Society for trackless railways Max Schiemann & Co.

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Company's contemporary advertising poster
A train of the Grevenbrück Kalkbahn
Trackless railway in Wurzen 1913

The Society for Trackless Railways Max Schiemann & Co. was a German company for the construction and operation of trolleybus and trolley truck systems, which in the early years of this technology were still referred to as trackless railways . The company was based in the Saxon town of Wurzen and existed from 1901 to 1911.

history

The entrepreneur Max Schiemann previously worked as an engineer at Siemens & Halske . He designed various overhead contact line systems. He succeeded in adapting the contact rod system, which was relatively safe when drawing power, to the needs of road-bound vehicles, which is still in use today.

The various overhead line vehicles and systems were built by Siemens & Halske under the name “Schiemann System”. The overhead contact line systems were built for passenger, freight and mail vehicles, they had a suspension and electric motors built under the driver's seat. The vehicles were driven by a worm gear via the rear wheels. Bi-directional vehicles were also built. The current was taken from the overhead lines via the pantograph poles, so that the vehicles could deviate three meters from the overhead line on both sides. The electric motors could be designed in series or in parallel . Some models had four-wheel drive , the brakes were short-circuit, counter-current and mechanical brakes. The entrepreneur Schiemann built a total of twelve systems, four of which, however, were only operated for pure goods traffic:

business country length tension opening attitude comment
Trackless Bielathal motor railway with electrical overhead line Germany 4.4 km 500 V 1901 1904 also freight transport
Grevenbrück lime railway Germany 1.5 km - 1903 1907 freight traffic only
Veischedetalbahn Germany 8.0 km 600 V 1904 1916 also freight transport
Trackless railway Monheim – Langenfeld Germany 4.5 km - 1904 1908 also freight transport
Wurzen industrial railway Germany 4.23 km 550 V 1905 1928 freight traffic only
Großbauchlitz mill railway Germany 1.02 km 130 V 1905 1914 freight traffic only
Electric trackless railway Ahrweiler Germany 5.3 km 550 V 1906 1917
Mulhouse light rail Germany (now France) 1.7 km - 1907 1918 Single rod system
Trackless railway from Pirano to Portorose Austria
(today Slovenia )		 5.2 km 500 V 1909 1912 Single rod system
Drammen's Elektriske Bane Norway 6.5 km 600 V 1909 1967 Single rod system
Altona harbor towage Germany 1 km 550 V 1911 1949 Single rod system,
freight traffic only
Trackless train Blankenese – Marienhöhe Germany 3 km 440 V 1911 1914 Single rod system

However, most of the routes only existed for a few years. Technical problems, low passenger numbers, the poor quality of the roads at the time and the First World War meant that most of the routes were soon closed again, as the penultimate trackless railway in Wurzen, which was in operation until 1929. Only the Altona harbor tugboat was able to hold up until 1949.

During the First World War, the overhead lines were dismantled in many places in order to get to the copper urgently needed in the armaments industry. Schiemann then became active in Great Britain , where the trolleybus construction should be set up promisingly. There Max Schiemann was able to work for the London-based Railless Elektric Traction Company Ltd. work and let the vehicles build.

literature

Web links