Hirschberg valley railway

The Hirschberger Talbahn in Nieder-Giersdorf, in the background the Giant Mountains (around 1925)

Memorial for the Hirschberger Talbahn with Polish type Konstal 4N railcars

Route network

The Hirschberger Talbahn - until 1940 Hirschberger Thalbahn - established an overland tram connection in the province of Silesia from the district town of Hirschberg (Jelenia Góra) to the northern edge of the Giant Mountains . It was opened in 1897 as a standard-gauge gas railway, converted to electrical operation and meter gauge in 1900 , and survived the Second World War undamaged.

Operations on the last remaining part of the route between Hirschberg and Bad Warmbrunn (Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój) were stopped in 1969.

history

Gas train

Although a state railway line (Zackenbahn) ran from the Hirschberg railway junction in 1891 , following the valley of the Zacken river, through the Hirschberg valley to Petersdorf (Piechowice) in the mountains, it was unable to adequately fulfill the wishes of the numerous tourists and spa guests because it ran far on the left bank away from the localities. Especially in Bad Warmbrunn, which was known for its warm sulfur springs, the train station was very unfavorable, especially for the spa area.

Hirschberger Thalbahn GmbH

So the municipalities tried to find a local means of transport that could also open up the area with numerous stops . These efforts were met by an offer from the Deutsche Continental Gasgesellschaft in Dessau , which operated the gasworks in Hirschberg . She planned to build another route from the main train station there to the Jägerkaserne via Bad Warmbrunn to Hermsdorf unterm Kynast (not far from Kynast Castle ). Negotiations between the gas company and the town of Hirschberg and the communities to be connected resulted in the establishment of Hirschberger Thalbahn GmbH in 1895 .

The route from the main station via Bahnhofstrasse and Warmbrunner Platz to Jägerkaserne in the west of the city was opened on April 10, 1897, the 11.5 km long overland route to Hermsdorf , which followed the city line to Warmbrunner Platz, took place on May 22, 1897 the operation. A total of 12.8 km of normal-gauge lines (1435 mm) were passable, most of which were on roads.

The new train was used by numerous passengers and showed that it met the existing transport needs. The technical experiment of a tram powered by a gas engine turned out to be unsuitable for long-term and technically reliable operation. The steep incline made the locomotives difficult. So operations had to be stopped again on November 7, 1899.

Electric train

In order to quickly create affordable travel options again, Elektrizitäts-AG formerly W. Lahmeyer & Co. (EAG) in Frankfurt am Main was commissioned to switch to electrical operation. The route was largely retained and because of the numerous curves, the track width of 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) was chosen. In Herischdorf (incorporated into Bad Warmbrunn in 1941, today Jelenia Góra-Mallinik) about halfway between Hirschberg and Bad Warmbrunn, the depot for the vehicles, including the workshop and power station (electricity station), was built. The management was housed here.

Until then, the electric operation of the tram started on February 4, 1900 together with the city line to the Jägerkaserne. The remaining section to Hermsdorf followed on April 8, 1900. The timetable provided for a twenty-minute cycle, on the city line a ten-minute cycle. In summer it was usually driven twice as often.

Hirschberger Thalbahn AG

Share of more than 1,000 marks in Hirschberger Thalbahn AG from September 1913

On May 28, 1902, the Hirschberger Thalbahn was converted from a GmbH to a stock corporation by the EAG and the Gesellschaft für electrical enterprises (Gesfürel) in Frankfurt am Main (which since 1897 belonged to EAG to 98%) .

The main shareholder was initially the company for electrical companies, but this later gave its shares to the Lower Silesian Electricity AG in Hirschberg and to a small extent to the Elektrowerke AG in Berlin and the province of Lower Silesia .

A branch line was planned to branch off at Bad Warmbrunn Palace Square to better serve tourism . It could be opened on August 8, 1911 to Nieder Giersdorf (4.0 km), on May 7, 1914 to Hohlen Stein and finally on May 20, 1914 to Ober Giersdorf -Himmelreich. The last two kilometers of the route were particularly steep. The extension to the Spindlerpass was not made because of the difficult conditions during the First World War and afterwards, because the sometimes enormous inclines here would have required special solutions. During these years - from around 1918 to 1934 - operations on the city line to the Jägerkaserne were suspended due to economic difficulties.

At the beginning of the Second World War , the network had a total length of 17.6 km and a fleet of 19 railcars , 25 sidecars , a baggage car and twelve special cars , plus five buses.

In the last years of the Second World War, the Lower Silesian Electricity AG in Hirschberg was the major shareholder with 90%, while Elektrowerke AG and the Province of Lower Silesia each owned 5%.

Omnibus operation

Instead of building new rail lines, Hirschberger Thalbahn AG (since 1940 Talbahn) set up several bus lines from September 1, 1934 , including a city line. During the Second World War, they were only served to a limited extent or not at all due to a lack of fuel and tires . Since the railway no longer seemed efficient in the long term without major renovations, the conversion to operation with trolleybuses was prepared. Line masts were newly erected and three trolleybuses were procured. These were no longer used.

Continued operation in Poland

Since the route and vehicles were spared direct war damage, traffic was only interrupted for a few days at the end of the war. Then the tram ran again - soon under the Polish name Kolej Elektryczna w Jeleniej Górze (Hirsch-Berg Electric Train). However, the trips across the market square were not made and operations on the short route to the Jägerkaserne were stopped in 1945. Turning loops were created at the main train station and at the entrance to Bad Warmbrunn, now renamed Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój . A little later the fleet of cars was replaced. For this purpose, the first two-axle Konstal N (similar to the German KSW ) were delivered around 1950 .

In the course of the 1950s, further two-axle Konstal railcars were added, including the 3N and 4N types . The further lines to Podgórzyn were closed in 1964 and to Sobieszów in 1965 (according to another source as early as 1959). The electric train only ran from the main train station in Jelenia Góra to Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój for four years longer . In April 1969 the end came here. The tracks and railway systems were gradually dismantled after the switch to bus operation from the early 1970s.

Relics

The tracks and systems can no longer be seen today, the last remnants mostly disappeared in the 1980s when the roadway was renewed. The overhead line rosettes can still be found on numerous houses on the city routes, and there are also various overhead line masts on the overland routes . In Podgórzyn, a Polish type Konstal 4N railcar was erected as a technical monument for the Hirschberg Valley Railway.

literature

Siegfried Bufe: Trams in Silesia. Stuttgart 1976.
Karl-Heinz Gewandt: Memories of the Hirschberger Talbahn. In: Tram magazine , issue 48 (May 1983).