History of the Cologne tram
This article deals with the history of the Cologne tram including the suburban railways, today's Stadtbahn Köln .
History of origin
Horse tram
Since June 22, 1865, the Berlin Horse Railway was the first German horse-drawn railway from Berlin to Charlottenburg . The city of Cologne was interested in starting a horse-drawn tram ("Päädsbahn") outside of the city center.
Hardt Railway
The first negotiations about the licensing of trams in Cologne began in 1871. The Cologne wine merchant and consul of Peru Ernst Hardt (born September 22, 1837 in Cologne, † August 7, 1898 ibid) in 1875 applied for the system a horse-drawn tram from Ehrenfeld to Nippes. He founded the company that operates on September 5 1876 E. Hardt & Co. , the limited liability of 80% of Belgium came. On March 15, 1877, Hardt signed a contract with the royal government to build a horse-drawn railway line in the suburbs of Deutz / Kalk , Ehrenfeld and Nippes, which were not yet incorporated . He transferred its rights to the operating company E. Hardt & Co . Initially, the city only allowed suburban trains because it feared that the narrow inner-city streets would not be up to this means of transport. The wagons were manufactured by the Ehrenfeld wagon factory in Herbrand ; when it was founded, 106 wagons and 274 horses were available. With a weight of 5.3 tons , the cars offered 16 seats inside the car and 14 standing places on the platforms. The staff included the driver at the front of the brake crank and the conductor on the rear platform, the platform . Two thirds of the cars had a closed car body and an open platform at the front and rear. A third of the wagons were summer wagons with open compartments and running boards alongside .
The first line to open was the Deutz - Kalk line on April 28, 1877, and the line from Nippes to Flora on October 8, 1879 . On May 25, 1882, operations on the Dom - Zuckerberg - Zoo route began. The main depot and the management of the fast-growing horse-drawn trams were located in Weißbüttengasse.
In 1885, the Cologne-Marienburg villa colony received a transport connection through the horse-drawn tram running on Bonner Strasse to Arnoldshöhe. The "Ringbahn" began operating on April 14, 1889 between Riehler Strasse and Flora and ran from there over the Cologne rings . On May 19, 1889, the north station of the Cologne Tram Company opened at Riehler Strasse 200 (between Riehler Strasse and Oberländer Ufer) and offered space for 115 horses and 61 carriages. In the opinion of hauliers, Venloer Strasse was the busiest street in and around Cologne; Land wagons , brick, coal, iron and lead wagons drove here. On the Venloer Straße, where the Herbrand wagon factory had its headquarters at no. 427, a horse-drawn tram line to Heumarkt ran from October 31, 1891 .
competitor
After a municipal tender, the Brussels Frédéric de la Hault (born February 15, 1826 in Antwerp , † July 24, 1882 in Brussels ) received a contract for horse-drawn trams in the city center on July 29, 1879 ("narrower circular railway") with the Dom line - Heumarkt - Waidmarkt - Blaubach - Rotgerberbach - Mauritiussteinweg - St.-Apern-Straße - Zeughausstraße - Komödienstraße - Trankgasse. This was followed by the horse-drawn tram line, which had become important for excursion traffic in Cologne, from the cathedral along the banks of the Rhine to the Zuckerberg to the Zoological Garden.
fusion
Both competing operators, who did not coordinate the timetables with each other, merged - shortly before de la Hault's death - on June 3, 1882 to form Société Anonyme de Tramways de Cologne , based in Brussels and domiciled in Cologne, which was still based primarily on Belgian capital. The city itself spoke of the Cologne tram company . This received a new contract from the city on July 19, 1882, when the Hardt company network already covered 40 kilometers. Among other things, he provided for a horse-drawn tram line from the city limits via Neusser Strasse and Eigelstein to Allerheiligenstrasse. The contract signed on July 19, 1882 included ten horse-drawn tram lines:
- City limits - Dead Jews - Severinstrasse - Waidmarkt
- City limits - Zülpicher Straße - Neues Weyertor - Blaubach
- City limits - Aachener Straße - Hahnentorburg - Hahnenstraße - Im Laach - Neumarkt
- City limits - Friesenstor - St.-Apern-Straße
- City limits - Neusser Straße - Eigelsteintor - Eigelstein to Allerheiligenstraße
- City limits - Mülheimer Weg - Eigelstein
- City limits - Mülheimer Weg - west and south of the former Rheinischer Bahnhof - Am Thürmchen - Trankgasse - Frankenplatz
- Trankgasse - Frankenturm - Bulwark
- Waidmarkt - Mühlenbach - Malzmühle - Malzbüchel - east side Heumarkt - Unter Käster - Alter Markt - Zollstrasse - Bollwerk - Bischofsgartengasse - Frankenplatz
- Line of the narrower circular track
The constant line construction led to a line length of 50.4 km in 1891, in 1895 it was 57.8 km, in 1899 it was 62.8 km. In 1899, 765 horses pulled 341 carriages that carried 27 million passengers. The total income increased from 1.14 million to 3.1 million marks. The horse-drawn tram between the city of Mülheim am Rhein and Deutz, which was also opened by E. Hardt & Co. in 1880 and operated until September 1903, carried a total of 390,831 people in 1885 and 815,726 people in 1900.
The fare was initially 25 pfennigs, but was reduced to 15 pfennigs in 1895 after the local shipping company Mülheim – Cologne (the Müllemer Bötchen ) had reduced its tariff.
omnibus
Around the middle of the 19th century, passenger traffic was still largely handled by express and driving posts (post = post), which were mainly used for long-distance traffic. In Cologne, horse-drawn omnibuses and cabs were used in the immediate vicinity , serving various suburbs between the individual railway stations and ship landing stages.
These horse-drawn bus lines operated at that time could not hold their own for long against the “Päädsbahnwagen” due to a lack of profitability. In the vehicle fleet of a Cölner bus line there was a deck seat car that was only used when the weather was good. As early as December 28, 1864, the Cölner Omnibusgesellschaft set up a regular trip with three cars from Mülheim to Deutz.
In 1925, bus and coach operations were opened in Cologne after the Straßen-Omnibus-Gesellschaft mbH was founded . The bus operation should now establish additional connections between the individual districts or connections to the trams and suburban railways.
Electric train / electrified tram
The fact that the electrical operation of the railways in Cologne was introduced later than in other cities was mainly due to the fact that the city of Cologne had concluded long-term contracts with the operator of the horse-drawn railway, in some cases until 1924. The city of Cologne was interested in supporting the connection to the constantly advancing technology of the electric railways, but was only allowed to operate electric railways where there was no competition with the horse-drawn tram routes and should therefore have done without profitable lines. The society in turn was dependent on the concession of the city.
Until 1918
On January 1, 1900, the city acquired the company at a price of 19.995 million marks (14.5 million marks of which were for the no longer usable concessions, 5.4 million marks for operating resources) and named it Bahnen der Stadt Cöln , on January 1, 1900 . April 1900 the city took over the operation of the network. The municipal building officer and alderman Peter Scheidtweiler (* February 24, 1857 in Cologne, † June 21, 1912 ibid) provided from May 31, 1900 to November 15, 1903 as an alderman of the city and department head for railways, gas, water and Electricity works for a conversion and expansion of the rail network, especially the suburban railways. On October 15, 1901, the first "electric" ran on sections of the ring and on the river bank between the cathedral and the zoo. From September 14, 1902, an electric tram ran along Venloer Strasse from Heliosstrasse to the east. The last horse tram service ran until May 22, 1907 on the Nippes – Flora line. By February 1903, all horse-drawn tram lines, with the exception of the line across Florastraße, had been converted to electrical operation. Scheidtweilerstraße - the seat of today's KVB headquarters - is named after him and not after Scheidtweiler . The building officer Scheidtweiler switched to Gutehoffnungshütte in 1903 . Since then, the conversion to the "electric" has been pushed ahead rapidly and essentially completed by 1903 at a cost of 14 million marks. By the end of 1904, 238 railcars were available, supplied by the van der Zypen & Charlier , Herbrand & Co , Falkenried and Uerdingen wagon factories . The cost of the wagons was low, because the horse-drawn tram cars suitable for the conversion were given clutches, electric brakes and electric lighting.
In 1908 358 railcars with a dead weight of approx. 10 tons were used, with a length of 8 and a width of 2.05 meters offering 16 seats on longitudinal benches and 17 standing places on the platforms. The railcars reached a maximum speed of 8 to 25 km / h with two electric motors each of approx. 25 HP, depending on the route. Newer railcars were equipped with two 25 hp engines in 1906 and two 41 hp engines in 1913. By 1913, around 455 railcars and 524 sidecars were in use. The wheelbase increased from initially 1.7 m to 1.8 m to 2.5 m in 1914 and to 3 m in 1917.
During the First World War , goods were also transported by tram, because both carriage horses and trucks were at the front. The tram transported briquettes and food for the resident population as well as weapons and ammunition from factories and barracks to the train stations and fortifications on the outskirts. For this purpose, around 50 sidings with a total length of over 30 kilometers were built in a few months after the start of the war. War wounded were also transported in special trailers from the train stations to the hospitals in the city.
But not only horses and trucks were deployed in the war, but also numerous tram workers. This is why women were also hired from 1915, initially only as conductors, from 1916 also as drivers and a little later also in the workshops. However, since the women earned significantly less while doing the same job and also had fewer days off than their male colleagues, in June 1917 the women employed by the trams went on a strike that lasted several days. The result was a wage increase and more days off.
During the First World War, a second fixed road bridge was also built to replace the Deutz ship bridge opened in 1822 . A second crossing was also available for the tram, which was supposed to relieve the Hohenzollern Bridge . Due to the war, however, it could initially only be connected from the right bank of the Rhine.
From 1918 to 1939
The end of the war initially brought the female workers off work for the Cologne tram. Because these were only hired as temporary workers, the men returning from the war took over their jobs again. Since there were almost no spare parts during the war, vehicles and rails were badly worn. After the war, many vehicles could no longer be used. The British occupation army also led to further expenses. The British demanded the construction of further routes to their living quarters and barracks, whereby the members of the occupation forces were allowed to travel at a greatly reduced fare that did not cover the costs.
The interwar period in Cologne was not only characterized by economic hardship and high unemployment, but also by a sudden increase in population from 635,000 before the start of the war to over 750,000 in 1933 new tram routes (for example the belt route) were developed. There were also new settlements by well-known industrial companies, such as B. the Ford works north of Niehl and the construction of the exhibition halls in Deutz , which got a tram connection at the main entrance. A large sports center was also built in the area of the looped fortifications, including a connection to the tram network from the opening. On the other hand, the planned extensions of the suburban railway lines did not take place, apart from a small extension of the O line in Opladen , which thus got a connection to the overland tram from Opladen to Ohligs .
In the second half of the 1920s, specific plans were made for a sustainable rapid transit network that was to be run in tunnels in the city center. However, these routes were considered unprofitable, so it would take another 40 years until the first Cologne tunnel route. However, until the Second World War, there were repeated designs for such tunnels.
The necessary expansion of the company led to the construction of a new main workshop in Weidenpesch and new, contemporary depots in Braunsfeld and Sülz , which replaced the old depots from the horse-drawn tram era.
Another important extension was the opening of the Mülheimer Brücke as the third Rhine crossing of the tram in October 1929. Together with the takeover of the Mülheimer Kleinbahnen in 1933, the connection to the suburbs in the north and east on the right bank of the Rhine was greatly improved.
The National Socialist expansion plans for Cologne envisaged an almost 70 m wide parade street from Rudolfplatz via Neumarkt and Heumarkt, the Deutz Bridge to the planned “Gauforum” in Deutz. As one of the first construction measures carried out for this purpose, Hahnenstrasse between Rudolfplatz and Neumarkt (east-west axis) was widened to around 30 meters from 1938 . Tram tracks were laid on this wide road link in 1939. The significantly better guidance on the east-west axis meant that previous routes in narrow parallel streets could be abandoned and closed; this was partly a result of increasing motor traffic. The new tram cars - because they were longer and wider - were no longer suitable for the old routes from the horse-drawn tram era.
Destruction and reconstruction during and after the Second World War
As during the First World War, goods and wounded transports were again carried out by tram. And women were also recruited to replace male workers at war. But that was not enough either, as there were sometimes more attractive jobs for the women, and sometimes they were transferred to jobs that were more important to the war effort. For example, from the beginning of 1941, forced laborers were deployed . These consisted of prisoners of war and civilian workers from occupied countries.
In May 1940, the Allied air raids on Cologne began. The tram initially responded to this with organizational measures: lines that crossed the city center were separated so that any damage would not be impaired on the entire route. They also gradually began to park the railcars not all in the depots during the night, but also in the outskirts. As a result, if a depot is destroyed, the entire vehicle fleet should not be destroyed. That was also necessary, because the Ehrenfeld and Braunsfeld depots were completely destroyed and the South depot in Bayenthal partially destroyed as early as 1941 and 1942 .
Nevertheless, the increasingly violent air raids led to massive operational restrictions: Overhead lines , the substations necessary for the traction power supply and of course numerous motor coaches and sidecars were destroyed. The tracks were also hit by numerous bombs, and other routes lay beneath the rubble of destroyed houses. Since the overhead lines were mostly attached to the house facades, temporary masts often had to be erected. In order to alleviate the shortage of vehicles, the Wehrmacht seized numerous trams and buses in occupied countries and transported them to Germany. Some of them also drove in Cologne.
Even so, operations did not always succeed. Some routes could only be put back into operation after several weeks of repairs, others not at all for the time being. In some sections, the wagons had to be pulled by diesel locomotives due to the lack of overhead lines. From the summer of 1944, numerous routes in the city center were no longer served, and with the destruction of the Mülheim Bridge in October 1944, there was only a fragmentary operation.
The last trains ran in Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine in January 1945, on the right bank of the Rhine there were still isolated journeys on some sections of the suburban railway lines up to April 1945.
When Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine was occupied by the Americans in March 1945, they took stock. Of the 550 or so railcars at the beginning of the war, only 18 were still operational, a large part of the lines was covered by rubble and most of the overhead lines were no longer hanging. In the following months operations were resumed in stages. On some suburban lines on the right bank of the Rhine there was only a break of a few days, while the first trains did not run again until June 1945 in Cologne on the left bank of the Rhine, which was considerably more damaged. In September 1945, a continuous north-south operation from the military ring road in Weidenpesch to the Arnoldshöhe in Marienburg was possible again. The tram tracks were also used to remove the huge amounts of debris.
In the spring of 1947, 75% of the pre-war network was navigable again, but the Rhine crossings were still missing for the time being. In October 1948, the rebuilt Deutz Bridge was the first tram connection across the Rhine, followed by the second, the Mülheim Bridge in 1951. The road section of the Hohenzollern Bridge was not rebuilt, however.
However, while the routes to the districts outside the ring road surrounding the old town were almost without exception put back into operation, initially only a small part of the dense pre-war network remained in the city center: apart from the route on the ring road from Ubierring to Ebertplatz , there was a branch line from Christophstraße to the main train station and a distance from Deutzer Brücke over Neumarkt to Rudolfplatz. The latter had a branch from Neumarkt to Zülpicher Platz and on to Sülz. This line still exists today, but with a slightly different track layout at the three large squares Heumarkt, Neumarkt and Rudolfplatz. The only end-to-end north-south connection on the left bank of the Rhine apart from the Belt Railway, which is located far outside, was the route on the Rings, which was soon overloaded with the increasing volume of traffic and the increasing amount of traffic with which the tram shared the Ringstrasse. There was also the route of the Cologne-Bonn railways, which ran on the banks of the Rhine from the main station under the Deutz bridge to Rodenkirchen and from there to Bonn. The transfer options to the tram and suburban railway network were limited and only existed at Heumarkt and in the southern part of the city between Ubierring and Rodenkirchen.
Outside the city center, only the following routes were not put back into operation. The routes were either only a few hundred meters long or a parallel route was not too far away:
- The route on the Kempener Straße to Nippes
- The route on Berrenrather Straße in Sülz
- The branch line to the main entrance of the fair in Deutz
- The suburban train to Frechen (line F) no longer ran between the city center and the Gürtel on Dürener Strasse, but on the tracks of the tram on Aachener Strasse.
The 1950s
First of all, the name changed at the beginning of the decade: On November 6, 1950, the "Bahnen der Stadt Köln" became the " Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe " (KVB), which was converted into a stock corporation in November 1960 .
The plans for the reconstruction of Cologne made use of the extensive destruction of the historic city center. A car-friendly city with wider access roads to shops, offices and the main train station was planned, but only partially realized. The tram as a means of public transport no longer played a leading role in these plans. Rather, bus traffic was expanded, as it was believed that with a dense bus network and increasing individual traffic, the tram could be dispensed with in many places, especially in the dense road network of the inner-city residential and business districts; instead, main axes were gradually expanded, on which wider trams than in the pre-war period could be used. Since the beginning of the century the ramp of the Hohenzollern Bridge at the cathedral and since the opening of the Deutz Bridge the Heumarkt the most important junction in the tram network, the Neumarkt has now been expanded to become the main junction where almost all suburban lines and many city lines meet. A trolleybus as a new means of transport for Cologne was also tested from 1950 to 1959 on the Neumarkt – Rudolfplatz – Hohenlind route. This extensive test run on a line with a short branch line to the university led to the decision not to introduce a trolleybus system in Cologne.
The tram network in 1952 had the following lines:
Suburban railways
- B: Bensberg - Neumarkt
- Q: Frechen - Rudolfplatz
- G: Bergisch Gladbach - Neumarkt
- K: Königsforst - Neumarkt
- L: Lövenich - Neumarkt
- O: Opladen - rings - Chlodwigplatz
- P: Porz-Zündorf - Neumarkt
- S: Schlebusch - Neumarkt
City network
- 1: Bocklemünd - Friesenplatz - Rudolfplatz - Neumarkt - Merheim *
- 2: Bocklemünd - Friesenplatz - Höhenhaus
- 4: Escher Straße - Christophstraße - Dom / Hbf.
- 5: Ossendorf - Christophstraße - Dom / Hbf. *
- 7: Raderberg - Chlodwigplatz - Neumarkt
- 8: Müngersdorf - Rudolfplatz - Neumarkt
- 10: Mauenheim - Ebertplatz - Rings - Rudolfplatz - Neumarkt
- 11: Bayenthal - Chlodwigplatz - Rings - Ebertplatz - Weidenpesch
- 12: Folding rule - Barbarossaplatz - Rings - Ebertplatz - Niehl *
- 13: Takuplatz - Gürtel - Neuenhöfer Allee *
- 14: Bickendorf - Friesenplatz - Rings - Zoo - Riehl
- 15: Sülz - Zülpicher Platz - rings - Christophstraße - cathedral / main station.
- 16: Rodenkirchen - Rings - Mülheim *
- 19: Sülz - Zülpicher Platz - Neumarkt
- 20: Klettenberg - Zülpicher Platz - Neumarkt
- 21: Klettenberg - Zülpicher Platz - rings - Christophstraße - cathedral / main station.
- 22: Dellbrück - Mülheim
- 25: train station Mülheim - Buchheim - Neumarkt - Rudolfplatz - Müngersdorf.
(Some of the routes marked with an asterisk are still used with the same route number.)
The preference of the bus over the tram in terms of route kilometers and the sometimes precarious condition of numerous track systems led to route closures in the urban and suburban network in the 1950s. In detail, the following were shut down:
- The branch line to the slaughterhouse in Ehrenfeld (closed on October 24, 1955)
- The (single-track) line from Bayenthal to Arnoldshöhe on Bonner Strasse (discontinued on September 10, 1951)
- The route from Neusser Strasse to the Nordfriedhof (discontinued April 25, 1955)
- The route from the zoo to Riehl (discontinued on January 4, 1954)
- The route from Bayenthal to Raderberg (discontinued October 24, 1955)
- The suburban route of line L from Junkersdorf to Lövenich (discontinued on October 22, 1956)
- The suburban line from Thielenbruch to Bergisch Gladbach (line G) (discontinued on May 6, 1957 to Gronau and on November 16, 1958 to Thielenbruch)
- The suburban line from Mülheim via Leverkusen to Opladen (line O) (discontinued on October 26, 1958)
- The section of the suburban line to Schlebusch (line S) leading beyond the city limits (discontinued on May 1, 1958)
One reason for the closure of many suburban lines was the refusal of the neighboring municipalities to participate in the modernization of tracks and vehicles with an appropriate share.
However, towards the end of the 1950s, there were also the first new tram routes and improved routes. The most important new facility was the opening of the Severinsbrücke on November 7, 1959. 14 years after the end of the war, there was a third Rhine crossing for the tram (at the Hohenzollern Bridge from the main station to Cologne-Deutz, only the railway section was rebuilt after the war). On the right bank of the Rhine, tracks were laid on the Gotenring avenue in Deutz, which had been quiet until then, as access to the new Rhine bridge; On the left bank of the Rhine there were two access routes, one from Neumarkt via Poststrasse, a second from Barbarossaplatz via Neue Weyerstrasse. Since a triangular track was built at the junction of the two access routes on Rothgerberbach, the Barbarossaplatz – Neumarkt connection was also possible.
Another new installation was the relocation of the route in Neuehrenfeld between Gürtel and Iltisstraße on Nussbaumer Straße instead of across Lenauplatz as before .
Furthermore, in the following years, all single-track sections were expanded to double- track, all end points provided with reversing loops , the tracks expanded in such a way that a larger wagon width was possible by increasing the center-to-center distance , and as many sections of the route as possible were laid on their own track. This expansion had already started in the 1920s, and in the mid-1960s Cologne was the city in Europe with the highest proportion of tram tracks on its own track.
However, three major problem areas remained in the city center: Firstly, there was still only one branch line to the central station in the middle of the narrow old town; secondly, there was only one north-south connection, which reached its capacity limit with a train sequence of one minute in rush hour (it led over the rings that surround the old town area in a semicircle); Thirdly, the two lines of the Cologne-Bonn Railways (KBE), the Vorgebirgsbahn and the Rheinuferbahn, should be integrated into the tram network in the medium term in order to achieve a better link and make the KBE routes more attractive.
Since up to the middle of the decade in Cologne, as in many major German cities, the future of the tram was sometimes fundamentally questioned, relatively few new vehicles were purchased. The financial resources for the reconstruction of the city, which was still badly damaged by the war, also had to be distributed over numerous areas (administration buildings, schools, residential buildings) so that the tram could be seen as one project among many. Not all ideas from the pre-war period (including the construction of a subway for the fourth largest German city) were now considered; transitional solutions were often required. In addition to 31 railcars of the war tram and body car type , which were delivered between 1948 and 1951, and 18 new railcars for the suburban railways, which were put into operation between 1953 and 1955, only pre-war vehicles ran in Cologne.
However, since the operation of vehicles with wooden structures was prohibited for fire protection reasons in 1960, a large part of the vehicle fleet had to be replaced in a few years. A big innovation was the 80 open- plan cars delivered in 1956 by the Cologne manufacturer Westwaggon , which were normally used in double traction. These were also the first Cologne trams with a width of 2.5 m. Since these longer and wider vehicles could not drive on all sections of the route, another 50 classic two-axle tram cars with sidecars were procured between 1956 and 1958. At the same time, 26 four-axle articulated vehicles were procured as the first articulated vehicles in Cologne. After the articulated wagons proved their worth, the two-axle vehicles were also converted to articulated wagons as early as 1960.
In addition, another 40 larger and 2.5 m wide six-axle articulated railcars were delivered in 1959/1960. They were extended to eight-axle vehicles after just five years. In order to save costs, these vehicles were given overhauled old engines, which was one reason for their being out of service after only 17 years of operation.
The 1960s: On the way to the light rail
The expansion of the last few years continued in the new decade: in 1961 a new line was opened from Weidenpesch through the Gartenstadt Nord to Longerich , which ten years later was extended to Heimersdorf and Chorweiler using the subway .
On December 16, 1962, the line between the two largest districts on the right bank of the Rhine, Deutz and Mülheim, was relocated to the median of the four-lane Palatinate and Bergische Ring. In 1963 the belt line in the north from Neuehrenfeld to Bilderstöckchen was extended, with this new line having to give way to the elevated railway line only eleven years later. In the course of the suburban line to Bensberg, on November 17, 1964, a new track was opened on its own track between Höhenberg, Bennoplatz and Höhenberg, Frankfurter Straße. It replaced the street-level route on the narrow Olpener Strasse in Höhenberg.
Since August 1966 the first trains have been running without conductors, and in 1967 the last reopening of the “pre-Stadtbahn era” took place: From Weidenpesch, a direct tram connection to Cologne's largest employer, the Ford works in Niehl , was finally created. Until then, the last few kilometers to work had to be covered by buses. Three years later, it was extended again by 1.4 km from the Fordwerke loop and the oil port to Merkenich . Another 900 meter long route extension was in Ossendorf, where the Cologne prison was newly built. Line 5 now ran on its own track along Rochusstraße and the prison officials' settlement next to the prison to Butzweiler Straße, where, in addition to the double-track reversing loop of the tram, a large bus reversing loop was created for several lines. The route of the former suburban railway to Schlebusch was also replaced in the Höhenhaus area in 1967 by a section that had been developed in a trough - free location .
But not only on the routes, but also in the vehicle sector: after Westwaggon had stopped building tram cars, the new house supplier DUEWAG delivered 55 six-axle articulated cars with a car body width of 2.5 m in 1963/1964 . But as early as 1964/1965, 37 eight-axle DUEWAG vehicles with a length of 30 m followed. After the vehicles had proven themselves on the urban and suburban routes, more were ordered and the six-axle vehicles were extended to eight-axle vehicles. After all, 200 of these vehicles were in use in Cologne. In order to be able to integrate all suburban lines into the city network, turning loops had to be built at the terminus. Finally, in 1969, the last suburban line was converted into tram line 20 with the F line.
The rising personnel costs and the shortage of labor in the early 1960s led to further rationalization measures in the company: One month before the start of operations in the first short tunnel section in 1968, Cologne was the first tram operator in West Germany that no longer used conductors. A large number of the previous conductors were retrained as drivers, others took on control tasks. The sale of tickets had to be taken over by the drivers, but this was supported by an increasing number of ticket machines at the stops . In contrast, vending machines on trains were not introduced until around 1980. There were also numerous points of sale for multi-trip, weekly and monthly tickets at kiosks and stationery shops. In order to simplify the sale of tickets, a new tariff structure was introduced: A uniform tariff applied within the city area, a surcharge only had to be paid for crossing the city limits. Women were also hired again in the driving service, which had only happened during the two world wars until then.
After the urgent problem of the second north-south connection was discussed over a number of years with various routes (including along the north-south route, a new breakthrough for motor vehicle traffic through the old town area, which consists almost entirely of narrow, winding streets City center), the Cologne city council decided in February 1962 to build a tunnel from Severinsbrücke or Barbarossaplatz via Neumarkt to Friesenplatz or via the main train station to Ebertplatz. However, this was not to be a subway as they were known from Berlin and Hamburg , but a sub-paving tram , the tunnel sections of which could be extended in further construction phases. Beyond the tunnel ends, the train continued to drive on the surface, partly in the midst of motor vehicle traffic, partly preferably on its own track bed separated from car traffic. At the time, the financing options did not allow cost-intensive underground construction that would have required a longer trunk route from the start. Construction began in 1963, the first section opened on October 11, 1968 (from Dom / Hauptbahnhof to Friesenplatz with two tunnel stations).
This model between tram and subway was also imitated in numerous other cities, especially in the large cities of North Rhine-Westphalia, which experienced a similar traffic density as Cologne, but also abroad, for example in Brussels and Antwerp . The Bavarian capital Munich was the third city in Germany to set up a classic underground network in the 1970s, followed by Frankfurt am Main, which, however, initially started the underground era with a mixed system of tunnel and street traffic.
The further development of Cologne's local transport can be found under Stadtbahn Köln .
Suburban railways
Both the city of Cologne and the then Prussian minister for public works agreed to establish better connections between the suburbs and the big city and to improve economic relations with the suburbs. At the end of the 19th century, Cologne was also trying to get small railways on the right bank of the Rhine. At the time, suburban railways were planned in almost all directions: on the right bank of the Rhine to Porz with an extension to Beuel, to the Königsforst and on to Rösrath, to Brück-Bensberg and Bergisch Gladbach and in the direction of Opladen and Schlebusch with continuation to Solingen. On the left bank of the Rhine, an overland tram via Worringen to Dormagen with a possible extension to Neuss , then a Cologne – Weiden – Lövenich – Ichendorf line, and even a Cologne – Düsseldorf urban railway , which should be operated jointly with two Berlin electricity companies - was already being planned . Since there were no collective bargaining agreements with the state railroad at that time, many such routes were planned and built despite the parallel railway lines.
Already in January 1897, the cities of Mülheim am Rhein and Bergisch Gladbach had been given a permit to build and operate a small railway from Mülheim to Herrenstrunden. Initially, an agreement was reached with the city of Cologne on the construction of a circular railway from Cologne via Kalk to Bensberg, then via Bergisch Gladbach and Mülheim back to Cologne. The railway committee founded for this was faced with new difficulties when Bergisch Gladbach decided to connect with the Mülheimer Kleinbahn . So only the plans for a line in a meter gauge Cologne – Kalk – Bensberg remained, until the city of Cologne succeeded in dissuading the parties from this plan after a long dispute.
The suburban railways have been using the cathedral bridge built in 1855–1859 when crossing the Rhine since 1902. The new railway bridge was completed in 1909 and the road bridge next to it in 1910. The suburban railways to Königsforst, Brück-Bensberg, Bergisch Gladbach and Porz got their final stop after the construction of the Hohenzollern Bridge on the left bank of the Rhine at the end of the bridge ramp below the cathedral choir. After the opening of the Deutz Bridge as another Rhine crossing and the corresponding expansion of the tracks on the left bank of the Rhine, the terminus was moved there. Line O to Opladen, on the other hand, was run after the takeover of Mülheimer Kleinbahnen over the Mülheimer Brücke to Ebertplatz in Cologne's northern part, and later even to the Ubierring in Cologne's southern part.
The suburban lines differed from the inner-city tram lines in that they were larger, more comfortably furnished vehicles, white paint (in contrast to the initially dark green trams) and the designation with letters. The inner-city tram lines, on the other hand, were designated with numbers. Initially, the letters were assigned in the order in which the suburban lines were commissioned. In the course of the takeover of the Mülheimer Kleinbahnen in 1933 a fundamental change occurred: Now the first letter of the out-of-town destination designated the line; Line B led to Bensberg, G to (Bergisch) Gladbach, P to Porz (-Zündorf), K to Königsforst, L to Lövenich, S to Schlebusch and O to Opladen. The line to Frechen (-Benzelrath) was already under the abbreviation F. Although the line to Rodenkirchen also crossed the city limits, it was not counted among the suburban railways, but was always considered a city line with a number as the line designation.
From 1959 to 1969, the suburban railways were gradually integrated into the tram network so that lines crossing the city were formed, while until the Second World War and in the post-war period, most of the suburban railway lines ran from the inner-city terminus Heumarkt and Neumarkt out of town. The lines were also increasingly used with the same vehicles as the inner-city lines and were eventually adopted in their numbering scheme. Line F was the last to be renamed 20; Today (as of 2017) it forms, together with the old suburban line P, Line 7, which thus commutes between Frechen-Benzelrath, southwest of Cologne, on the left bank of the Rhine, and Porz-Zündorf in Cologne, south of the Rhine, via Neumarkt in the center of Cologne.
Suburban railway line Cologne - Rath - Königsforst
Line A was the first completed suburban railway in Cologne from the bridge ramp at the foot of the cathedral to the Königsforst. On January 2, 1904, it began operations as far as Heumar. On April 17, 1904, the line was extended to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum on the city side and on August 27, 1904 to the Königsforst , a popular excursion destination. After crossing the Rhine on the Hohenzollern Bridge (May 22, 1910 reopening after renovation) and the bridge ramp on the right bank of the Rhine to Urbanstraße, she first used the existing streets of Urbanstraße, Deutzer Freiheit, Düsseldorfer Straße (today Graf-Geßler-Straße), Constantinstraße ( at that time Kalker Straße), Deutz-Kalker Straße and the Kalker Hauptstraße. At the Kalker Kapelle she turned south onto Kapellenstrasse and followed the course of the road via Vingst to Ostheim. We continued on our own track via Rath-Heumar to the Königsforst. At the border between Kalk and Vingst (Kapellenstrasse / corner of Ostheimer Strasse) there was a level crossing with the state railroad tracks. The restriction on driving over this obstacle could only be lifted on May 8, 1904 (only on Sundays) and from July 6, 1904 (permanent). On June 28, 1907, the railway line was raised, which enabled line A to be routed through an underpass without crossing. On May 26, 1909, the line was relocated in Deutz. There, a road breakthrough from Freiheitsstrasse to Deutz-Kalker Strasse enabled the direct route to Kalk. The cumbersome bypass via Mülheimer Tor (today the intersection of Opladener Straße / Deutz-Mülheimer Straße / Justinianstraße) to what was then Kalker Straße could be discontinued.
On October 22, 1922, the city-side terminus was relocated to Heumarkt. For this purpose, the suburban railway used the Deutz suspension bridge, which was completed on July 15, 1915. In 1926, a turning loop with erecting tracks was created at the Königsforst. The obstructive relocation of the railcar could thus be eliminated. The previous single-track sections between Kalk / Kapelle and Vingst / railway underpass as well as Ostheim / Frankfurter Strasse and Königsforst were expanded to double-track in 1928/1929. With the winter timetable on October 16, 1933, the suburban railway lines were uniformly marked with the first letter of their final destination. Line A became line K. The loop system at Heumarkt required a renovation due to overload, which was completed in 1937. The renovation of the Hindenburg Bridge (which was called the Deutz suspension bridge until 1934) in 1939/1940 meant that it was necessary to temporarily divert it over the Hohenzollern Bridge to the end of the city, the Museum .
The bomb damage to the Hindenburg Bridge in February 1943 again forced the route to be relocated over the Hohenzollern Bridge to the museum. This diversion was canceled on August 5, 1943. Further bomb damage in the suburbs temporarily only allowed shuttle traffic. With the winter timetable of October 11, 1943, these restrictions were also over. In 1944 it was only possible to drive in parts of the K line; the crossing of the Rhine over the Hindenburg Bridge was no longer permitted from October 1944 onwards.
After the war, operations were resumed in sections. From July 16, 1945 the line ran from Königsforst to Ostheim / Frankfurter Strasse, on July 26, 1945 to Vingst / Heßhofstrasse and from August 7, 1945 via Kalk to the Deutz depot on Deutz-Kalker Strasse. With the opening of the first tram line 1 on the left bank of the Rhine from Deutz / Bahnhof to Merheim, on the right bank of the Rhine on March 4, 1946, the route of the suburban railway to the center of Deutz was free again. The line ended at the Gotenring. For this purpose, there was a block loop over Constantinstrasse and Justinianstrasse. This bypass was abandoned on October 1, 1947, now the K trains continued on Deutz-Kalker Straße and Deutzer Freiheit to the new terminus on Siegburger Straße. The completion of the Deutz Bridge on October 17, 1948, was decisive for road and suburban rail traffic crossing the Rhine. From then on, line K ran between Lövenich and Königsforst. This created the first direct east-west connection on the left bank of the Rhine via Aachener Straße - Rudolfplatz - Hahnenstraße - Neumarkt - Cäcilienstraße - Kleine Sandkaul - Gürzenichstraße - Heumarkt and on the right bank of the Rhine via Mindener Straße and Constantinstraße. The section through the Deutzer Freiheit could be abandoned.
However, this connection only lasted a week. Already on October 25, 1948, the trains on Line K ended again in Cologne city center - but now it was not the Heumarkt, but the Neumarkt final stop. The Gürzenichstrasse - Kleine Sandkaul bottleneck was replaced on May 5, 1951 by a road breakthrough along the Augustinerstrasse. This route has essentially remained until today. The construction of the subway between today's Deutzer Freiheit and Vingst stops made only a few changes to the route in the Deutz and Kalk-Ost areas necessary.
In the meantime, the former suburban railway line has become a light rail line. The changeover began with the winter timetable on November 9, 1959. Line 8 now ran between Junkersdorf via Neumarkt and Deutz to Königsforst. It was reinforced by line 9 in the Deutz to Vingst section. The routes of lines 8 and 9 were merged by the timetable change on June 12, 1967, and line 19 led from the Gartenstadt Nord (Longerich / Weidenpesch) via the rings and the Neumarkt as well as Deutz and Kalk to the Königsforst. With the timetable change on October 19, 1970, line 9 used the route of the former suburban railway line. At that time it led from Longerich via Nippes – Ebertplatz – Dom / Hauptbahnhof – Neumarkt – Severinsbrücke – Deutz – Kalk – Vingst – Ostheim to the Königsforst. The Neumarkt – Heumarkt – Deutz – Kalk section has since been served by Line 1 (Sülz – Bensberg) and Line 8 (Junkersdorf – Brück). On September 25, 1994 the lines were changed again, since then line 9 has led from Sülz via Neumarkt, Deutz, Kalk and Vingst to the Königsforst.
Suburban railway line Cologne - Brück - Bensberg
On November 27, 1906, the first suburban train on Line B ran between Cologne and Brück, which followed the Königsforster Bahn railway to Kalk, via Höhenberg, Merheim to Brück. In July 1913, the route to Bensberg was extended to 15 kilometers. The line was extended by a few hundred meters in 2000. A tunnel was opened from the previous terminus to the new underground terminus in the heart of Bensberg. At this final stop with bus station and integrated underground car park , tram line 1 ends today.
Suburban railway line Cologne - Bergisch Gladbach
On December 12, 1906, the first small train vehicles were used on Line C from Cologne via Buchheim, Holweide and Dellbrück to Bergisch Gladbach ; There was a connecting line (line D) between Mülheim and Holweide. From Thielenbruch the line was completely single-track (apart from the diversion), from Bergisch Gladbach-Gronau the line was also in the road surface and ended in the upper main street at the level of the Protestant church of grace .
In the 1950s - now Line G - the line outside Cologne was in great need of renovation. But as the passenger trains of the railway line between Cologne and Lindlar Cologne on the western and southern parts of Bergisch Gladbach wrong, the city Bergisch Gladbach did not want to pay for the much-needed renovation of the route Cologne suburb train. As a result, these trains only ran to Bergisch Gladbach-Gronau for the time being, the remaining route to the city center was no longer used. From 1958 the route finally ended in the Cologne city area at the Thielenbruch depot ; the section through the forest to Bergisch Gladbach-Gronau was converted to bus traffic and the tracks removed. The former route to Gronau can now be used as a footpath and bike path .
Suburban railway line Cologne - Porz-Zündorf
The eleven-kilometer-long, electrically operated small train, which was put into operation on April 15, 1909, led after crossing the Rhine bridge over Siegburger Strasse to Porz ; this line E (later P) was extended twelve years later by two kilometers to Zündorf. From there it was possible to change to the small train to Siegburg . For a few years, some Cologne trains continued on the small railway line to Niederkassel. In the south the railway only ran an independent railway body from Poll; the route south of Poll was built on a railroad, one section was operated jointly with the municipal port railway. This line was set up specifically for the freight traffic of the Chemical Factory Kalk; in addition to special wagons, two locomotives with 2 × 50 hp each and a battery locomotive were used for this route . The designation P disappeared in 1967.
An extension of the successor line (tram line 7) to the south in the direction of Bonn-Beuel is currently being considered (as of 2017).
Suburban railway Cologne - Weiden - Lövenich
On August 17, 1912, Line G began operating on the almost nine-kilometer route, starting at Neumarkt, via the tracks on Aachener Strasse through Weiden to Lövenich. However, only the last few kilometers from Müngersdorf to Lövenich were new buildings, while the horse-drawn tram, which was electrified in 1902, was already in operation as far as Müngersdorf from 1886. Operation on the section from Junkersdorf to Lövenich was discontinued in 1956. More than 40 years later, the newly built line to Weiden was put into operation in 2002, which was extended to the city limits in 2006, where there has since been a transfer to the Cologne S-Bahn (Cologne – Düren line).
Railway Cologne - Frechen-Benzelrath
On January 1, 1904, the city of Cologne took over the Cologne-Frechen-Benzelrath Railway (KFBE) , built in 1891, from the municipality of Frechen . In contrast to the other railways to the suburbs, this was a steam-powered railroad on meter gauge tracks. The far more important freight traffic from Frechen to the Ehrenfeld state train station, however, was operated as a standard-gauge line from the start. In the Benzelrath terminus, west of Frechen, there was a possibility to change trains on the Bergheimer Kreisbahn , which was nationalized in 1913. By 1914, the passenger train route was converted to standard gauge and electrified, but as line F it continued to play a special role within the Cologne suburban railways: the operator was the KFBE until 1969, the trains were licensed as railway vehicles. The trains ran on Dürener Strasse until a large part of the route was destroyed in the war in Cologne and ended on Flandrische Strasse near Rudolfplatz . During the reconstruction, the line between the city center and the Lindenthal belt was not put back into operation. The trains to Frechen now run over the much wider Aachener Straße and the urban forest belt. In 1969 the era of the suburban railways ended. The line to Frechen was taken over as line 20 in the tram network and used by tram vehicles. The final stop on the city side was also moved to Neumarkt. It can be seen as a relic from the era of the suburban railways that line 20 was the only one that continued to end in the center of Cologne and did not become part of a longer line that crossed the entire city. It was not until the 1990s that line 20 was integrated into line 2, which now came from Frechen via Neumarkt and ended in Poll on the right bank of the Rhine. Today (as of 2017) the route is served by tram line 7 (Frechen – Neumarkt – Poll – Porz-Zündorf).
Cologne-Bonn Railways: Vorgebirgsbahn and Rheinuferbahn
To improve the development of the densely populated region between Cologne and Bonn , the two cities founded a railway company in cooperation with the districts of Cologne and Bonn. The lines operated by the Cologne-Bonn Railways (KBE) of the foothills railway built in 1897/1898 and the Rheinuferbahn that opened in 1906 were integrated into the light rail networks of Cologne and Bonn from 1976 onwards. Further information can be found in the respective articles on these routes.
Mülheimer Kleinbahn
Like many cities in this era, the independent city of Mülheim am Rhein began building a tram network in 1903, which was also to connect the city with neighboring towns. A hindrance to the development was the existence of Cologne horse-drawn tram lines in the Mülheim city area, over which there were disputes with the large neighboring city over several years. Finally, the operation of two Mülheim routes was left to the city of Cologne by contract of January 5, 1910 for ten years. This contract with Mülheimer Kleinbahnen AG in Mülheim did not include the railway lines from Höhenberg via Mülheim to Opladen , Dünnwald and Schlebusch , which belong to the Mülheim company . The Schlebusch railway line was opened on December 22nd, 1903 and was also used for freight traffic. Although Mülheim was incorporated into Cologne as early as 1914, it was not until 1933 that the Mülheimer Kleinbahnen could be taken over by the Cologne trams. The two lines crossing the city limits to Opladen and Schlebusch were taken over as lines O and S in the suburban railway network.
Another railway going out from Mülheim is the non-electrified factory railway of Bayer AG , built in 1896–1898 . It runs from Mülheim via Cologne-Stammheim and Cologne-Flittard to Leverkusen and the Bayer plant . Although it was also used for public transport, it mainly served as a connection to the Deutsche Bahn network in Mülheim. The option of connecting Stammheim and Flittards with the tram is being discussed again today (as of 2017).
literature
- Latest illustrated guide Cologne and the surrounding area . Greven 1888; Facsimile print 1983 special print.
- 100 years of the Cologne transport company 1877–1977 . Edited by Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe AG, Cologne 1977.
- Heinz Hermanns: The Chamber of Commerce for the Mülheim am Rhein district (1871-1914) and the economy of the Cologne-Mülheim area . Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv zu Köln, Cologne 1969
- Dieter Höltge, Axel Reuther: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 7: Cologne, Düren, Aachen . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2001.
Web links
- Graphic overview of the public transport network development in Cologne
- Historical network plan from 1952 [1]
Individual evidence
- ↑ Otto Kayser, Die Bahnen der Stadt Cöln , 1913, p. 2 f.
- ^ Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift , Edition A., Volume 33, VDE-Verlag, 1912, p. 787.
- ↑ Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 155.
- ^ Norbert Opfermann: Searching for traces: railways yesterday and today , 2015
- ↑ the no longer existing street connected the Waidmarkt and the Blaubach approximately at the level of Bachemstraße
- ↑ a b Karlbernhard Jasper, The urbanization process illustrated using the example of the city of Cologne , 1977, p. 202f.
- ↑ http://www.bilderbuch-koeln.de/Fotos/altstadt_nord_liniennetzplan_der_kvb_von_1952_streckennetzplan_historisch_50er_jahre_vorortbahn__431271
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ^ Tram and U-Bahn Friends Cologne eV: Decommissioning dates of German tram routes. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
- ↑ Tram and U-Bahn-Freunde Köln eV: Closing dates of German tram routes - Cologne. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .