Wittingen – Oebisfelde small railway

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The narrow-gauge railway Wittingen-Oebisfelde GmbH operated on the 43-kilometer railway line Wittingen-Oebisfelde passenger and freight transport .

history

Kleinbahn Wittingen – Oebisfelde GmbH opened its line on September 15, 1909 from Wittingen to Brome and on November 20 of the same year to the end point Oebisfelde Nord, the last section of which was in the Prussian province of Saxony (today: Saxony-Anhalt ). As early as 1843 there were initial plans to build a connection from Uelzen to the southeast via Brome. First, however, the Uelzen – Wittingen – Gifhorn line was built. This route lay entirely in the area of ​​the Kingdom of Hanover , while the route to Oebisfelde led to Prussia. After the plans to build a state railway line failed in 1900, efforts were made to found a small railway . The sponsors were numerous neighboring communities, other regional authorities such as the kingdoms of Prussia and Hanover and the state of Braunschweig, as well as some private individuals. The reason for the construction of the railway was the need to transport agricultural products and goods. Farmers promised low transport costs for the delivery of artificial fertilizers to the area with poorly fertile sandy soils. This in turn should increase the yields that could be transported by rail.

In 1909, operations began with four steam locomotives from the Borsig company for passenger and freight transport. Wittingen West station was also used by the Celle – Wittingen and Altmärkische Kleinbahn from the start . In 1924/25 a steam locomotive was purchased from the Hanomag company in Hanover .

The good utilization of the line is shown, for example, by the figures from 1928. Six locomotives carried 100,000 people and around 125,000 tons of goods that year. A first railcar was purchased in 1933, and a second with the KWOe T3 in 1938 . In 1939, only three daily train pairs ran on the route. In addition, a small train bus traveled the Brome – Wittingen route.

In 1944 the company was merged with a few others to form Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG (OHE).

In 2014, most of the line from Wittingen to Rühren is still available, but is no longer connected to the general rail network.

literature

  • Klaus-Peter Sebastian: Unforgotten Kleinbahn Wittingen – Oebisfelde - OHE route Wittingen – Rüßen. Ingrid Zeunert, Gifhorn 2010, ISBN 978-3-924335-77-9 .
  • Klaus-Peter Sebastian (editor): The history of the small railways in Isenhagener Land; The OHE railway operations in the Gifhorn district . District of Gifhorn, Museum Association Gifhorn e. V. and Heimatverein Brome e. V., Gifhorn 2001, ISBN 3-929632-50-0 .
  • Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The East Hanoverian Railways . alba-Verlag, 3rd edition, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87094-232-0 .
  • Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2. Between Weser and Elbe. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2007, pp. 280-295, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8 .

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