Industrial line of the Geyseritwerk Usingen
| Industrial line of the Geyseritwerk Usingen | |
|---|---|
.jpg) A steam locomotive of the works railway of the Geyseritwerk
Usingen with a wooden box tipper in front of the Laurentiuskirche | |
 Former route on a map from 2021
| |
| Gauge : | 900 mm ( narrow gauge ) |
| Maximum slope : | 35 ‰ |
| Minimum radius : | 40 m |
.jpg)
The industrial railway of Geyseritwerks Usingen was from 1923 to 1927, a six kilometer long narrow gauge industrial railway with a track width of 900 mm from the train station Usingen to the quarries. The quarries were later taken over by the Bremthaler Quarzitwerk, which is now operated by the Mineralmühle Leun of the Rau Group with headquarters in Leun a. d. Lahn is operated. The earlier Geyserit called quartz was for. B. used in the Schott glassworks in Mainz for the production of high-quality glass, the optical special glasses , z. B. for astronomical Telescopes .
geology
Quartz, which used to be called geyserite , is a high-quality raw material for the porcelain, earthenware and glass industries. In the area of Usingen, e.g. B. on the Eschbacher cliffs , it was characterized by its special purity and is therefore known nationwide. Mining is still taking place today in the Köppern quartzite plant .
Newspaper reports in the Usinger Kreisblatt mention the quartz vault for the first time in 1910. On June 10, 1912, the proposed union Melzingen to Usingen with main seat in Gotha State permission to set up a quarry operation. During the First World War , the quartz extraction was then fully operated by the Geyserite works in Usingen of the Melzingen am Unterstrütchen trade union in the Eschbach area and the geyserite works of the Dörrberg am Dörrberg trade union in the Cransberg area.
Planning and approval
On April 5, 1917, the union Melzingen requested the District Office Usingen the building permit for a narrow gauge light railway from Geyseritwerk at Nauheim road to the state railway station, on the grounds Geyserit was an important war raw material for glass production. The Winkelmann engineering office in Wiesbaden drew up detailed plans for the light railroad and submitted them with explanations to the district administration office on October 29, 1917, which examined them and approved them on February 12, 1918. As a result, the district president issued a certificate of approval on October 2, 1919, so that construction could begin. In the post-war period, however, there were delays, which is why the district administrator asked on September 7, 1922, “by when, for example, the railway system will be completed and commissioning should take place”.
construction
The industrial railway was supplied by the company Deutsche Feldbahn- und Industriebedarfs- KG Martin Kallmann in Mannheim . The track's superstructure consisted of 100 mm high steel rails weighing around 20 kg / m per meter on 180 mm wide iron sleepers. There were two 160 hp steam locomotives each, as well as several modern self-unloading wagons for the transport of quartz and some conventional wooden box tippers for coal, building materials and other goods, as well as some covered freight wagons for the transport of the ground and dried quartz packed in sacks or barrels. The self-unloading wagons were particularly elaborately designed because the raw material to be transported for the glass production was not allowed to come into contact with iron, so that the entire inner car body had to be clad with wood. The greatest gradient on the free stretch was 1:28, the smallest arc radius 40 m.
business
The operating permit was issued on January 8, 1923 , but remaining work had to be done with regard to 30 of the complaints listed on February 9, 1923 before operations began.
Some of these deficiencies were probably not remedied in the following years, as the company suffered from economic difficulties, although at times hundreds of tons of high-quality quartz were transported per day. The City of Usingen's magistrate informed the District Administrator on December 13, 1926 that threatened coercive measures against the quarry company would be pointless due to the total pledging of all facilities and equipment. From October 30, 1926 to March 5, 1927, the light railroad was therefore only operated on individual days specially approved by the district administrator. Shortly thereafter, the line was dismantled by July 8, 1927 and its route was used to build a road.
After the railway was shut down, the Berlin Osram group took over the quarry in 1936 . Later it was operated by the Jenaer Glaswerke Schott with the Bremthaler Quarzitwerke under the misleading name Bremthaler Quarzitwerk , although it is 40 km northeast of Bremthal . Since 1997, Mineralmühle Leun Rau GmbH & Co. KG has owned the disused quarry and the factory in which quartz from other quarries is processed today.
Route
At the northwest end of the station Usingen there were four narrow gauge -gleise between three standard gauge -gleisen. Some of the raw quartz was tipped as bulk goods directly from the field railway wagons standing on a brick ramp into the standard-gauge wagons below. Remnants of the ramp are still preserved near the Raiffeisen warehouse.
The industrial line began at the transfer station to the Taunusbahn , crossed Bahnhofstrasse and then led along Blücherstrasse, today's B 456 , and today's B 275 to the quarries. At km 3.9 a track chain for Bremsberg plant the union Dörrenberg today from Silver Lake, and at km 4.2 the main line ended on the premises of the union Geyseritwerks Melzingen in which there were several loading tracks and a locomotive shed.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ A rare rock in the Usingen district. Geyserite in Germany. In: Usinger Kreisblatt , year 1910, No. 94.
- ↑ a b c Andreas Christopher: The works railway of the Geyseritwerk Usingen of the Melzingen union.
- ^ Advertisement for the Deutsche Feldbahn- und Industriebedarfs-KG Martin Kallmann, 1923
- ↑ a b Christoph König: Geyseritwerk Usingen.
- ^ Karl Baeumerth: With full steam through the Blücherstrasse. In: Magistrat der Stadt Usingen (ed.): 1200 years Usingen . Usingen, 2001.
- ↑ Fishing Association Usingen: Dörrberg .
Coordinates: 50 ° 20 ′ 44.7 ″ N , 8 ° 33 ′ 49.6 ″ E