Heinsberg tunnel
| Heinsberg tunnel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Walled up west-south-west portal
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| use | Railway tunnel (closed) | |||
| traffic connection | Altenhundem – Birkelbach railway line | |||
| place | Kirchhundem , Olpe district , North Rhine-Westphalia | |||
| length | 1303 m | |||
| Number of tubes | 1 | |||
| Largest coverage | approx. 120 m | |||
| construction | ||||
| start of building | July 28, 1911 | |||
| completion | 1913 | |||
| business | ||||
| closure | 1945 | |||
| location | ||||
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| Coordinates | ||||
| West Southwest Portal | 51 ° 1 ′ 53 " N , 8 ° 10 ′ 56" E | |||
| East-northeast portal | 51 ° 2 ′ 1 ″ N , 8 ° 11 ′ 59 ″ E | |||
Map with all coordinates: The Heinsberger Tunnel on the former Altenhundem – Birkelbach railway line is a 1,303 m long, single-track railway tunnel built between 1911 and 1913 and closed in 1945 under the main ridge of the Rothaar Mountains in North Rhine-Westphalia ( Germany ). Both tunnel portals are bricked up due to the acute danger of collapse .
Geographical location
The Heinsberg Tunnel extends in the Sauerland-Rothaargebirge Nature Park in the Olpe district around 1.3 km (as the crow flies ) north of the Dreiherrnstein ( 673.9 m above sea level ). It was built in the municipality of Kirchhundem around 2.8 km east-southeast of the district of Heinsberg and connects the valley of the Heinsberger Bach (Krenkelsbach) in the catchment area of the Hundem near Heinsberg in the west with that of the Kurzen Dörnbach (tributary of the Langen Dörnbach as a direct Schwarzbach tributary) in the catchment area of the Eder near Röspe in the east.
The west-southwest tunnel portal is at a height of around 505 m and the east-north-east at around 520 m . Over the ridge through which the tunnel leads, the Rothaarsteig is a 154 km long hiking trail, which is mostly laid out on the main ridge of the Rothaar Mountains . On this path, the ridge height is almost exactly above the tunnel at a height of 636.5 m (this results in a maximum tunnel coverage of around 120 m); about 80 m north of the 636.5 m point is a trigonometric point at a height of 637.9 m .
history
The Heinsberg tunnel was built from July 28, 1911 with breakthrough on December 12, 1912 to 1913 by the Ernst Pack company from Letmathe , which is now a construction company in Bergerhausen ; The Krenkelsbach aqueduct was also built at this time . The Altenhundem – Birkelbach railway that ran through it and opened on June 30, 1914, was in operation until 1945 and was shut down after the destruction of a railway viaduct and the Röspe station in the Second World War (1939–1945); the section from Birkelbach to the tunnel was probably last traveled by a train on March 11, 1945 - probably a military train.
During the war, because of the low importance of the route and the great length of the structure, freight trains loaded with ammunition were parked in the tunnel in order to be safe from Allied air raids. In connection with ammunition trains parked there, rumors arose again and again that an armaments production facility was located in the tunnel, similar to the Witten – Schwelm railway line . In September 1944, the tunnel was closed to public train passages in order to convert it into such a site. The production of Perrot brakes was planned. In the planning phase, the 5200 m² production facility was given the code name Taucher and later Birk . A barrack camp was created for the workers. The base of the tunnel was already concreted and electrical installations were started. The system was no longer in production until the end of the war, May 8, 1945, and not even the necessary mechanical equipment was delivered.
Krenkelsbach aqueduct
The Krenkelsbach aqueduct is located in front of the west-southwest tunnel portal . The aqueduct leads the Krenkelsbach over the artificially created terrain cut in front of the tunnel of the former railway line. Without this water bridge, the tracks in the cut would have been endangered and the river would have been channeled through the cut into another stream bed. The reinforced concrete aqueduct is still preserved and fully functional today.
On the aqueduct, which is located on a connecting path to the Rothaarsteig leading across the center of the tunnel, the responsible sponsoring association has built a viewing platform with a copper model of the geographical situation of both structures. In the model, water can be fed into the stream by means of a reciprocating piston pump there (manual operation), which then flows over the incision in the viaduct in order to run further in the creek beyond the incision.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Article Deutsche Perrot Bremse / code name Taucher (planned armaments production in the Heinsberg tunnel), on lostareas.de
- ↑ a b c d e f The history of the Altenhumdem-Birkelbach u. a. with information about the Heinsberg tunnel ; on Nebenbahnromantik.de
- ↑ a b c Heinsberger Tunnel , photos of both tunnel portals, each with the inscription: "1913" , on Nebenbahnromantik.de
- ↑ a b c d Topographical Information Management, Cologne District Government, Department GEObasis NRW ( information )
literature
- Schneider, Peter: Spies in the Sky, Allied aerial reconnaissance in the Wittgenstein area during and after the Second World War. ISBN 3-87816-092-5 , Erndtebrück 1996
- Schneider, Peter: Planned relocation of war-important operations for the underground armaments production of the Second World War in the Wittgenstein area , In: Wittgenstein, Blätter des Wittgensteiner Heimatverein e. V., Vol. 64/2000 / H. 1 / S. 12-19.
Web links
- Heinsberger Tunnel , photos and information on Nebenbahnromantik.de
- Heinsberger Tunnel , tunnel portal photos on eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de