Hönnetalbahn

Menden-Neuenrade
Route number (DB) :	2853
Course book section (DB) :	437
Route length:	22 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D4
Top speed:	60 km / h
Legend from Fröndenberg 0.0 Menden (Sauerland) 139 m to Hemer (today connecting railway) Eyelet 1.1 Ostermeier & Fliß (Anst) 1.3 Eichelberg (Anst) 1.4 Menden (Sauerland) south 1.9 Horlecke connection Rheinkalk 3.7 Sirloin 137 m 5.4 Oberrödinghausen Hönne 6.8 Eagle owl tunnel (117 m) Hönne 7.2 Klusenstein (reactivation planned) 7.9 Binolen Tunnel (277 m) Hönne 8.7 Binoles 191 m Hönne 10.7 Volkringhausen Hönne 11.5 Sanssouci 221 m Hönne 13.1 Balve Hertin (Awanst) 14.3 Balve 244 m Balve school center (planned) 16.6 Garbeck 17.4 Müller (Balve) (Anst) 20.5 Küntrop 21.9 Brünninghaus (Neuenrade) (Anst) 22.3 Neuenrade 309 m Swell:

The Hönnetalbahn is a branch line in North Rhine-Westphalia . It runs from Menden (Sauerland) through the Hönnetal via Fröndenberg to Neuenrade .

history

Stagecoach in the Hönnetal (1901) before the railway line opened in 1912.

The Menden – Neuenrade railway was opened on April 1, 1912, after the state police approval had previously taken place on March 28, 1912. The construction work on the aforementioned section began in 1909.

At the time of opening there were the stations Neuenrade, Garbeck, Balve, Sanssouci, Binolen and Lendringsen and the stops Küntrop, Volkringhausen, Klusenstein, Oberrödinghausen and Menden-Süd. Today's Horlecke station, located between Lendringsen and Menden – Süd, is a train control station . Until 1967 Horlecke did not have the status of a train station.

The railway line primarily served the industrial use of the Hönnetal. Due to the new transport links, limestone quarries were built in Binolen, Sanssouci, Balve and Garbeck along the route. The economic upturn was delayed by the outbreak of the First World War , which also restricted passenger traffic. In the turnip winter of 1917/18 , this railway line also served to supply the starving population of the Ruhr area, who looked for potatoes and grain in large numbers on the harvested fields. After 1925, the tourist train traffic increased again.

Before the Second World War there were so many tourists in the valley that the "car-free Sunday" was introduced to offer guests peace and quiet. In the post-war period, up to 1,000 people from the Ruhr area came to the numerous restaurants on Sundays. Between the two wars, the construction of a railway line from Emden to Frankfurt through the narrow Hönnetal was considered in order to be able to use a north-south transport connection that was safe from “enemies” (French).

There were only restrictions again in 1943 after the Ruhr Bridge near Fröndenberg was destroyed by the tidal wave following the air raid on the Möhne dam on May 17th. After the construction of a temporary bridge, rail traffic could be resumed and was then used to supply the Schwalbe 1 labor camp near Oberrödinghausen and to transport the thousands of forced laborers from the 17 camps distributed in the Hönnetal from Sanssouci to Lendringsen. Two years later, train traffic came to a standstill again when the railway bridge in Sanssouci was blown up. In June 1945, after the construction of a temporary bridge, which was used until 1952, train traffic could be carried out again.

In the mid-1950s, the branch line was the most profitable of the Wuppertal Federal Railway Directorate . In the following years there were always rationalization measures; at the same time the traffic steadily decreased. In the past few years, the line was closed several times.

There were plans to extend the Hönnetalbahn beyond its end point at Neuenrade to Werdohl or from the Sanssouci junction in the direction of Plettenberg . There would have been a connection to the Ruhr-Sieg route . However, this planning was abandoned.

business

passenger traffic

Former train station in Balve

Regional train with 2 × 640 in Neuenrade

628 676 at the entrance to the Binolen station on May 10, 2011

The Hönnetalbahn is served by the regional train RB 54 "Hönnetal-Bahn" for local rail passenger transport. Since 1989 there has been a cycle timetable with coordinated connections on the route.

During the week, the regional trains run between Unna and Neuenrade mostly with continuous lines every hour. At the weekend the line is divided into two partial lines. A line runs every hour between Unna and Menden. The other line runs between Fröndenberg and Neuenrade every two hours. Crossings take place at the usual minute of symmetry in Binolen and in the double-track section between Fröndenberg and Menden.

Local public transport on the Hönnetal-Bahn is operated by DB Regio NRW , with class 648 diesel multiple units , which are supplemented by class 640 diesel multiple units . The vehicles of the 648 series are driven either in double traction or in single traction, as required , the 640s usually drive in double traction. Mixed tractions such as 648 + 640 + 640 are also a familiar sight in school traffic. Between summer 2011 and April 2012, due to a lack of vehicles, general inspections again carried out all traffic with multiple units of the 628 series , which were already in service on this route in the 1990s.

The Hönnetalbahn, with the lines from Dortmund to Winterberg, Iserlohn and Lüdenscheid, is part of the Sauerland network , which was awarded as a package to the then DB Regionalbahn Westfalen in 2004, which was now part of the DB Regio NRW . DB Regio NRW prevailed in a renewed tender for operation from December 2016 and from then on will operate the Hönnetalbahn with two to three-part PESA Link railcars . The introduction of these trains is associated with an increase in the capacity to take bicycles, ticket machines on the trains and sockets at the seats.

Before the 624 and 628 series diesel multiple units were used from around 1994, locomotive-hauled wagon trains ran for many years, mostly as push- pull trains made up of n-wagons and 212 series diesel locomotives .

Aerial view at Ardey in summer 2015

With the new tendering of the Sauerland network, a new timetable was introduced for the timetable change in December 2016. Since then, the RB 54 has been running again in principle, divided into the two routes Fröndenberg – Neuenrade and Unna – Menden. The Fröndenberg – Neuenrade part of the line has been postponed by 30 minutes in order to get a short connection to the RE 57 line to Dortmund . Thus, the journey from Neuenrade to Dortmund only requires one change; the travel time could be reduced by 22 minutes.

Freight transport

Freight traffic is now limited to serving the Rheinkalk lime works in Oberrödinghausen Lendringsen and an industrial connection in Menden. The frequent gravel, sand and lime trains reach considerable lengths and are partly covered with the 232 series. The transfer station is Horlecke. Until 2007, tank transports were also carried out in Menden in the Sauerland for the now closed Blücherkaserne Hemer .

future

The ZRL is calling for the Klusenstein stop to be reactivated. This was given up as a traffic station in the early 2000s due to lack of platform lighting; The platform, shelter and access are still unchanged. In addition, a new “Balve-Schulzentrum” stop is to be set up, as school traffic is very important for the Hönnetalbahn. The city of Balve is currently not pushing this project forward.

Furthermore, a concept is to be investigated to what extent an increase in travel speed can be implemented. The cruising speed between Menden and Neuenrade is only approx. 39 km / h. Closing the route was often discussed, but is no longer relevant, as passenger demand increased by over 60% between 1997 and 2008, to around 1200 passengers per day in the Menden-Balve section and 430 passengers per day between Balve and Neuenrade, has risen. Between 2008 and 2012, demand fell on all sections of the Hönnetalbahn. In the Menden – Balve section, the number has fallen by 41% to 690 passengers. In the Balve – Neuenrade section, only 325 passengers are carried.

See also

• List of the first railways in North Rhine-Westphalia until 1930

literature

• The Hönnetalbahn . In: Christoph Riedel: Railway in the Sauerland - railways between Ruhr and Sieg. GeraMond Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-932785-22-3 , pp. 91-98.
• Burkhard Wendel: The Hönnetalbahn and its neighboring railways. Eisenbahnfreunde Hönnetal eVua, Balve et al. 1987, ISBN 3-89053-020-6 .

Web links

Commons : Hönnetalbahn  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Description of route 2853 in the NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost
• Eisenbahnfreunde Hönnetal eV
• The Hönnetalbahn yesterday, today and tomorrow
• Images of the tunnel portals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Local traffic plan Westphalia-Lippe. October 2011, pp. 100, 271 , accessed January 14, 2016 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Local transport plan Westphalia-Lippe. October 2011, p. 273 , accessed January 14, 2016 . 
3. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
4. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
5. ^ Süderländer Volksfreund: Opening of the Hönnetalbahn (from April 3, 1912), accessed on July 7, 2012
6. ↑ See Christoph Riedel 1999, p. 94.
7. ↑ Theo Bönemann: Hönnetal (preface)
8. ↑ Route festival on the Hönnetalbahn . In: railway magazine . No. 12 , 2018, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 37 .
9. ↑ DB Regio AG defends Sauerland network: Tendering for regional rail lines in the Sauerland network has been decided. Zweckverband Ruhr-Lippe, September 5, 2013, archived from the original on September 25, 2016 ; accessed on September 11, 2019 (press release). 
10. ^ NWL press release, The new Sauerland network
11. ↑ Local transport plan Märkischer Kreis 2017-2022, page 28
12. ↑ Local traffic plan 2007. (PDF) Märkischer Kreis, p. 38 , archived from the original on January 14, 2016 ; accessed on December 14, 2018 . 
13. ↑ http://www.come-on.de/nachrichten/maerkischer-kreis/balve/stilllege-strecke-keine-rede-mehr-1104179.html
14. ^ Zweckverband Ruhr Lippe, Association Assembly 65
15. ↑ Development of demand in local rail transport. In: ZRL Minutes 82nd Association Assembly. June 24, 2014, archived from the original on October 30, 2014 ; accessed on January 14, 2016 .