dietmar Franz: The former narrow-gauge railway Gera-Pforten - Wuitz-Mumsdorf. In: The model railroader . Fürstenfeldbruck, Verl.-Gruppe Bahn, ISSN 0026-7422. - Vol 26 (1977), Heft 4, page 94. - 98.
- Dietmar Franz, Rainer Heinrich, Reinhard Taege: The narrow-gauge railway Gera-Pforten - Wuitz-Mumsdorf . Transpress VEB Verlag for Transport, Berlin, 1987, ISBN 3-344-00124-8 .
- Dietmar Franz, Rainer Heinrich, Reinhard Taege: The narrow-gauge railway Gera-Pforten - Wuitz-Mumsdorf, The history of the Gera-Meuselwitz-Wuitzer-Eisenbahn-AG . New edition: EK-Verlag, Freiburg, 1998, ISBN 3-88255-435-5 .
- Dietmar Franz, Rainer Heinrich: The narrow-gauge railway Gera-Pforten - Wuitz-Mumsdorf and goods traffic on the Gera tram . VGB Verlagsgruppe Bahn, Essen, 2018, ISBN 978-3-8375-2029-3 .
- André Marks: The city archive as an important treasure trove for rail and tram enthusiasts. In: News from the Gera City Archives, 1/2019. Stadtarchiv Gera, 2019, pp. 4–8 , accessed on April 28, 2020 (review of the book by Franz and Heinrich (2018), including images).
Web links
- The history of the narrow-gauge railway Gera-Pforten - Wuitz-Mumsdorf. Retrieved March 8, 2016 .
- Picture gallery of the condition of the former route in 2000
- Description of the route and the stations on www.bimmelbahn.de
- Dietmar Franz: The history of the Gera-Meuselwitz-Wuitzer railway. Retrieved September 5, 2016 .
- Description of the Schwaara – Brahmenau section
- Description of the railway line on www.bimmelbahn.de
- Traces of the GMWE on www.schnaudertal.de
- Historical measuring table with the area around Gera
- Historical table with the area around Kayna
- Historical measuring table with the area around Meuselwitz
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Dietmar Franz: The history of the Gera-Meuselwitz-Wuitzer railway. Retrieved September 11, 2016 . , P. 12.
- ↑ Dietmar Franz: The history of the Gera-Meuselwitz-Wuitzer railway. Retrieved September 11, 2016 . , P. 13f.
- ^ Website of the association "IG GMWE Bahnhof Pölzig"
- ↑ The station Pölzig on www.stillgelegt.de
- ↑ The connection point Kaynaer Quarzwerke on www.schnaudertal.de
- ^ Place Wuitz and train station Wuitz-Mumsdorf on a measuring table sheet from the 1920s
- ↑ The Wuitz-Mumsdorf stop on www.sachsenschiene.net