Kleinbahn Siegburg – Zündorf
| Siegburg – Troisdorf – Zündorf | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | formerly 34.4 km today: 15.3 km |
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| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 190 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Kleinbahn Siegburg – Zündorf , popularly called Rhubarberschlitten , was a small railway in the Siegkreis . Between 1914 and 1965 there was passenger traffic on the route network between Siegburg , Troisdorf , Wahn , Niederkassel and Zündorf . Freight traffic is still carried out between Troisdorf and Lülsdorf today.
history
Emergence
Since 1906 the district of Siegburg and the Continentale Eisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebs-Gesellschaft from Berlin have been negotiating the establishment of a regular- gauge small railway from Monheim am Rhein via Siegburg to Much . Since these negotiations were unsuccessful, the mayor of Siegburg proposed on July 26, 1909 that the Rheinisch Westfälische Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (RWE) build an electric tram between Niederkassel and Siegburg .
On December 21, 1910, the district council decided to build a railway from the then independent municipality of Porz am Rhein via Mondorf to Beuel, including a branch from Mondorf via Troisdorf to Siegburg. On December 31, 1910 and 1911, a contract was signed with RWE. At the instigation of the Reichseisenbahn and the Cologne suburban railways, however, changes were made to the approval of the district president of August 5, 1913. No express traffic was permitted on the routes, no track connection from Zündorf to Porz or to another Cologne suburban railway was allowed, the connections from Siegburg to Wahn and from Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hütte to the planned port in Mondorf were prohibited.
On March 19, 1914, the first section from Spich via Sieglar to Lülsdorf was put into operation. At first only goods traffic was operated here. On May 25, 1914, passenger traffic from Siegburg via Sieglar to Lülsdorf was opened. The first depot of the Kleinbahn Siegburg – Zündorf was located in Sieglar. Further line extensions were initially prevented by the beginning of the First World War . The following new route sections have been inaugurated:
- May 6, 1917: 7.2 kilometers from Spich to Wahn (freight traffic only) with a connection to the Wahn tram
- October 29, 1920: 2.8 kilometers from Lülsdorf to Langel
- October 1, 1921: 3.5 kilometers from Langel to Zündorf
From October 1, 1921, it was possible to travel by tram between the cities of Cologne and Bonn. On that day, the Cologne suburban railway had also reached Zündorf. Siegburg had been connected to the Bonn-Stadt, Bonn-Land and Siegkreis (SSB) railways since September 6, 1911 . However, this journey took considerably longer than with the Cologne-Bonn railways or the Reichsbahn, you had to buy three tickets, change trains twice and cross the street in Zündorf, even though there was a track connection.
In 1921 the railway had reached its greatest extent with a distance of 34.4 kilometers, although only 3.2 kilometers were double-tracked. The circle's intentions to extend the railway in some places always failed in the years to come due to insufficient funding.
In 1936 Hugo Stinnes concentrated all RWE lines in the newly founded subsidiary Rheinisch-Westfälische Straßen- und Kleinbahnen (RWSK).
During the Second World War , on December 28, 1944, the city of Siegburg was badly hit and the tracks of the Siegburg – Zündorf small railway were badly damaged. The next day the depot in Sieglar fell victim to a bomb attack. On April 11, 1945, the bridges over the Agger and the Reichsbahn in Oberlar were blown up by the Wehrmacht.
From autumn 1945 the connection between Siegburg and Zündorf could be put back into operation in sections. From July 3, 1946, wagons were commuting between the destroyed Agger Bridge and the destroyed Victory Bridge . By December 19, 1946, the connection to the SSB was restored. Continuous traffic could then be started on March 25, 1948.
Suspension of passenger traffic
Due to the increase in individual traffic , the switch to the omnibus was already discussed at the beginning of the 1950s . Initially, the decision to discontinue the company was postponed to March 22, 1958. On April 11 and 22, 1963, RWE and the district decided that the railway should become the property of the district on April 30, 1963. The switch to the omnibus was decided on April 19, 1963. From then on, the following lines were discontinued:
- October 14, 1963: Siegburg - Sieglar
- September 6, 1964: Sieglar - Zündorf
- August 30, 1965: Sieglar - Porz-Wahn
Since the freight traffic survived the end of the tram, but it was too time-consuming to maintain the overhead lines only for this, the operation was switched to diesel locomotives on June 22, 1966. However, routes have also been closed here. The line from Porz-Lind to Porz-Wahn was discontinued on April 7, 1967 and the line from Lülsdorf to Zündorf on May 21, 1969.
On December 1, 1972, the Kleinbahn Siegburg – Zündorf was renamed the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis Eisenbahn after the expansion of the district area . On January 1, 1973, the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis Eisenbahn merged with the transport companies of the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis GmbH to form the Rhein-Sieg-Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH (RSVG). In the period up to 1983, the Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn AG bus service was also taken over.
Operation since 1980
On June 30, 1977, freight traffic between Troisdorf and Cologne / Bonn Airport was stopped. This means that the RSVG's track network now only covers the 15.3 km stretch between Troisdorf Vorbf and Lülsdorf, with a track length of 18.1 km. The volume of traffic has fallen sharply in recent years, and today there is only one single transfer freight train to the Evonik plant in Lülsdorf instead of the previous three. Are being introduced, the two 60-ton MaK - Diesel locomotives of RSVG, also has the RSVG special-purpose motor trolley (track small cars). Many level crossings along the route are unrestricted and usually only have traffic lights, so that two fatal accidents have occurred at unrestricted level crossings.
The operating license for the line was extended on February 15, 1984 to September 30, 2021.
literature
- Bernd Franco Hoffmann: Disused railway lines in the Rhineland. Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2014, ISBN 978-3-95400-396-9 .
- Adolf Becker: Kleinbahn Siegburg-Zündorf. Verlag C. Kersting / RSVG, 1989.