Kinsau cog railway
| Kinsau cog railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Locomotive 3379 with a freight car on the rack section
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| Route length: | 3.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 150 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rack system : | Riggenbach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: |
up to 1913: 10 km / h from 1913: 20 km / h |
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The Kinsau rack railway was a standard gauge factory railway in the Upper Bavarian municipality of Kinsau . It led from the Kinsau train station on the Landsberg railway at Lech – Schongau to the pulp mill of the Hegge paper mill . The 3.5 kilometer long route was opened in 1907 as the first cogwheel railway in the Kingdom of Bavaria . Due to the steep incline on the steep slope of the Lech , a section of the route was equipped with a rack from the Riggenbach system. In 1929 the rack railway was shut down due to the discontinuation of wood pulp production.
history
Planning and construction
At the beginning of 1898, the Kempten paper mill Hegge acquired a sawmill south of the town of Kinsau am Lech and in 1901 applied for the construction of a wood pulp mill at this location. The building permit was granted in 1902, so that Philipp Holzmann & Cie GmbH could begin construction in 1905. The transport of the material from the paper-making factory in Kempten posed a problem. The Kinsau train station, which opened in 1886, was located on the Landsberg am Lech - Schongau line , but was 75 meters above the wood pulp factory.
A railway line was planned to connect the station and the factory. As the incline along the Lech slope was too steep for an adhesion railway, the paper mill planned a rack railway. The line was to be built in standard gauge so that the railway wagons could be driven directly from the Fuchstalbahn to the wood pulp factory without reloading at the Kinsau station. On February 7, 1906, the Hegge paper mill submitted the building application for the railway line, which was approved on July 15, 1906.
Construction work began immediately after the building permit was granted in July 1906. The Esslingen machine factory was commissioned to build the tracks and a cogwheel locomotive . The track was equipped with a Riggenbach type rack. In addition to the two terminal stations, a siding was built in the middle of the route , which was called the marshalling yard .
Three days after the start of production in the wood pulp factory, the locomotive was delivered by the Esslingen machine factory on February 15, 1907. However, due to technical defects such as a lack of track clearers, the locomotive was not accepted. This delayed commissioning and the transport of wood pulp to the Kinsau train station, which began on February 12, 1907, had to be carried out with horse-drawn vehicles. On July 26, 1907, the factory began operating on the rack railway after the defects had been rectified.
Operation and shutdown
| Krauss No. 6749 | |
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| Number: | 1 |
| Manufacturer: | Krauss & Comp. |
| Year of construction (s): | 1913 |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Total wheelbase: | 2800 mm |
| Empty mass: | 24000 kg |
| Service mass: | 30000 kg |
| Top speed: | 20 km / h |
| Driving wheel diameter: | 962 mm |
| Gear system : | Riggenbach |
| Number of drive gears: | 1 |
| Size gears: | 955 mm |
| Number of cylinders: | 2 |
| Cylinder diameter: | 440 mm |
| Piston stroke: | 540 mm |
| Boiler overpressure: | 12 atm |
| Grate area: | 1.2 m² |
| Evaporation heating surface: | 65 m² |
| Water supply: | 2500 kg |
| Fuel supply: | 700 kg of coal |
After the start of operation, the two-axle tank locomotive type B / a-n2t with the number 3379 brought three to four wagons daily from the wood pulp factory to Kinsau station. The speed of the train was relatively slow; A maximum speed of 6 km / h was permitted on the rack section, while 10 km / h was permitted on the friction section. One train was manned by three people, a train driver , a stoker and a brakeman . The locomotive could transport one car uphill, while two cars could be pulled downhill.
In May 1908 two wagons rolled down the line to the Lech after a clutch crack and were smashed at the end of the line at the wood pulp factory. After this accident it was only allowed to use the locomotive on the downhill side of the train, so that the cars had to be pushed uphill. For this, the track systems of the marshalling yard were rebuilt. Barriers were installed on the incline to prevent cars from accidentally rolling down in the future.
As the locomotive was increasingly overloaded, its condition deteriorated and several months of revisions were necessary. Since the train operation should not be interrupted, the Hegge factory decided to purchase a second locomotive. In 1913 the Krauss & Comp. the second two-axle tank locomotive of the type B / a-n2t with the number 6749. It was more powerful than the first locomotive and reached a top speed of 20 km / h on the friction section and 10 km / h on the cogwheel section. The first locomotive has since served as a reserve locomotive. For the two locomotives einständiger emerged in the pulp factory engine shed .
Due to the low transport capacity and the high maintenance costs, the complex operation became increasingly uneconomical after the First World War . From 1922, the wood pulp factory was also used as a power station. In 1929, the Hegge paper mill completely stopped producing wood pulp and replaced the wood grinders with generators to generate electricity. As a result, operations on the rack railway were discontinued. The last transport trip took place in May 1929 and the last four freight wagons were removed. On August 20, 1929, the Deutsche Reichsbahn shut down the connection of the rack railway in Kinsau. The two cogwheel locomotives were sold to the Albbruck paper mill . In 1932 the tracks were dismantled and a little later the only bridge was blown up during a military exercise. Some relics of the route are still there, for example concrete foundations on the Lech slope and the former engine shed.
Route description
The Kinsau cog railway started at the Kinsau station on a stump track south of the reception building . At line kilometers 0.1 the line was connected to the tracks of the Landsberg – Schongau railway line via a switch. The freight wagons loaded with wood pulp were transferred to the main tracks of the Kinsau station via the switch connection in order to be lined up on the freight trains to the Hegge paper mill in Kempten. Behind the station, the line turned east and ran towards the town of Kinsau. On the southern outskirts of Kinsau it swung straight back south. In this curve at 1.7 km there was a siding on both sides which was used to park freight cars and to dismantle and assemble the trains. This facility was called a marshalling yard . After the accident in 1908, the track systems of the marshalling yard were rebuilt. Since the locomotive was only allowed to run down the valley side of the train, instead of the track that was tied on both sides, two butt tracks were built on one side from the direction of the wood pulp factory.
About 500 meters further, the route that had previously led to the south turned to the northeast in a cut in the terrain and reached the slope of the Lech. Behind a small bridge over a field path began the 383.45 meter long rack section, on which the route led down to the Lech with a gradient of up to 150 ‰ . At the end of the rack section was the double-track station of the wood pulp factory. In addition to the main track, there was a siding on both sides, which was equipped with a weighbridge and a loading ramp . From 1913, the line ended north of the two tracks in a single, brick-built locomotive shed.
See also
literature
- Peter Rasch: The branch lines between Ammersee, Lech and Wertach. With the Ammerseebahn, Pfaffenwinkelbahn & Co around the Bavarian Rigi . EOS Verlag, St. Ottilien 2011, ISBN 978-3-8306-7455-9 .
Web links
- Peter Rasch: The history of the Kinsau cog railway on radler-paradies.de.
- Jens Merte: Wood pulp factory and rack railway Kinsau on werkbahn.de.
Individual evidence
- ^ Rasch: The branch lines between Ammersee, Lech and Wertach . 2011, p. 244-246 .
- ↑ a b Augsburger Allgemeine : A cog railway tortured its way up the Lech slope on augsburger-allgemeine.de, from January 3, 2008, author: Thomas Wunder, accessed on July 31, 2017.
- ^ Krauss & Comp. : Legend of the 2/2 coupled locomotive No. 6749 .
- ↑ a b Jens Merte: Holzstofffabrik und Zahnradbahn Kinsau on werkbahn.de, accessed on July 31, 2017.
- ^ Initiative Fuchstalbahn: Kinsau station on fuchstalbahn.com, accessed on July 31, 2017.
- ^ Rasch: The branch lines between Ammersee, Lech and Wertach . 2011, p. 246-247 .
- ^ Rasch: The branch lines between Ammersee, Lech and Wertach . 2011, p. 247-248 .