Trackless Bielathal motor railway with electrical overhead line
| Koenigstein Spa Koenigsbrunn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 The route on a contemporary hiking map
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| Route length: | 4.4 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power system : | 500 volts = | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 1:25 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 12 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The trackless Bielathal motor railway with electrical overhead line , also known as the electric trackless motor railway in Bielathale or Bielat (h) al-Motorbahn or Bielat (h) albahn for short , was a trolleybus operator in Saxony . The plant was opened on July 10, 1901 and closed again in September 1904. The 4.4 kilometer long route was one of the first trolleybuses in the world, known in the German-speaking world at that time as Gleislose Bahn . It was operated by the transport company Bielathal-Motorbahn Königstein and opened up the front valley of the Biela in Saxon Switzerland . The route connected Königstein on the Elbe with the Hütten district , which was an independent district until 1933 , and the terminus was at the Königsbrunn spa .
prehistory
The advancing industrialization made the development of alternative and more efficient means of transport necessary at the end of the 19th century , steam traction and horse-drawn trains were no longer considered to be contemporary. In 1881 was in Berlin , the first electric tram in the world put into operation in 1895 followed with the local railway Meckenbeuren Tettnang- the first electrified standard gauge railway in Germany.
As an alternative to this, the company Siemens & Halske in particular worked on the implementation of trackless railways , and from 1898 a so-called semi - trackless railroad was also available. Both were intended for routes on which rail or tram connections were not profitable due to the low transport volume and comparatively high investment costs, but where more efficient means of transport than horse-drawn carriages , horse-drawn carts or horse-drawn buses were still required. In 1882 the company introduced on a test track in Berlin-Halensee the Elektromote , the first trolleybus in the world before. But it was not until the company for trackless railways Max Schiemann & Co. founded by the former Siemens engineer Max Schiemann that the trolleybus was ready for operation at the beginning of the 20th century.
history
After a route initially applied for in Dresden had not been approved, Schiemann was able to put the Bielatalbahn into operation as a test and pilot route in the nearby Königstein in the summer of 1901. There he expected a brisk passenger and freight traffic . The important paper factory , the fine paper factory Hugo Hoesch - today the Louisenthal paper factory - already existed in Hütten . Initially, the train only ran the 2.5-kilometer route between Viaduktplatz, today's Reissiger Platz, and the paper mill. The starting point of the train was quickly accessible for day trippers from Dresden with the Dresden – Bodenbach (Elbe Valley Railway ) line. The departure point for the trackless train on Viaduktplatz was just 200 meters west of Königstein train station .
On August 18, 1901, Schiemann finally put a 300 meter long extension to the Königsbrunn spa into operation. At the turn of the century, Königsbrunn, like the health resort Schweizermühle, which is located further up the valley , was a flourishing hydropathic institute . The spa, also known as the Königsbrunn cold water sanatorium , was just outside Hütten. From then on, the route ran through the middle of the site of the paper mill, following the course of Bielatalstrasse at the time.
On February 16, 1902, the second extension finally went into operation, this was the 1.6 kilometer long connection between the Viaduktplatz and the loading street of the Königstein freight station. For this purpose, the Gleislose Bahn had to cross the Elbe Valley Railway at the same level. This section of the route was used exclusively for freight transport - especially to the paper mill - which was started at the same time as the extension. Furthermore, mail has also been transported since then .
Construction and technology
The Bielatal had already been opened up by a valley road since 1833, today's state road 171 , so that the trolleybus system could easily be set up here. The catenary hung at a height of six meters from steel catenary masts with arched arms. In the area of the built-up route sections, overhead line rosettes were used as an alternative, i.e. the contact wire was anchored or tensioned directly to the buildings. The energy for running the railway came from a hydropower plant in Königstein, which was fed by Biela .
In the Schiemann system , power was drawn for the first time using pantograph poles - as is common today in trolleybuses around the world - and no longer using a contact cart as in the Elektromote test vehicle or in the competing Lombard-Gérin and Stoll systems . In contrast to today's trolleybus routes, however, the line was only laid out as a single lane, if two vehicles met, one of them had to pull off the pantograph rods.
A special feature of the Bielatalbahn vehicles were the unpaired pantograph poles, they were of different lengths and arranged one behind the other, not next to each other. This was necessary in order to be able to turn the vehicles without outside help . This problem was solved with two poles of different lengths, which made it possible to dispense with complex turning loops or turning triangles in the area of Bielatalstrasse, which is very narrow in places .
Vehicles and operation
The two motor vehicles 1 and 2 were available for passenger transport ; they each had 18 seats and six standing places. The power of the double engine was two times nine horsepower.
With the start of freight and mail traffic, the number of wagons was then doubled. The short car 3 was used exclusively for the carriage of mail, the overhead line truck with the road number 4 served as a towing vehicle, but in summer it also carried day trippers on its open platform. There were also one and two-axle luggage trailers. A special feature was the operation of the runners in winter, but this only affected the trailers.
The railway operated the route twelve times a day, the fare for each direction of travel was ten pfennigs for adults and five pfennigs for children. 100 kilograms of general cargo cost 57 pfennigs, a ton of wagonload 2.85 marks. At a top speed of twelve kilometers an hour, the journey time was around 25 minutes, and when transporting goods, the train ran at around eight to ten kilometers an hour. The departure times in Königstein were coordinated with the timetable of the Royal Saxon State Railways .
The ten centimeter wide, iron-tyred wooden spoke wheels gave cause for repeated criticism. They made a lot of noise and were held responsible for the damage to Bielatalstrasse. In particular, the heavy freight transport caused problems in this regard. "If the road was good, the heavy bus gradually turned it into a bad one, if the road was in half, the bus gradually broke in two," commented an annoyed local resident of the technical innovation. The poor road surface also had a negative effect on the quiet running of the pantographs.
attitude
The Bielatalbahn transport figures fell far short of original expectations. In terms of passenger traffic, it was only used to capacity during the season; outside of the season there were hardly any travelers to be transported to the cold water sanatorium. And the volume of goods transported to the paper mill also fell far short of expectations. According to Schiemann, the railway had to be removed after only three years of operation "... for reasons of permanent inefficiency and lack of goods traffic, with sparse seasonal passenger traffic ...".
Original plans for a 6.6-kilometer extension of the route via Reichstein, Neidberg and Brausenstein to the Kurhaus Schweizermühle (now all part of the Rosenthal-Bielatal community ) were no longer implemented despite the granting of a concession.
Apart from the problem of inadequate road surface, the railway was technically successful. The Schiemann system had proven its practicality. After the end of the trial operation, the facilities on the test track were relocated to Wurzen , where they were put back into operation on April 7, 1905 ( Wurzen industrial railway , closed in 1929). Trolleybus systems based on the Schiemann system were also built in numerous other cities.
After 1904, passenger transport in the Bielatal was taken over by a private bus line operated by the Saxon entrepreneur Emil Nacke , which already ran continuously to Schweizermühle.
Popular mistake
Contrary to popular belief, the Bielatalbahn was neither the first trolleybus in the world nor the first trolleybus in Germany. Both apply to the Elektromote test track opened in 1882 in Halensee near Berlin . Furthermore, it was not the first trolleybus in regular service with passengers. Because as early as April 15, 1900, on the occasion of the world exhibition in Saint-Mandé near Paris, a trolleybus line connected the Porte de Vincennes metro station with the exhibition grounds.
In Germany, the first trolleybus in regular service with passengers was the Gleislose Bahn Eberswalde, which opened on March 22, 1901 . However, the Bielatalbahn was the first trolleybus operation in Saxony, in particular Schiemann succeeded in putting its first line into operation before the Dresden Haide Railway , which was opened in 1903 by the competing entrepreneur Carl Stoll . In addition, the Bielatalbahn was the world's first trolleybus operation to use the pantograph poles that are still common today. It was also the first route used by overhead line trucks.
present
Several catenary rosettes along the route are still reminiscent of the Bielatalbahn, for example in Königstein on the buildings Bielatalstrasse 2, 3, 37, 47 and 75. It was reproduced as a model system in the miniature park Little Saxon Switzerland .
The Bielatalbahn route is now served by RVSOE regional bus routes 242 (Königstein– Rosenthal ), 244 a (Königstein– Cunnersdorf ) and 246 (Königstein– Pirna - Copitz ), the following four stops are located in the area of the former trolleybus route:
| Trackless train | Today's bus stop | comment |
|---|---|---|
| Koenigstein Viaduct Square | Königstein Reissiger Platz / train station | |
| - | Koenigstein Bielatalstrasse | Stop newly furnished |
| Huts | Königstein junction Nikolsdorf | |
| Koenigsbrunn spa | Koenigstein bath | not line 246 |
See also
literature
- Frank Dittmann: The trackless Bielatalbahn. In: Sächsische Heimatblätter . No. 3, 1991, ISSN 0486-8234 , pages 177-180.
- Rudolf Hajny: The first trolleybus rumbled through the Bielatal. Sächsische Zeitung (Pirna edition) of July 11, 2001.
- Norbert Kaiser: With the Hüttener Rumpelkiste without track through the Bielatal. On the history of the Königstein – Hütten – Bad Königsbrunn trolleybus line. In: Petra Binder (Ed.): On roads, rails and paths. Country calendar book 2011 for Saxon Switzerland and the Eastern Ore Mountains. Schütze-Engler-Weber-Verlag, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-936203-14-1 , pages 118-122.
- Mattis Schindler: Berlin - Brandenburg - Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein - Hamburg - Bremen - Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt - Thuringia - Saxony, former German eastern territories . In: Ludger Kenning (Hrsg.): Trolleybuses in Germany . tape 1 . Kenning, Nordhorn 2009, ISBN 978-3-933613-34-9 .
- Guarini, Emil: Electric Trolley Vehicles Without Rails. In: The Engineering Magazine. An industrial review. Vol 26. New York 1904. Pages 33-48.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dresdner Anzeiger of July 12, 1901
- ↑ Landmarks of the tourist development of Saxon Switzerland on www.nationalpark-saechsische-schweiz.de ( Memento of the original from November 7th 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ SCHINDLER / KENNING 2009, p. 234
- ^ Website of the miniature park Die Kleine Sächsische Schweiz ( Memento of the original from July 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been 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 Sächsische Zeitung of July 11, 2001
- ↑ cited in DITTMANN 1991, p. 177
- ↑ Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning, Chair of Railway and Road Engineering, Data on the History of Railway Systems and Railway Technology , page 29 ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link became automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 196 kB)
