Kleinbahn Marienburg (Han) –Hildesia
| Marienburg (Han) –Hildesia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 7.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 10 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 300 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 25 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The narrow-gauge railway Marienburg (Han) -Hildesia was about 7.5 km long, single-track , non- electrified railway line in the northern Harz region . It was originally built to connect the potash shafts in the Beustertal, later the line also took on other tasks. In 2004 all the tracks on the railway line were dismantled.
history
Connection of the potash shafts
To connect the "potash in Beustertale" the planned union Hildesia end of the 19th century, a standard gauge rail connection. Different variants were examined, for example the route was originally supposed to run from Nordstemmen via Heyersum and the planned Mathildenhall shaft to Hildesia . This very steep route planning was later discarded and from 1897 a railway connection Marienburg - Diekholzen - Emmerke was planned. By December 1898 the line was almost completed. From September 20, 1899, the first freight trains ran , the maximum speed of which was not allowed to exceed 20 km / h. The construction of the railway was limited to the Marienburg – Diekholzen – Hildesia section; the section from Diekholzen to Emmerke was to follow later. It was not until 1912 that this plan was rejected. Until then, there had always been talk of the "full-gauge Emmerke – Marienburg railway". The section would have left the Diekholzen stop in a north-easterly direction, so that a change of direction would have been necessary in Diekholzen . Then the route would have run via the Marienrode and Sorsum stops to Emmerke.
passenger traffic
From 1906, voices were heard from the neighboring communities calling for passenger traffic . The station Marienburg (Han) at the state railway was then prepared for passenger train stops. Stops were created at the small train. From July 15, 1912, passenger trains (now at 25 instead of the previous 20 km / h) drove from the small platform in Marienburg to Diekholzen. The remainder from Diekholzen to the Hildesia shaft was initially reserved for works personnel. It was not until May 14, 1916, that public passenger transport was also started on this section. The passengers on the route were mainly day trippers and students. The rush on Sundays is said to have been so great that the small train had to extend its passenger trains with additional wagons .
Mine train
Simultaneously with the opening of passenger transport, a narrow-gauge mine railway was also opened in 1912 . The electrified railway with a gauge of 600 mm began at the Hildesia shaft next to the small railway systems and led up to the Mathildenhall shaft , which was under construction. From 1915 there was even a passenger service for the workers on this railway, for which a four-axle passenger car was available. Two electric locomotives , each with two 25 HP locomotives, were used, the contact wire voltage was 230 V direct current , the distance between the top of the rail and the contact line was five meters. Mainly building materials and machines for the Mathildenhall shaft, which is currently under construction, were transported on the railway. There was a hairpin directly in front of the mine . In 1917 was on the Barfelder Rose in Hildesheim Forest a siding installed for the transport of timber. In 1934 the entire mine railway was shut down and then expanded.
Regional bus
At the end of the 1920s, the small railroad had to contend with a significant drop in sales in both passenger and freight traffic. Only two pairs of trains a day ran in passenger traffic. Carloads in freight transport such as wood were completely absent. The production in the shafts had also come to a standstill. Therefore, the operation on the small railway was stopped on March 31, 1931. The bus service took over the localities . The small railway line as well as the shaft systems were in complete shutdown for the following years.
Sidings to the ammunition plant and the Bosch plant in the Hildesheim forest
When an ammunition factory was planned and set up in the area of the former mine in Diekholzen in the course of the armament of the Wehrmacht , the old small railroad was also reactivated as a connecting line. Between Marienburg and Söhre it was relocated for a short stretch to save two bridges over the Beuster . From the end point in Hildesia, an approximately three-kilometer-long track network was built to develop the Muna facilities.
In the years 1937 to 1942, under the leadership of Bosch, an armaments company with the cover name ELFI ("Elektro- und Feinmechanische Industrie GmbH"; see also: Neuhof - history ), the starter , alternator , magneto and inertia starter for large trucks , was set up in the Hildesheim Forest under the leadership of Bosch - and made tank engines. From September 1943 to June 1944, the factory, which was renamed “Trillke Works” at the end of 1942, built a 2.4 km long siding to the small railway. The track branched off from the Kleinbahn at km 3.986 and led partly through wooded terrain to the plant, which has been operating as Bosch- Blaupunkt since April 1952 . From 1947 to 1951/1952, works personnel traffic was also carried over the line, with trains going through to Hildesheim Hbf . It was operated by the " Deutsche Reichsbahn in the United Economic Area " or, from 1949, the Deutsche Bundesbahn . After the Second World War, potash mining was resumed in 1949, but finally stopped in 1966. After that there were a few special trips with historic vehicles. Subsequently, the section between the junction of the Bosch track, which was still used, and the Hildesia factory site remained unused for many years.
Backfilling and decommissioning
In the mid-1990s, it was decided to backfill the systems that were still held as reserve shafts. Therefore, the old small railway line was restored in 1997. From 1998 three trains a week drove to Diekholzen with the lye required for backfilling. The trains, which consisted of 20 tank wagons and were pulled by a class 294 locomotive , were divided into two parts of ten wagons each on the pull-out tracks in Marienburg for reasons of load . The backfilling of the shaft was completed in September 2003. Since there was no longer any need for the railway line and the Bosch plant in the Hildesheim forest only used its siding sporadically, the entire line was shut down in September 2003 and then dismantled. The sidings to the former Muna on the factory premises had already been dismantled in the mid-1990s.
Current condition
The tracks are completely dismantled. While parts of the railway embankment of the Bosch track were leveled and have now disappeared, the embankment of the small railway line to Diekholzen is still completely preserved and has not yet been interrupted at any point. In 2011, an asphalt bike path was laid on sections of the route between Söhre and the village of Diekholzen, which also leads over the large concrete bridge in Diekholzen. Current plans to demolish this bridge are therefore off the table. The station building in Söhre was moved to the Hildesheim Forest after the cessation of passenger traffic and still serves as a club house there today.
literature
- Eberhard Schüler: Marienburg (Han) –Hildesia . In: Wolf-Dietger Machel (Hrsg.): Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany then and now . GeraMond Verlag, Munich 1999.
- Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 11: Lower Saxony 3 - South of the Mittelland Canal . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-670-4 , p. 253-257 .
- Manfred Overesch : Bosch in Hildesheim 1937–1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-36754-4 .