Kleinbahn Heydekrug – Kolleschen
| Heydekrug – Kolleschen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 16.23 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Kleinbahn Heydekrug – Kolleschen (lit. Šilutė –Kulėšai ) was a small railway company in the East Prussian district of Heydekrug , which belonged to the Memelland , which was under Lithuanian sovereignty from 1920 to 1939 .
history
The line from Memel in the direction of Tilsit , built in 1875 by the Prussian Eastern Railway , passed about two kilometers east of the market town of Heydekrug (now the Rajongemeinde Šilutė ), which was also the seat of a district administrator.
So it made sense to build a small train that led from the Heydekrug state train station to the town on the one hand, and to the eastern Russian border on the other. The Insterburger Kleinbahn AG opened the 16 km long, standard-gauge track on 14 December 1913th
The Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (ODEG) in Königsberg was responsible for operational management .
In 1924, the Insterburger Kleinbahn-AG was renamed Ostpreußische Kleinbahnen AG . She continued to run the business, even though the administration was Lithuanian. Due to the relocation of the borders, especially the freight traffic, which had previously transported a lot of wood from Lithuania to the port of Heydekrug, decreased noticeably. The routes were worn out, but were renewed with state aid from 1942 to 1944. In October 1944, Heydekrug was reached by the Red Army and operations ceased. After the end of the war, the line was dismantled, only a track remained to serve a grain store until Werden, it was still in operation in 2018.
In 1939 the following vehicles were available: two steam locomotives, two passenger cars and nine freight cars.
literature
- Siegfried Bufe (Ed.): Railways in West and East Prussia . Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Egglham 1986, ISBN 3-922138-24-1 , ( Ostdeutsche Eisenbahnen 1).
- Jörg Petzold: Small Railway Anniversaries 2013. In: Die Museums-Eisenbahn 1/2013, p. 30