Brahlstorf – Neuhaus railway line
| Brahlstorf – Neuhaus (Elbe) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Sudebrücke near Preten
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 10.7 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 3.3 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 370 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Brahlstorf – Neuhaus line was a standard gauge railway line in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Lower Saxony . The line, which opened in 1912 and connected Brahlstorf with today's Neuhaus office , was built and operated initially by Kleinbahn Neuhaus-Brahlstorf GmbH . The route served only the local transport needs, the goods to be transported were mainly agricultural products, cattle and wood, while the passenger traffic was always modest. In 1949 the Deutsche Reichsbahn took overthe approximately 11 km long route. Passenger traffic was stopped in 1968, freight traffic continued until 1972, after which the tracks were dismantled.
history
Prehistory and construction
The Berlin-Hamburg railway , which opened in 1846/1847, did not touch Neuhaus , as it was led via Ludwigslust and Hagenow to connect Rostock, Schwerin and Wismar from there. Although the Brahlstorf station on the Berlin-Hamburg railway was only about ten kilometers away, the way there led through the often flooded lowland area of the Sude . It was not until 1880 that Neuhaus was given a solid road to Brahlstorf station via a dam. The residents of Neuhaus have wanted a railway connection since the end of the 19th century. Due to its location on the right bank of the Elbe, a connection to the existing railway network in the province of Hanover - in which Neuhaus was located - would only have been possible with an expensive bridge over the Elbe , so other projects in the direction of Mecklenburg were preferred. In addition to a narrow-gauge railway , the draft of a railway from Boizenburg via Neuhaus to Dömitz was examined. In 1908 a route from Brahlstorf via Preten and Dellien to Neuhaus was favored, which could possibly have been extended to Kaarßen . In December 1910 the Kleinbahn Neuhaus-Brahlstorf GmbH was founded, one third each of the share capital of 630,000 marks was taken over by the Prussian state, the province of Hanover and the district of Bleckede, to which Neuhaus was administratively subordinate. In the spring of 1911, the Brahlstorf – Neuhaus draft was approved, so that construction work on the 10.7 kilometer long railway line could begin immediately. The actual construction work turned out to be complicated, as the route was partly located directly in the highly flood-prone area of the Elbe and Sude, and the subsoil was boggy. Therefore, an embankment almost 3 m high on average was built between Brahlstorf and Preten, so the route was higher than the water level during the Elbe floods in 1888 .
Development up to the Second World War
After completion in the spring of 1912, the line was opened on April 16, 1912. A total of 12.2 km of track, 13 single and two double turnouts were installed. The traffic developed positively at the beginning, the main transport goods were agricultural products, cattle and wood from the forests around Neuhaus. Passenger traffic, on the other hand, was always insignificant. After the First World War, the operating result deteriorated, so in 1922 train traffic was severely restricted. With the occupation of the Ruhr , the dispatch of pit wood for the mines in the Ruhr area also ceased, so in the spring of 1923 only one pair of trains ran daily and operations were completely idle on Sundays. Since June 1, 1923, the railway was operated together with other railways in the Lüneburg district and its neighboring districts by the Hanover Regional Small Railway Authority. From 1924 the economic situation improved somewhat, more trains were being run again, the technical systems were modernized and the track systems were repaired.
Since the global economic crisis in 1929, the railway was finally in a bad situation, operating expenses rose more and more, and there were no notable increases in income. In addition, there was direct competition with a bus line in passenger and postal transport. The number of travelers continued to decrease, and rationalizations such as the conversion of a steam locomotive to one-man operation in 1926 did not prevent passenger traffic from being stopped on November 5, 1934. A Brahlstorf-Neuhaus bus line was set up as a replacement. After that, there was only one trip a day for freight traffic, but some people were also transported in these freight trains.
The superstructure was reinforced in 1939, at the same time as the beginning of the Second World War, passenger transport was resumed as the bus line was discontinued due to the war-related fuel rationing. However, the route was not listed in the course books. The Kleinbahn survived the war without any damage.
Nationalization and the end
After the end of the war, the Elbe became the border between the two German states , Neuhaus was now on the territory of Mecklenburg. The Neuhaus office came to the newly founded state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (referred to as the state of Mecklenburg from 1947 to 1952 ). The district of Hagenow took over the management on April 28, 1946, the small railway company was thus de facto expropriated. (The Kleinbahn Neuhaus-Brahlstorf GmbH, however, continued to exist in the Federal Republic until 1986, only then was it deleted from the commercial register.) In 1947, rail operations were transferred to the state-owned railways in Demmin. Like all non-state railways on the territory of the Soviet occupation zone at that time, the Kleinbahn was integrated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn on April 1, 1949 . In the course books, the route was not listed again until 1950 with three daily train pairs.
A certain upswing set in again when the flood areas were meliorated at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s , as the flood situation worsened again with the construction of the Geesthacht barrage. In addition to agricultural products, livestock and fuels, building materials were also transported on a large scale. Occasionally there were through coaches to and from Schwerin at this time . As the condition of the superstructure continued to deteriorate, travel times increased. In 1948 this was 28 minutes, in the second half of the 1960s it was 65 minutes for the almost 11 kilometers. Since private transport became more and more important, the number of passengers fell. After the road was extended to the Brahlstorfer Bahnhof, passenger traffic was therefore stopped on September 29, 1968. From then on, buses operated between Brahlstorf and Neuhaus. On July 1, 1970, the line became a siding at Brahlstorf station. With the abandonment of goods traffic at the end of 1972, the end of the former small railway came and the line was then dismantled by Soviet soldiers.
Vehicle use
In addition to a three-axle steam locomotive (similar to the Prussian T 3 ), which was transferred to another railway in 1923, a two-axle machine was also available when it opened in 1912, which hauled most of the trains until 1949. After 1949, mainly three-couplers from other nationalized private and small railways were used. From 1963, a class V 15 diesel locomotive took over the transport of the trains, which was replaced by a V 23 after passenger traffic was discontinued.
Individual evidence
- ^ Siegfried Graßmann: 100 years of Kleinbahn Neuhaus (Elbe) - Brahlstorf , p. 5 ff.
- ^ Siegfried Graßmann: 100 years of Kleinbahn Neuhaus (Elbe) - Brahlstorf , p. 20 ff.
- ^ Siegfried Graßmann: 100 Years of Kleinbahn Neuhaus (Elbe) - Brahlstorf , p. 23
- ^ Siegfried Graßmann: 100 years of Kleinbahn Neuhaus (Elbe) - Brahlstorf , p. 23 f.
- ^ Siegfried Graßmann: 100 years of Kleinbahn Neuhaus (Elbe) - Brahlstorf , p. 24 ff.
literature
- Siegfried Graßmann: 100 years of Kleinbahn Neuhaus (Elbe) - Brahlstorf , Verlag Bernd Neddermeyer, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-941712-15-7
