Lübeck – Bad Kleinen railway line

Lübeck – Bad Kleinen
Route number :	1122
Course book section (DB) :	175 (DR: 782)
Route length:	61.9 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	120 km / h
Legend from Travemünde from Kiel and Puttgarden 0.0 Lübeck Central Station to Bad Segeberg 1.2 Lübeck main freight station Elbe-Lübeck Canal 2.6 Lübeck Hgbf Abzw to Hamburg to Lüneburg 6.4 Lübeck-St. Jurgen Wakenitz Strecknitz junction to Lübeck-Schlutup 9.5 State border SH / MV 10.1 Herrnburg 13.5 10.9 Change of mileage 11.2 Lüdersdorf (Meckl) (formerly Bf) 19.4 Schoenberg (Meckl) to Dassow 25.3 Menzendorf (formerly also PV) 29.0 Greaves (Meckl) 32.2 Regional border north / east Börzow Stepenitz from Klütz 36.7 Grevesmühlen 44.0 Plüschow (formerly Bf) 50.6 Bobitz from Schwerin 59.3 Bad little ones to Wismar to Bützow

The Lübeck – Bad Kleinen line is a single-track, non-electrified main line in the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It was initially built by the Lübeck-Kleinener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft and after its insolvency it was completed and opened by the Mecklenburg Friedrich-Franz-Eisenbahn .

Operation and history

prehistory

Lübeck Railway Station (1851)

In the 1850s, the two grand duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz planned an east-west link through their territories. In Lübeck, this should connect to the existing connection of the Lübeck-Büchener Railway , cross the state railway line Hagenow – Wismar at Kleinen and continue to Neubrandenburg using the existing Bad Kleinen – Rostock railway line to Bützow and Güstrow . From there it should go via Strasburg over the state border to Stettin . While the middle section was designed as a state railway line, the western section Lübeck – Kleinen was to be built and operated by a private company. This made a state treaty and related agreements between the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz necessary. When the embankment of the railway line was built, a piece of the Lübeck ditch had to be relocated, which also shifted the border between the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck and the Principality of Ratzeburg . The new course of the ditch and border was created by a border recession between Lübeck and Mecklenburg-Strelitz on 19/21. Codified January 1869.

The newly founded Lübeck-Kleine Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was commissioned with the construction in 1865. This should be completed by 1867 at the latest. However, there were delays in the construction, as the route planned by the company was changed several times and it was ultimately no longer financially able to build the route. After its liquidation, the Friedrich-Franz-Eisenbahn took over the management of the construction and completed it in 1870. On July 1, 1870, the first train ran the almost 60-kilometer route from Lübeck via Schönberg , Grevesmühlen and Bobitz to Kleinen.

1870-1945

Lübeck Central Station

The route wasn't of particular importance at first. In 1885 only a few passenger trains ran in both directions per day. The boom did not come until the beginning of the 20th century. Under the direction of Walther Brecht , Lübeck-Büchener Eisenbahn Gesellschaft, the railway systems in Lübeck were redesigned in 1907/08 and the new Lübeck main station reopened as the city's central station. The concentration of all routes enabled through trains from Hamburg via Lübeck, Kleinen and Neubrandenburg to Stettin. The connection existed as course book route 118 until the Second World War . It was of great importance for ferry traffic to Scandinavia via Warnemünde and Sassnitz .

1945-1989

Level crossing and signal box in Menzendorf

Herrnburg train station

After 1945, through traffic on the connection ended, as the zone border between the British and Soviet occupation zones was located directly to the east of Lübeck . The second track was dismantled as a reparation payment . After a brief resurgence in train traffic, traffic across the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR was suspended again between 1952 and 1960. Since March 20, 1960, in addition to a few freight trains, a pair of interzonal trains has been running from Hamburg via Lübeck to Rostock. The exact route of the train changed several times during the year. In the first few years the train continued to Saßnitz with a connection to the ferry to Sweden. Even after that, the train often continued to Stralsund . At times he drove through cars to Neubrandenburg . In the last few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the train ran from Cologne via Hamburg to Rostock. Additional relief trains ran on public holidays.

The control of travelers in the interzonal trains by the border authorities of the GDR took place in the Herrnburg train station and on the moving train between Herrnburg and Bad Kleinen. During the inspection in Herrnburg, the trains lingered on the platform. Passengers who left the train here to continue the journey with a passenger train towards Grevesmühlen were processed in a separate control area. Until the 1970s, this consisted of old two-axle passenger cars that were parked on the opposite track.

While there was no stopping on the way to the border on the West German side and local transport was therefore not worthwhile, regional traffic remained on the eastern section of Herrnburg – Bad Kleinen (1989 five pairs of trains from Herrnburg, eight from Grevesmühlen).

In the second half of the 1980s, as part of the small border traffic, the offer was supplemented by another pair of express trains Lübeck– Schwerin on weekends. After the GDR leadership decreed some easing of travel and so more GDR citizens were able to travel to the West than before, an additional pair of trains from Güstrow to Hamburg was added in May 1989. It also stopped in Grevesmühlen; the D-Zug Cologne – Rostock (only in this direction) had already had a traffic stop there a few years earlier .

Since 1989

Transport projects for German unity (overview map)

Double unit of the 628 series near Bobitz

After the fall of the wall, demand and supply on this route increased significantly. As a result of German reunification , the route became part of the German Unity No. 1 transport project . This envisaged the expansion of the Lübeck – Rostock – Stralsund connection to a speed of 160 km / h, but still only a single track to Bad Kleinen.

In January 1993, the construction of three new bridges began. On February 6, 1993, the foundation stone for the expansion was laid at the Stepenitz Bridge near Börzow. Work on the entire section between Lübeck and Bad Kleinen should be completed in 1995, and the entire VDE 1 project should be completed by 1997. The expansion was slow and has not yet been completed.

The importance of the route has declined noticeably since the mid-1990s, when two long-distance lines (Stralsund – Rostock – Hamburg and Berlin / Leipzig – Lübeck – Kiel) each ran every two hours. On the one hand, the trains between Rostock and Hamburg were routed on the Schwerin – Büchen route, and on the other, the Lübeck – Leipzig interregional line was completely discontinued in 2001. Until 2002, individual pairs of interregional trains ran on the Lübeck – Berlin line. Since then, the route has only served regional traffic.

The Lübeck-St. Jürgen was put into operation on December 15, 2002. It opens up part of the south of Lübeck in the St. Jürgen district .

The following trains are currently operating on the route:

line	Line designation	Line course
RE4	Regional Express	Lübeck Hbf - Bad Kleinen - Güstrow - Neubrandenburg - Szczecin
RE4	Regional Express	Lübeck Hbf - Schönberg (Meckl) - Grevesmühlen - Bad Kleinen

Both Regional Express lines run every two hours, so there is an hourly service in the Lübeck – Bad Kleinen section. During the RE 4 Lübeck – Bad Kleinen only in Lübeck-St. Jürgen, Herrnburg, Schönberg (Meckl) and Grevesmühlen stops, the RE 4 Lübeck – Bad Kleinen – Stettin in the Lübeck – Bad Kleinen section serves all stops en route. Series 623 (LINT 41) diesel multiple units have been in service on the route since October 2015 . The trains used to run with class 218 locomotives with n-type cars and class 628 diesel multiple units .

Future expansion

The line is to be expanded by 2026. This includes building an overhead line system, increasing the speed to 160 km / h and building a connecting curve in Bad Kleinen to the route to Schwerin. The travel time Lübeck – Schwerin is to be reduced to 54 minutes. In addition, the Hamburg node is to be relieved by diverting freight traffic.

Web links

Commons : Lübeck – Bad Kleinen railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Construction project Lübeck – Schwerin in the BauInfoPortal of Deutsche Bahn

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Government sheet for Mecklenburg-Schwerin 1868, pp 540-544; Collection of the Lübeck Ordinances and Announcements 36 (1869), pp. 35–39
2. ^ Collection of the Lübeck ordinances and notices. 36 (1869), pp. 35-39
3. ↑ Invitation to the Extraordinary General Assembly from March 9, 1868 , Retrieved May 31, 2012
4. ↑ Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit mbH (Ed.): Information on the German Unity rail transport projects in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit mbH as of May 1993 . May 1993.
5. ^ Lübecker Nachrichten: Bahn wants to expand the route to Schwerin. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 21, 2018 ; accessed on March 7, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Construction project Lübeck - Schwerin. In: BauInfoPortal of Deutsche Bahn. Retrieved March 7, 2018 .