Kleinbahn Weidenau – Deuz

Weidenau-Deuz
Route number :	9273
Course book section (DB) :	formerly 239n (1944) , 239d (1960, 1963)
Route length:	16.1 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend Ruhr-Sieg route from Siegen Dill range from Giessen 0.00 Siegen-Weidenau Ruhr-Sieg route to Hagen 0.23 Weidenau Vorbahnhof 1.00 Weidenau copper works 1.40 Weidenau waterworks 2.20 Herrenwiese industrial track 2.90 Dreis-Tiefenbach SEAG Route interrupted and dismantled: 3.06 Dreis-Tiefenbach 4.49 Dreis-Tiefenbach East 6.00 Netphen Siemag 6.83 Netphen (victory) Rolling mill Irle , Plant I (former branch at km 11.035) 11.49 Deuz (Kr Siegen) Rolling mill Irle, Plant II (former branch at km 11.235) 13.31 Salchendorf 14.40 Helgersdorf 16.25 Irmgarteichen - Werthenbach

The Kleinbahn Weidenau Deuz-GmbH was a railway company that owns the standard gauge railway line from Siegen-Weidenau after Irmgarteichen - Werthenbach was.

history

Kleinbahn Weidenau – Deuz GmbH was founded on June 4, 1904. The capital was raised in equal parts by the Kingdom of Prussia , the Province of Westphalia and the district of Siegen. The aim was to open up the office of Netphen in the upper Siegtal valley with a train (Johannlandbahn) after the Siegen – Deuz bus line operated by the Netphen bus company - one of the first in Germany - had not met expectations.

Passenger and freight traffic on the 11.3 kilometer section from Weidenau to Deuz began on December 1, 1906. The continuation to Irmgarteichen - Werthenbach (4.8 km) followed for passenger trains on December 1, 1916 and for freight trains on May 21, 1917. The small railroad department of the Westphalian provincial administration in Münster took over management of the operation, which was also taken over by the legal successor Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe continued. Since 1955 it has had its own management.

Transport services developed positively over several decades. Between 1940 and 1960 over a million passengers were carried annually. Even after the cessation of passenger traffic on May 25, 1968, freight traffic continued to increase.

On January 1, 1970, the Kleinbahngesellschaft Weidenau-Deuz GmbH was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the Siegen Kreisbahn, now: Kreisbahn Siegen-Wittgenstein , which owned more than 90 percent of the company's shares and had been the operator since April 1, 1955. The decline only began in the years from 1990 onwards. Since then only a number of sidings have been served. The last part from the connection of the Gräbener company to the Irmgarteichen-Werthenbach train station was dismantled in 1982. The Deuz – Irmgarteichen-Werthenbach section was last driven on May 29, 2004 and was finally shut down at the end of 2004 and, with one exception, dismantled in Netphen-Deuz.

Between 1998 and 2008, the Pro Johannlandbahn association campaigned for the line to be reactivated.

Current condition

The old train station in Deuz.

Regular operations are now limited to the area from Weidenau Vorbahnhof to Dreis-Tiefenbach , where several industrial companies are served. The track now ends at KM 2.9 in the Bombardier plant (formerly SEAG). This manufactures bogies for rail vehicles, previously entire freight wagons. In addition, a bike path has been created on the former tracks from Netphen to Deuz. In Netphen the bypass takes up parts of the former railway line.

Industrial railway Walzen-Irle Deuz

An isolated operation has been carried out in Deuz at the Irle roller mill since May 29, 2004 . When it was shut down, locomotive V 33 on the Siegen Kreisbahn remained in the rolling mill and took over regular operations between Works I and II. In addition, Irle bought 200 meters of station track in Deuz as well as a siding so that it could be relocated. After the installation of points, the connections to the former track were dismantled. In 2006, V 60 1175 was refurbished by OnRail and purchased from Irle. On October 20, 2006, the V 33 was exchanged for the V 60 by low loader. There are eight freight wagons for factory traffic. The roll blanks are picked up in the foundry in Plant II (track length 320 meters) and brought to Plant I (track length 500 meters) for processing. After processing, the chips are returned to the foundry and the finished goods are sent to the shipping track, also in Plant II.

vehicles

The circular railway used diesel locomotives from Jung-Jungenthal (type R 42 C ).

In 1955, two Uerdingen rail buses with a 110 kW engine (150 hp) were purchased. In addition, three sidecars, including one with a luggage compartment, were procured. In 1956 and 1960 another railcar was added, and in 1960 two sidecars, one of which again had a luggage compartment. While the last two railcars already had multiple controls upon delivery, the first two were retrofitted in 1960. The railcars differed not only in the single-engine version from the VT 98 , but also in the transfer windows, which could be opened halfway. In some cases, tractions were driven from all railcars and sidecars. The color of the car body was a light green, the ribbon windows, roof and the lower edge of the car body were kept dark green. After the cessation of passenger traffic, the railcars were sold to the AKN Eisenbahn , the sidecars also went to the AKN (two), the Schleswiger Kreisbahn , the EBOE and the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn .

The KWD VT 20 railcar , which was put into service in 1939 and which was to remain a one-off because the war began, had already been sold in 1962 .

literature

• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 4: North Rhine-Westphalia. Southern part . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1997, ISBN 3-88255-660-9 , p. 375-395 .
• Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 5 Bergisches and Siegerland EK-Verlag, Freiburg i. Br. 2000, ISBN 3-8825-5333-2 .
• Rolf Löttgers, Gerhard Moll , Friedrich Reuter, Henning Trippe: The Kleinbahn Weidenau-Deuz. 100 years of Johannlandbahn Ed .: Siegerländer Heimat- und Geschichtsverein e. V. / series of contributions to the history of the city of Siegen and the Siegerland, vol. 17 , Siegen 2006

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.medienagentur-walder.de | Media agency Walder: Johannlandbahn. Retrieved January 12, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Rolf Löttgers: final chord with railcar . In: railway magazine . No. 4 , 2019, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 36-39 .