Kleinbahn Lingen – Berge – Quakenbrück
| Lingen – Berge – Quakenbrück | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 55.3 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 750 mm ( narrow gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Categorization | Narrow gauge railway | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| expansion | single track not electrified |
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The narrow-gauge light railway Lingen - mountains - Quakenbrück opened up between May 31, 1904 and its closure on 31 May 1952 for 48 years the rural-oriented space between the two cities Lingen and Quakenbrück.
history
The small train was created from the efforts of the municipality of Berge to better connect the surrounding rural area with traffic. A first attempt to realize such a railway project failed in 1897. Only after the Wettrup community had also shown interest in a railway connection, a committee of the two districts involved, Lingen and Bersenbrück and the towns adjacent to the railway line, was founded, which was established by the end of 1899 prepared the preparatory work for the railway line. On October 2, 1901, the Kleinbahn Lingen - Berge - Quakenbrück GmbH was founded; The State of Prussia took over a third of the 1,307,600 Marks of initial capital . The rest of the sum was taken over by the localities that were located on the Kleinbahn, the district of Lingen and various private individuals. For cost reasons, the track was built with a gauge of 750 mm. The groundbreaking ceremony was in June 1902 and the line was officially opened on May 31, 1904. At both endpoints, a link with the state railway was established.
The transport services of freight and passenger traffic developed, although better than expected at the beginning, but especially was freight quite modest. An intermediate high arose in the 1930s when the necessary gravel was transported by small train during the construction of the Quakenbrücker airfield . After the end of the Second World War , the livelihood of the small railroad was finally endangered by the increasing number of motor vehicles , so that the necessary renewals of material and rolling stock could no longer be made. As a result, on January 1, 1951, an application was made to be released from the obligation to transport , on May 31, 1952 operations were ceased and soon afterwards the plant was dismantled.
The existing road (part of the current federal road 213 ) was used as the route between Lingen-Stadtflur and Bawinkel .
route
The line of the small railway had a length of 56.9 km and began at the small station Lingen, which was a few hundred meters north of the station of the state railway . Travelers had to cover this distance on foot. The workshop and the largest of the three locomotive sheds were also located here . There was also a pit for trolleys for exchanging cars with the state railway. From the station further includes a branch line to Lingener port on the chain Dortmund-Ems Canal from where several companies Lingener sidings owned. A steam-powered crane was available at the port for reloading goods.
After leaving the Lingen train station, the small train crossed the state railway line on a bridge and passed the Lingen-Stadtflur stop on demand . Then it went on to Bawinkel via Clusorth and Plankorth . In this station, the station building of which is still standing, mainly wood and cattle were handled.
From here it went past the Bregenbeck demand stop to Gersten , then on via the Lengerich demand stop , the Wettrup train station and a loading point at the Handrup Monastery to Vechtel , which was about halfway along the route and had had a locomotive shed since 1911 because the Evening trains from both directions ended and resumed in the morning. The route continued via Ohrtermersch to Ohrte . There had been a branch to the brickworks there since around 1910 , which, with its need for coal and the transport of clinker and clay pipes, was one of the most important freight customers of the Kleinbahn. The train now left the lowlands and came to the Berger Hügelland, where a gravel pit with a siding had been operated at km 35.5 since 1920 .
Shortly afterwards the largest intermediate station was reached with the Berge train station . From here mainly wood was removed from the Berger forests. This was followed by the Dalvers and Renslage stations , a little further on from 1936 to 1945 there was a demand stop for a Reich labor camp . Then it went on via Andorf to Menslage . From here it went via the Schandorf , Wierup , Bottorf train station and the Wasserhausen and Hasebrücke train station to Quakenbrück train station. This station was a bit offset across from the state railway station, but here, too, a direct change between the small and state railways was not possible due to legal disputes, and travelers had to make a detour of several hundred meters on foot.
The Kleinbahn only had its own station buildings in Lingen, Bawinkel, Gersten, Wettrup, Berge, Menslage and Quakenbrück. At the other stations, the sale of tickets and general cargo handling was done by agents, often the village hosts.
vehicles
The number of locomotives and wagons was quite modest: when the company opened, there were four locomotives, five passenger wagons , two mail / baggage wagons and 22 freight wagons , of which 15 were open, six were covered and one was made of wood.
The first locomotives were three-axle tank locomotives that were supplied by Hanomag . In 1908 another identical locomotive was added. Traffic was handled with these five locomotives until 1922. However, as the trains became longer and heavier, new locomotives had to be procured to replace three of the old ones. These were again tank locomotives, but this time from the Borsig company with the C1'h2t wheel arrangement. In 1936 a used Mallet locomotive was acquired by the Osterode – Kreiensen railway , but it had to be surrendered during World War II. Due to the lack of locomotives after the war, a used Mallet locomotive was bought from the Gartetalbahn in 1948 .
Initially, the Kleinbahn had five passenger cars, each with a 2nd class compartment and two 3rd class compartments. This was a special feature for a rural small railroad, as the 2nd class at that time offered much more comfort than today and was hardly in demand, especially in rural areas. The 2nd class compartments were therefore expanded again later. A few years later two more passenger cars were bought, these offered passengers only 3rd class. One of the original passenger cars was later converted into a baggage car, so that the Kleinbahn had three baggage cars. Contrary to the sparse passenger traffic throughout life, however, a heavy freight traffic developed quickly on the small railway, which is why the initial stock of goods wagons grew rapidly. Shortly before it was shut down, the Kleinbahn finally owned 29 closed and 40 open freight cars. There were also four trolleys that were used to transport standard-gauge freight cars from Lingen train station to Lingen harbor and later to Bawinkel. No trolleys were used on the northern section of the route, the goods were reloaded by hand between the trolleys of the small railway and the state railway at the Quakenbrück train station. A special feature is that two hinged-cover wagons for the transport of lime, which are not common for small railways, can be verified , but which were already deleted from the vehicle list before the operation was closed. The reason for this was the high demand for lime in the local agriculture.
After the shutdown
After the shutdown, the engine shed in Lingen remained standing for a few years, but was also demolished at the end of the 1970s as part of the construction of a new road bridge (north bridge, today Ludwig-Erhard-Brücke). Thus, only the preserved station buildings in Bawinkel and Quakenbrück are reminiscent of the small railway, furthermore remains of the stone bridge abutments and the railway embankment at the level of the crossing of the state railway in Lingen are still preserved. The reception building in Berge was demolished in 2013. The Heimatverein Berge cares for the memory of the small train, so 25 years after the cessation of operations in 1977 two freight wagons were inaugurated as a memorial at the former train station in Berge.
literature
- Heimatverein Berge (Hrsg.): Lingen - Berge - Quakenbrück 1904-1952. Self-published 1974–1994 (several editions, without ISBN).
- Heimatverein Berge (Hrsg.): Kleinbahn-Geschichte, Lingen - Berge - Quakenbrück 1904-1952. Verlag Thoben, Quakenbrück 1991, ISBN 3-921176-67-0 .
- Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 9: Lower Saxony 1 . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 3-88255-668-4 , p. 344-362 .
