Kreuznach trams and suburban railways

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The Kreuznach trams and suburban railways connected the city of Bad Kreuznach with the neighboring city of Bad Münster am Stein , with Langenlonsheim and Sankt Johann . They were operated electrically and were not identical to the non-electrified Kreuznacher Kleinbahnen .

Tram on the square in front of the town house

history

planning

The city of Kreuznach had around 22,000 inhabitants around 1900 and was a railway junction. At that time it belonged to the Prussian Rhine Province and was a district town. From 1897 onwards a tram and suburban railway were negotiated and the planning was fundamentally changed several times. So Bingen was initially a goal. But no investor was found for this “long-distance connection”. Then Bad Münster am Stein was a destination, which, however , made it necessary to reschedule again due to the planning for the strategic railway Gau-Algesheim-Bad Münster-Homburg / Saar and its effects on the station situation in Kreuznach. It was not until 1905 that a constellation between the city and the Eisenbahnbau-Gesellschaft Becker & Co GmbH , Berlin, came about, which proved to be viable. Becker & Co. wanted to build both a tram and a power station that would also provide the electricity for the electrification of Bad Kreuznach. The concessionaire and owner of the plant became the city of Kreuznach, which leased the operation to Becker & Co. for twenty years. The concession was granted in 1905 for 75 years. Construction began on December 11, 1905, and on September 11, 1906, the 4.3-kilometer route from Kreuznach to Bad Münster am Stein was opened as Line 1.

The first line

The line was built on a single track in meter gauge . In the beginning there was only one pass between the two cities for oncoming traffic. There were six motor cars and two sidecars on the way. On Line 1, in addition to trips between the two cities until 1912, pure inner-city trips were also offered in Kreuznach.

Extensions

On July 5, 1911, tram line 2 from Kreuznach to Langenlonsheim, which had been planned since 1908, went into operation. At the same time, the communities of Bretzenheim and Langenlonsheim were connected to the power station in Kreuznach.

In 1912, line 3 followed to St. Johann, a cross connection to the Hessian district of Alzey to the east . This required a new line of almost 14.5 km. The discussion about the route dragged on. On the one hand Sprendlingen offered resistance, on the other hand the idea was brought into the discussion whether a connection in standard gauge might not make more sense. Finally, the line to Badenheim went into operation on November 7, 1912 and to St. Johann on December 21, 1912. Here, too, the construction of the railway and the supply of electricity by Becker & Co. to the communities through which they passed were linked. In the period from 1912 to 1938, the network had its largest extension with 27.55 km. After the line to Langenlonsheim was abandoned in 1938, the network still comprised 21.44 km.

In addition to regular service, the tram also provided freight transport :

During the First World War , the wounded were taken by tram to the former health clinics, which were now used as military hospitals . For this purpose, tram cars were converted accordingly and a track was placed directly on platform 1 of Kreuznach station .

In 1914, the vehicle fleet comprised two electric locomotives, twelve railcars , nine side cars , five freight cars and five special cars. During the First World War, the volume of traffic increased steadily. The year 1919 brought - also due to hamster journeys - the highest number of people transported up to that point: 2.36 million. In 1934, another 2.4 million people took the train.

restructuring

On January 24, 1924, the tram passed to the Rhein-Nahe Kraftversorgungs-AG . Two years later, on March 11, 1926, she joined the Städtische Betriebs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft Bad Kreuznach GmbH , where she stayed until the tram operation was closed.

Since July 17, 1925, an extensive bus network was built up that went beyond the catchment area of ​​the tram, which created considerable competition. In 1939 two city and suburban bus routes with a total length of 45 kilometers were in operation, on which eight buses and one trailer operated. They led from Bad Kreuznach to Fürfeld , Wonsheim and Stromberg, among others .

In 1926 the tram got a new workshop and the car hall was expanded.

Reduced in 1938

On December 1, 1938, line 2 to Langenlonsheim on the other side of Bad Kreuznacher Pfingstwiese was stopped. The official reason was the decrease in the number of passengers and that the tram disrupted road traffic. After that, the route network was still 21.4 km long and over half was in Hesse. The previous line 3 has been renamed line 2. In 1939, the vehicle fleet was also reduced as a result: one electric locomotive, ten railcars, eight side cars, two baggage cars and three freight cars as well as four trolleys and three special cars remained.

The End

The remaining network was also used during the Second World War . After air raids and the blasting of bridges in 1944/45, there were restrictions, then operations came to a standstill from May to December 1945. In 1946, the

  • Line 1: Sepdelenwerk – Bahnhof – Kornmarkt – Karlshalle. After the saltworks bridge was restored, the line ran again from 1948 from the Karlshalle to the Raugrafenstraße stop at the southern end of Bad Kreuznach. The only 1 km long remaining stretch to Bad Münster was initially not restored because the municipality of Bad Münster was planning a new road layout between its northern end of the village and the Felsentor. It remained in this state until operations ceased.
  • Line 2: Kornmarkt – Bahnhof – Sepdelenwerke – Sprendlingen – St. Johann.

As in many other German cities, the outdated tram cars in Bad Kreuznach were increasingly viewed as a traffic obstacle. In addition, there was no will to raise the funds to modernize the vehicles and the infrastructure. The tram operation was therefore stopped on January 5, 1953, and some vehicles were sold to the Würzburg tram .

stretch

The depot with the power station was east of the state train station on Bosenheimer Strasse. All routes also had freight traffic. Of the 27.6 km long route network, 15.6 km were in Prussia and 12.0 km in Hesse . Since 1912, the starting point of all three tram lines was Bismarckplatz (today: Kornmarkt) in Kreuznach. The timetables of the Kreuznach tram were at times also included in the railway course books.

Kreuznach – Bad Münster (Line 1)

The route led from the train station through the old town in a southerly direction through the bathing district to the Karlshalle saltworks, where it changed to the left bank of the Nahe and via Theodorshalle reached the northern part of the municipality of Bad Münster, which had only 1,000 inhabitants around 1910. There the final stop was in front of the Bad Münster am Stein train station , where long-distance trains also stopped at the time. The wagons on line 1 had a white disk as a distinguishing mark. The line usually ran every 30 minutes, or every 15 minutes when there was greater demand. She ran across the stops

  • Kreuznach town house
  • Bismarckplatz (today: Kornmarkt)
  • Kurhaus
  • Oranienhof
  • Karlshalle
  • Theodorshalle
  • Bad Munster am Stein

Kreuznach – Langenlonsheim (Line 2)

The second tram line, crossing the city limits, used the tracks of line 1 to the Holzmarkt and then followed the Nahe on the left bank past the city station via Bretzenheim to Langenlonsheim (7.9 km). From October 1, 1912, the city line from station to Holzmarkt was incorporated into it. The wagons on line 2 had a white and green disk as a distinguishing mark. Pairs of trains ran around 15 to 20 times a day, but without a regular schedule .

Kreuznach-St. Johann (line 3)

The third line was a 15.8 kilometer long overland railway. It led from the train station in an easterly direction past the depot out of Kreuznach, crossed the state border to Hesse and led to St. Johann. At Badenheim (9.8 km) it crossed the Sprendlingen – Fürfeld railway , and in Sprendlingen the Worms – Bingen Stadt railway (Rheinhessenbahn). The wagons on line 3 had a white and red disk as a distinguishing mark. Pairs of trains ran about 15 to 20 times a day, but without a regular schedule.

city ​​traffic

From October 28, 1906, a city line was used in Kreuznach until 1912, which branched off from the main line in the old town, crossed the Nahe and then turned north to the town house on Holzmarkt in the new town. Here you could also change to the small train towards Hunsrück. This amplifier line also operated after the First World War until 1933 and from 1936 to 1938.

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Rudolf Brumm: The Kreiznacher [!] Electric in pictures . Nahetal, Bad Kreuznach 1989. ISBN 3-926421-01-0
  • Rudolf Brumm: The Kreiznacher [!] Electric 1906-1953. A summary of the planning, construction and operation of the Kreuznach trams [!] And suburban railways […]. Rudolf and Rainer Brumm, Bad Kreuznach 2002. [Cited as: Brumm (2002)].
  • Dieter Höltge: German trams and light rail vehicles 4 = Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland . Wolfgang Zeunert, Gifhorn 1981. ISBN 3-921237-60-2 , pp. 6-22.
  • M. Kochems and D. Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany 12 = Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2011. ISBN 978-3-88255-393-2 , pp. 6-19

Remarks

  1. Since 1924 "Bad Kreuznach", today: Rhineland-Palatinate .
  2. ↑ Previous edition: 1977.

Individual evidence

  1. Brumm (2002), pp. 9f.
  2. Brumm (2002), p. 12f.
  3. Höltge, p. 6.
  4. Brumm (2002), p. 18.
  5. Brumm (2002), p. 30.
  6. Brumm (2002), p. 33.
  7. Brumm (2002), p. 38.
  8. Brumm (2002), p. 33.
  9. Brumm (2002), p. 41.
  10. Brumm (2002), p. 41; Höltge, p. 8, names July 7, 1911 as the opening day.
  11. Brumm (2002), p. 53.
  12. ^ Brumm (2002), p. 56.
  13. Brumm (2002), p. 41.
  14. Brumm (2002), p. 64f.
  15. Brumm (2002), p. 70; Höltge, p. 10, names November 6, 1912 as the opening day.
  16. Brumm (2002), p. 74.
  17. Brumm (2002), p. 61.
  18. Höltge, p. 12.
  19. Höltge, p. 13.
  20. Höltge, p. 10.
  21. Höltge, p. 12.
  22. Brumm (2002), p. 41.
  23. Brumm (2002), p. 113.
  24. Brumm (2002), p. 121.
  25. Höltge, p. 6.
  26. Höltge, p. 12.
  27. ^ Brumm (2002), p. 117.
  28. ^ Brumm (2002), p. 123.
  29. Brumm (2002), pp. 123, 128f.
  30. See for example: Kursbureau des Reichs-Postamts (Ed.): Reichs-Kursbuch. Overview of the rail, post and steamship connections in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland as well as the more important connections of the rest of Europe and the steamship connections with non-European countries . Berlin 1914. Reprint 1974, Table 209k.
  31. Brumm (2002), p. 41.
  32. ^ German course book 1934: Tables 257, a, b.
  33. Brumm (2002), p. 41.
  34. Brumm (2002), p. 41.
  35. Höltge, p. 12.