Haspe – Voerde – Breckerfeld railway

Hagen-Haspe-Breckerfeld
Course book range :	209-281 (1914)
Route length:	18.39 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	1200  =
Maximum slope :	50  ‰
Legend from Wuppertal from the direction of Hagen city center Haspe Corbacher Strasse 0.00 Hagen - Haspe (formerly the train station) to Gevelsberg To Dortmund 0.30 Dam road Koeckingstrasse Andreas Brewery 2.40 Schützenhof 3.10 Hasperbach Hasperbacher Mill 4.80 Verneis At the Werre Halverscheid Vockenhagen (until 1931 lido ) Plessen viaduct over the Hasperbach 7.40 Plessen 9.10 Voerde Tanneneck At the braken 11.60 Bilstein 12.30 Kotthauser Heide 13.10 Oberbauer Steherberg 14.70 Niedernheede 15.10 Dent Brenscheider way Peyinghaus Brauck Gap 18.39 Breckerfeld

The Plessen Viaduct today

Former Breckerfeld train station

Former substation at Schützenhof

Historic Hagen tram of the Bergische Museumbahn on a special trip in Bochum

The Kleinbahn Haspe – Voerde – Breckerfeld was a meter- gauge small railway that connected the cities of Breckerfeld and Voerde with the Hagen - Haspe station on the Elberfeld – Dortmund railway line and was last operated as an overland tram . The narrow-gauge railway led from the narrow valley of the Hasperbach with a bend near the Hasper dam and a hairpin at Voerde station on the wide Breckerfeld plateau, which towers over the surroundings at about 350 meters above sea level.

history

planning

The first plans for a small railway in the area around Voerde came up in the 1890s, originally a connection Haspe - Voerde - Brinkerfeld (between Voerde and Altenvoerde) was considered.

Construction and opening

The line was built between 1901 and 1907 by Kleinbahn Voerde-Haspe Ges. Mb H. , the owners of the company were:

• the country of Prussia ,
• the Provincial Association of Westphalia and
• the then still independent municipality Voerde, today part of Ennepetal .

The first section went into operation on May 1, 1903, the 9.1 kilometer long Haspe – Voerde section, before the line reached its total length of 18.39 kilometers on September 30, 1907. Of this, 2.40 kilometers ran on public roads, the rest of the route had its own track body off the beaten track. In the switchback station Voerde, the trains had to change their direction of travel.

The main purpose of the railway was to transport goods in the valley of the Hasperbach and to the Breckerfeld plateau, where various craft businesses in the small iron industry had settled. For this purpose, the standard-gauge freight wagons of the railway were loaded onto trolleys or trolleys . For this purpose, there was a connection to the Haspe state train station on the Elberfeld – Dortmund railway line from November 1904, where a trolley pit was located. The passenger traffic was served every hour. The construction of the Hasper Dam between 1901 and 1904 ensured that the small railway continued to operate, and the railway transported the material for its barrier wall.

After the First World War , however, the operating company ran into economic difficulties and had to cease passenger traffic in 1921. The reasons for this lay in the general economic decline after the war.

Electrification and integration into the Hagen tram network

The railway and the shares of the institutions previously involved in the construction were taken over by Hagener Straßenbahn AG on December 7, 1926 and integrated into the Hagen tram network. The reason for the takeover of the troubled company by the city of Hagen was the incorporation of the formerly independent city of Haspe, which finally took place in 1929. By taking over the Kleinbahn, the city of Hagen hoped to expand its sphere of influence to the cities and communities in the area.

In the course of this takeover, the small train was electrified and integrated into the network of the Hagen tram, from then on line 11 commuted between Breckerfeld and Hagen Markt. Due to the length of the route, a voltage of 1200 volts direct current was used, which was different from the Hagen city network, where 550 volts were used. For the resulting mixed operation, the Hagen tram - at the expense of the rest of the tram operation - procured 16 special dual-system railcars from Killing in 1927 and 1928 with the road numbers 200 to 215. From then on, electric locomotives operated in freight traffic, while the steam locomotives that had previously operated on the route were sold.

The operation on the overland route was nominally under the control of Hagener Vorortbahn GmbH , a wholly owned subsidiary of Hagener Straßenbahn AG. The turning loop in Voerde station , also opened in 1927, made operations easier , saving the new passenger car from having to change direction. In contrast, the freight trains could not use the bend due to their tight radii.

Because the debt service could no longer be financed, the Hagener Vorortbahn GmbH also filed for bankruptcy in 1931. The Hagener Straßenbahn AG then took over the business itself and covered the deficit with surpluses from other branches of business.

Post war and decline

After the Second World War , the competition from individual motorized transport became increasingly noticeable for the small railways. Nevertheless, the company switched its overland route to the lower city voltage on April 8, 1951, after which it could be flexibly served by all trams. Freight traffic was stopped on July 1, 1954, and from then on the electric locomotives were only used to clear snow. With the construction of a rectifier station in Delle in 1955, the voltage for the entire Hagen network was changed to a uniform 750 V. Therefore, from 1955, line 3 Emst - Breckerfeld ran temporarily on the suburban railway, before line 11 - which was now served by modern Düwag open- plan coaches - returned to the route on March 2, 1958 , which was then tied through to Hagen-Markt.

Since line 11 only drove to Breckerfeld every hour, an amplifier line 10 was set up on the same day from Haspe, Corbacher Straße to Schützenhof. Since 1958 the new, already mentioned, Düwag wagons have often been tested on the suburban railway. On November 2, 1963, the last train finally went to Breckerfeld when line 11 was switched to bus service.

Today, the Breckerfeld station building , the viaduct below the Hasper dam, the locomotive shed and the substation in Hagen-Haspe at Schützenhof are still in place, as is the route itself, which is largely used as a hiking and cycling path. The gradient does not exceed the limit of three percent at any point, so that the route offers itself as a cycle path from the Ruhr area to the Sauerland .

vehicles

A special feature of the route were the two mallet steam locomotives. One of these machines, which is unusual for German narrow-gauge railways, remained operational as locomotive 105 on the Swiss museum railway Blonay – Chamby .

literature

• Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 4 Ruhr area. EK-Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 1994, ISBN 3-8825-5334-0 .
• Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 5 Bergisches and Siegerland. EK-Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 2000, ISBN 3-8825-5333-2 .
• Gerd Wolff and Lothar Riedel: German small and private railways, Volume 5 North Rhine-Westphalia (northwestern part) . Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-88255-662-5 , pp. 136–152.
• Dirk Göbel, Jörg Rudat: Please change - Line 11 to the green. ardenkuverlag, Hagen 2012, ISBN 978-3-942184-08-3

Web links

Commons : Kleinbahn Haspe – Voerde – Breckerfeld  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Description of this sight on the route of industrial culturehttp: //vorlage.rik.test/~9~10924
• Railways in the EN district, extensive private page with route map
• Manfred Streppelmann: Video of a tram ride on line 11 from 1963

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.tram-info.de