Hesper Valley Railway

Essen-Kupferdreh Hespertalbahn – Hesperbrück
Museum train in front of the old station building
Course book section (DB) :	12446
Route length:	4.6 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	15 km / h
Legend from Essen-Überruhr 0.0 Essen-Kupferdreh (wedge station; formerly Bf) to Wuppertal-Vohwinkel Infrastructure border DB Netz – Hespertalbahn after eating former DB – Hespertalbahn infrastructure border Essen-Kupferdreh VEH Connection to Zeche Prinz Friedrich 0.5 Cement factory (former transfer station ) 3.1 Dodge to move 3.3 House Scheppen Margrefstrasse Pörtingsiepen colliery 4.6 Hesperbrück ʘ Swell:

The Hespertalbahn is a historic standard-gauge railway with steam locomotive operation near the Hesperbach between the old station Kupferdreh and Haus Scheppen on Lake Baldeney in Essen .

History and present

Information board at the old train station

Terminal at Haus Scheppen ( Pörtingsiepen colliery ), 2007

As a narrow-gauge railway with horse operation, it opened up ore mines from 1857, and later the Pörtingsiepen colliery . The conversion of part of the tracks to standard gauge took place in 1877 to Hesperbrück. The upper part of the Hesper Valley Railway remained a narrow-gauge railway.

In order to manage the transport of the lime from Hefel to Hesperbrück, a narrow-gauge railway was built through the southern Hesper Valley to Hefel , as in 1870/71 , which is connected to the old towing railway at Oberhesperhof . It is the first to open up the limestone quarries of the Stolberg colliery in the western Hefelerbacht valley through a tunnel. Today the quarries are filled with a no longer used urban rubbish dump and built over by the A44. The Röbbeck quarry in the Rottberg farming community was connected in 1890 with a branch line and a Bremsberg. In 1881, the district president in Düsseldorf granted permission to convert the narrow-gauge connecting line from Hefel-Hesperbrück into a steam-powered railway . In 1885 the railway from Hefel via Hesperbrück to Kupferdreh was re-licensed and now operated under the name "Hespertalbahn". There is also public transport. In 1899, planning began again for a railway connection from Velbert to Kupferdreh through the Hesper Valley; however, the plans will soon be abandoned. In 1917 the narrow-gauge railway was shut down. Visible evidence of the railway are two tunnels, a Bremsberg and some remains of the route in Velbert .

The lower Hesper Valley Railway remained in operation because of the coal mine. Rail traffic was stopped in 1973. Since June 1975 the Association for the Preservation of the Hespertal Railway has been operating the line as a museum railway .

The Hespertalbahn belongs to the route of industrial culture and is part of themed routes 12 (past and present of the Ruhr) and 15 (railways in the area) .

The maximum speed on the route is 15 km / h, so it is not unusual for these road users to overtake the train on the parallel cycle path on Hardenbergufer .

Because there is no transfer option at the end points, this is done at the cement factory near the copper turning HTB station and by changing the tractor at the western end point. The train attendants use radio equipment to communicate with the train driver, who has to push the train “blindly” for a few meters.

The part between Haus Scheppen and Hesperbrück is used as a hiking trail.

Vehicle fleet

Steam locomotive No. V

The Hespertalbahn has three steam locomotives: Locomotive V , which has been operational again since 2017 , is a C-coupled tank locomotive that was built by Jung in 1956 and previously used at Elektromark in Hagen. Locomotive VIII (built in 1961), a Knapsack type machine previously active at the Niederberg colliery , was for a long time the regular locomotive of the museum steam trains; it has since been turned off when the deadline expired. The “Pörtingssiepen VII” locomotive from 1923 is of the “Bismarck” type and used to be in service at the Pörtingssiepen colliery. It has also been turned off and a later restoration is planned.

There are also four diesel locomotives owned by the Hespertalbahn. A Henschel DH 360 Ca from 1961 and a Henschel DH 240 from 1957 serve as the locomotive for the museum train . A small locomotive ( Kö I ) and an O&K industrial locomotive of the type MV 9 are in operation for shunting and transfer trips. A type Klv 53 Skl is available as a track construction vehicle for material and personnel transport.

The museum train consists of three four-axle and two two-axle passenger cars as well as a two-axle baggage car. One of the two-axle wagons (number 1002, built in 1910) is an original vehicle of the former Zechenbahn and was meanwhile in use on other museum railways before it came back to the Hespertalbahn in 2004. A car of the same type (number 1004) is parked. Another car comes from the ÖBB , is a Spantenwagen (No. 7139.06).

The four-axle wagons come from the Wilhelmshavener Vorortbahn and were last used by the WLE , they date from 1941. The fleet also includes other passenger and freight wagons, especially those from the RAG Aktiengesellschaft industrial railways .

All vehicles are parked in the depot / locomotive shed Essen-Kupferdreh. The cement factory station was the center of operations until 2011.

Engine shed

In April 2012, construction work began on a new two-track locomotive shed on Lake Baldeney, which went into operation in summer 2015. This is in close proximity to the old train station. Here the trains of the Hespertalbahn can be parked and restored. A new platform was built parallel to the construction of the shed. According to official statements, the total costs are around € 800,000.

Picture gallery

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  V9 locomotive, a Henschel DH 240

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  Locomotive V1, a Henschel DH 360 approx

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  Passenger coaches

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  various freight cars

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  Overview of the area of ​​the new locomotive shed

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  In the background the new platform

literature

• Joachim Leitsch: The Hesper Valley Railway. A colliery railway through the ages. In: The cut. 1-2, 1995, ISSN  0003-5238 , pp. 44-54.
• Joachim Leitsch: Coal, Lime and Ores. The history of the Hesper Valley Railway . Ed .: Association for the Preservation of the Hespertalbahn e. V. 2nd expanded edition. Food 2008.

Web links

Commons : Hespertalbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• ruhrkohlebergbau.de, on the early history of the railway
• Hesper Valley Railway
• Description of all locations on this themed route as part of the Route of Industrial Culture
• Entry on Hespertalbahn in the " KuLaDig " database of the Rhineland Regional Association

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ↑ Lokalkompass.de: Full steam ahead into the future