Spiekeroog island railway

The train station of today's museum horse-drawn railway on the edge of the village

Route number :

9156

Course book section (DB) :

10006, 1000 f (old)

Route length:

3.5 km

Gauge :

1000 mm ( meter gauge )

Legend

		Train station (town hall) (until 1957)
		Train station (since 1957)
		Dike passage
		west
		Junction "StAIK route"
		Westend (since 1981)
		State Office for Island and Coastal Protection
		Junction "StAIK route"
		Campground
		parallel "StAIK line" and main line (until 1968)

		Old investor (until 1949)
		Pfahljoch route
		New investor
		Ferry to Neuharlingersiel

The Inselbahn Spiekeroog is a single-track, meter-gauge and non-electrified railway line on the East Frisian island of Spiekeroog . After the actual island railway was closed in 1981, a museum horse-drawn railway was operated on the railway station – Westend section. Operations have been inactive since 2020; the future is uncertain.

First horse tram time

Horse tram in Noorderloog around 1900

With the start of bathing operations at Herrenstrand on Westend, there was a need for a convenient transport link between the village and the beach. On July 9, 1885, the line was opened as a meter-gauge horse-drawn tram. The train started in the Noorderloog in front of house number 10 and led over the Westerloog through the Deichschart to the Westend. The route was 1.6 kilometers long; there were intermediate stops in front of the Hotel zur Linde, in front of Günsels Hotel and on the Damenpad. A first remise was set up in the Noorderloog. The railway was only operated in summer during the bathing season. A permanent hot bathing facility was set up at the Westend in 1902 to enable bathing in seawater in a bathtub even in bad weather. This building is now the Laramie pub . In 1891 the first pier was opened in the very south of the island, built from the cargo of a stranded timber freighter. A branch from the horse-drawn tram through the mudflat meadows was created to connect to the village . In the area of the jetty, the track was laid on the mud flats and flooded during high water. High-wheeled wagons ensured that passengers were able to change trains in a dry manner, but the horses were occasionally up to their stomachs in the water.

After a small station building had been erected in front of Günsels Hotel in 1907, the route in Noorderloog was abandoned in 1924. A new depot was built in 1934 on the site of today's post office. Due to storm surge damage on the beach, the main beach was relocated to the village in 1932 and the section of the horse-drawn tram leading to the Westend was no longer served.

Since the destruction of the Langeoog horse-drawn tram in autumn 1936, the last horse-drawn tram in Germany was operated on Spiekeroog.

Diesel operation

After the Second World War, the horse-drawn tram was no longer able to cope with the increase in bathing tourism, so that the horse business, the last of its kind in Germany, was closed in May 1949, and the horses were replaced by diesel traction . At the same time, the route from the junction at the old bathing route to the pier was re- routed further west on the edge of the dune . The pier had been enlarged so that the train could now drive directly to the pier. Intermediate stops were made at the campground and at the western stop, where the branch from the main route was.

Since the railway caused traffic problems in Westerloog, a new terminus was built in 1957 opposite the car depot. The pizzeria Der Bahnhof is now located in this building . A new engine shed with a workshop was built a little south of it.

At the Westend a building yard of the Lower Saxony Building Authority for Coastal Protection (later the State Office for Coastal and Island Protection - StAIK) with its headquarters in the north was built, which was connected to the Herrenstrand via the old track. After the great storm surge in 1962 , the StAIK built a new pier slightly west of the existing one, which was developed from the building yard in a new stretch through the dune belt . From the campsite to the pier, this route was parallel to the previous one.

Diesel locomotive 4 on Spiekeroog
The former car no.20 (rear)
Dike passage of the island railway with a pedestrian bridge

Investors

The old investor 2006

At the place of the old investor there were a total of four investors in history.

In 1891 the first pier was opened in the very south of the island. In 1927 a new pier was built after the old one was destroyed by ice in the winter of 1926. To the west of the previous jetty, a new jetty was built in 1949 so that ferry boats could dock directly at it and the train could drive over a Pfahljoch route to the jetty. After the great storm surge of 16./17. In February 1962 the WSA built a new pier next to the previous one, the fourth and the last one at this point in order to be able to handle the extensive transport of materials for the fastening work. A second Pfahljoch route had to be built for the new pier, from 1965 the Inselbahn was allowed to use it for passenger traffic, and from 1968 freight traffic also went through it.

From 1981 the pier was only occasionally used by sport boats , but this became more and more difficult due to the increasing siltation of the harbor basin. The jetty was a popular excursion destination for tourists and islanders alike. In April 2007, however, the municipality of Spiekeroog decided to demolish it after 26 years and carried it out from August 2009. At the end of September 2009, the dismantling of the jetty was already completed, today there is only a groyne that was built when the jetty was demolished.

Closure and museum horse-drawn railway

Horse tram at the terminus Westend

View over the Inselbahnhof, in the back left the former station building, in the middle today's horse-drawn railway station, on the right the two former workshops.

In order to improve the supply of the island and since the line was in need of renovation, a local port was built, which was put into operation in 1981. The railway was therefore no longer needed and operations were discontinued. With the exception of the Bahnhof – Westend section, the tracks were dismantled, and the locomotives and cars were sold. So came z. B. the only railcar to the Wangerooger Inselbahn . On Spiekeroog, operations were resumed in the same year with a horse-drawn museum, the only one in Germany at the time. In addition, a new station building was built for the museum horse-drawn railway on the station site in the village, which also houses the depot that can be reached via the only switch. Initially, the horse-drawn tram car was parked in a green garage with a siding on the station grounds. The former, still completely preserved station building (including the goods shed) is now used as the “Der Bahnhof” restaurant. The northern part of the station area, on which there were rails accessible via switches for parking, loading and handling freight wagons, was built on with houses. On the rest of the former station area there are small horse paddocks and the construction yard of the island community Spiekeroog. The museum horse tram ran several times a day from the train station to the Westend during the summer season. The idea of an extension in front of the town hall as before 1957 was dropped again in 2005. In winter 2005/2006, the now worn rails were exchanged for used ones that came from the Langeoog island railway . In summer 2017 the operator bought a second horse. So during the season it was possible to switch between the two horses day after day.

Since the horse-drawn tram has been going through a dyke charter that has been ailing since 2020 , the municipality is faced with the alternative of closing the dike or laboriously renovating the charter. Therefore the operation is dormant; a resumption is uncertain.

vehicles

In May 1963, a diesel railcar of the type reached Frankfurt the wagon factory Wismar disused Emden-Pewsum-Greetsiel Light Railway to Spiekeroog. After adjustment work, it carried the main load of the traffic as No. 5 with the “red train”. In addition, there were two two-axle diesel locomotives (No. 4 and 6), which were used for freight traffic and in heavy traffic with another train, the “green train”. The passenger cars were all bought second-hand and came from the Geilenkirchener Kreisbahn and the Mittelbadische Eisenbahnen , among others . The freight wagons also came used from various railways on the mainland. Some were so desolate that they weren't even put into operation on Spiekeroog. There was also a rail crane, which was used at the pier for handling goods until 1955 and then parked.

Received vehicles

The locomotive 4 , the railcar 5, the passenger cars 12, 13 and 20 and several freight cars (including the tank car 32 used for transporting heating oil) are preserved in a museum at the German Railway Association (DEV), with the railcar previously on Wangerooge from 1981 to 1993 when 699 001 was in use. Locomotive 2 , which has been with DEV for a long time, is now a memorial in Harle, locomotive 6 is still in use on the Langeoog island railway as Kö 4 in freight traffic, and since the cessation of freight traffic it has been used to carry baggage trains occasionally. After the cessation of operation, locomotive 4 and three wagons stood as a memorial at Spiekeroog station until 2000, before it was given to DEV in a desolate condition , where it is currently being refurbished.

literature

Malte Werning: island railways of the North Sea . GeraMond, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7654-7245-X .

Egbert Nolte: The Spiekerooger Inselbahn . Branch line documentation 64, Kenning, Nordhorn 2000, ISBN 3-933613-23-X .

Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The North Sea Island Railways . 6th edition. alba, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87094-230-4 .

Gerd Wolff: Inselbahn Spiekeroog , in: Die Kleinbahn, trade journal for secondary + narrow-gauge railways , No. 78 from August 1, 1975 (also published as a special print with 22 pages)

Web links

Commons : Spiekerooger Inselbahn - collection of images, videos and audio files

Inselbahn.de - The Spiekerooger Inselbahn - with photos and vehicle list
Old island train on Spiekeroog - 1972 - Video from Super8 Film

Individual evidence

↑ The StAIK , National Board of island and coastal protection in the north , was an authority of Lower Saxony. This went on in the mid-1990s in the Lower Saxony State Agency for Water Management, Coastal Protection and Nature Conservation ( see Lower Saxony State Archive ). A branch of the WSA (Federal Waterways and Shipping Office) only existed on Spiekeroog until shortly after the Second World War.

↑ Holiday highlight: What will happen to the Spiekeroog horse tram?

↑ The last German horse-drawn tram. In: Salzburger Volksblatt , December 18, 1937, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).

↑ Old island railway on Spiekeroog - 1972 - see video from Super8 film

↑ Report on Spiekeroog.de ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed September 2, 2017@1@ 2