Royal Westphalian Railway Company
The Königlich-Westfälische Eisenbahn (KWE) was the state railway company of the province of Westphalia belonging to the Kingdom of Prussia and formed the basis of the Prussian state railways with the Lower Silesian-Märkische Eisenbahn and the Ostbahn . The KWE route network last comprised around 315 kilometers from Rheine via Hamm to Warburg and from Welver to Oberhausen .
history
The KWE should initially only cover the 32 kilometer long gap from Hamm to Lippstadt between the Münster – Hamm line opened in 1848 ( Münster-Hammer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft ) and the Cologne-Minden-Thuringian connecting railway company that was under construction at the same time Close (KMTVEG). The latter, however, went bankrupt in 1848 and the Prussian state took over the construction and operation of the KWE.
The cause of the bankruptcy of KMTVEG were difficulties in building a tunnel that remained unfinished: In order to avoid bridging the Beketal west of Altenbeken, it had designed a line that was to pass under the main ridge of the Egge Mountains in a 600 meter long tunnel near Willebadessen . The remains of this early investment ruin " Old Railway " are still visible today.
The main route of the Westphalian Railway ran from Hamm via Soest , Lippstadt, Paderborn and Altenbeken to Warburg . The construction of the route had been decided between the Kingdom of Prussia and Electorate Hesse , which lay between Westphalia and the Prussian heartland. It was opened to Paderborn on October 4, 1850 and to Warburg on July 21, 1853. The line was the first west German railway to cross a low mountain range. The Altenbeken Viaduct is an early monument to the history of the railway in Germany .
After the Münster-Hammer Railway was taken over in 1855, its line was added. It was continued to Rheine in 1856, where there was a connection to the North Sea ports of Emden and Leer via the Emsland line ( Hannoversche Westbahn ) . This route of the Hanover State Railways was very interesting for the Kingdom of Prussia because of the high tariffs of the Dutch Rhine ports. After the Prussian-German War , with the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover , its state railways also came into Prussian hands in 1866 and were handed over to the Royal Westphalian Railway two years later.
From Welver station between Hamm and Soest, a dead straight line was built in 1876 via Unna- Königsborn to Dortmund Südbahnhof , which the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft also used. Although the line was extended as the Emschertalbahn from 1879 further west via Dorstfeld , Bodelschwingh , Mengede , Herne , Gelsenkirchen , Horst to Osterfeld WfE , operations on this section could not be continued economically.
Route network
| opening | Length [km] | course | comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 1, 1850 | 76.1 | Hamm – Paderborn | |
| March 28, 1851 | 4.6 | Warburg-Haueda | loudly leased |
| July 22, 1853 | 54.5 | Paderborn – Warburg | loudly taken over from the Cologne-Mindener connecting railway loudly built by the Prussian state with a different route as early as 1850 |
| May 26, 1848 | 34.9 | Münster – Hamm | Acquired by takeover of the Münster-Hammer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft in 1855 |
| June 27, 1856 | 39.0 | Münster – Rheine | |
| October 1, 1864 | 41.4 | Altenbeken – Höxter | |
| October 10, 1865 | 7.4 | Höxter-Holzminden | Connection to the Braunschweigische Südbahn to Kreiensen / Börßum - Jerxheim - Oschersleben - Magdeburg |
| January 1, 1868 | 178.4 | Emden – Salzbergen / Rheine | according to the takeover of the Emden – Rheine section, the “ Hanoverian Westbahn ” of the formerly Royal Hanover State Railways , the Emden – Salzbergen section was taken over by the “Royal Direction of the Westphalian Railway” on May 1, 1867 “by exchange”; From April 1, 1881, the Emden – Münster connection was assigned to the “Königliche Eisenbahn-Direction Cöln (rechtsrh.)”, the official name of the line was “Westphalian Railway (Emden – Soest) in the Kgl. Railway Directorate Cöln (right rh.) " |
| September 30, 1875 | 60.3 | Münster – Enschede | after “in the operation of the Königl. Westf. EB " |
| May 15, 1876 | 35.8 | Welver – Dortmund KWE | |
| January 15, 1878 | 64.0 | Ottbergen – Northeim | |
| September 1, 1878 | 12 | Dortmund KWE – Mengede | |
| November 12, 1879 | ~ 35 | Bodelschwingh – Osterfeld KWE | |
| March 15, 1880 | ? | Osterfeld KWE – Sterkrade KWE | |
| June 15, 1883 | 77.9 | Emden - north - Esens - Wittmund / border with Oldenburg | According to route construction on behalf of the Prussian Ministry of Commerce to create a connection between Emden and Wilhelmshaven for military purposes, the preparatory work will be completed in September |
| June 15, 1883 | 10.5 | Georgsheil-Aurich | according to route construction on behalf of the Prussian Ministry of Commerce |
Status of the former KWE lines from 1967
In 1967 the traffic between Unna-Königsborn and Welver was stopped and the line was dismantled.
Today the S4 S-Bahn runs on the Unna-Königsborn - Dortmund-Dorstfeld section and the S 2 on the section from Dorstfeld to Mengede.
The main line between Altenbeken and Willebadessen was rebuilt due to geological disturbances and opened to traffic in 2002. In the course of the new construction, the Eggetunnel with a length of 2,880 meters was created under the Egge Mountains, making it the longest railway tunnel in West Germany.
See also
- History of the railways in Germany
- List of railways in the Prussian provinces of Westphalia and the Rhine province until 1930
- List of local rail transport lines in North Rhine-Westphalia
- Hamm – Warburg railway line
- Unfinished structures
literature
- Werner Menninghaus, Günter Krause: The Royal Westphalian Railway. Uhle & Kleimann, Lübbecke 1985, ISBN 3-922657-40-0 .
- Wolfgang Klee: Railways in Westphalia. From the beginning to the present. Aschendorff, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-402-05260-1 .
- Hans Walter Wichert: ... from route construction to rapid expansion. A collection of documents on the Cologne-Minden-Thuringian connection line 1845–1849 and the beginnings of the Royal Westphalian Railway. Flamm, Waldbröl 1994, ISBN 3-9802690-4-3 .
- Hans-Josef Jockel: The railway in the Egge Mountains. Altenbeken 1983.
- Josef Högemann, Peter Kristandt: The railway in Altenbeken. 150 years! Altenbeken railway viaduct. Vivat Viaduct. Kristandt, Hagen am Teutoburger Wald 2003, ISBN 3-935645-17-1 .
Web links
- Lisa Tschorn: The creation of the Westphalian railway network until 1885. on the website of the Westphalia-Lippe Regional Association , last accessed on June 16, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d H. Kobschätzky: Route Atlas of the German Railways 1835-1892, Düsseldorf 1971
- ↑ Altenbekener Eisenbahnfreunde ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c www.westbahn.de
