Latvijas dzelzceļš

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Latvijas dzelzceļš

logo
legal form State company
founding 1992
Seat LatviaLatvia Riga , Latvia
management Uģis Magonis
Number of employees 7112 (2009)
sales 146.46 million LVL (2009)
Branch transport
Website www.ldz.lv

Route network of the LDz (as of 2012 with routes on which there is no longer any passenger traffic)

The Latvijas dzelzceļš (abbr. LDz ; [ latvijas dzɛlztsɛʎʃ ]) is the most important railway company in Latvia . It was founded in 1992 as the state railway of independent Latvia. From 1919 to 1940, Latvijas Valsts Dzelzsceļi (LVD) was a predecessor company during the first Latvian independence .

The administrative seat is in Riga . The wide-meshed route network of the LDZ is star-shaped towards Riga; another important railway junction is in Daugavpils .

history

Development up to the First World War

Railway bridge over the Rauna river shortly after its construction (1897)
Riga Central Station (photo probably taken before the First World War)

Until 1919 the area of ​​today's Latvia belonged to the Russian Empire . The Russian railway lines were mainly built as dead straight direct connections between the large metropolises, such as the Warsaw-Petersburg Railway , which was built from 1858 to 1862. The section from Pskow via Daugavpils ( German:  Dünaburg ) to Vilnius was put into operation in 1861 and was the first railway line on Latvian soil.

With the railway line from Daugavpils to Riga , the Latvian capital also received a rail connection in 1862. Daugavpils east of the line was to 1866 Wizebsk and 1868 to Orlovskaya extended. Ukrainian grain was exported via this route, and Riga's port became increasingly important as a result of the rail link. The line from Riga to Jelgava ( German:  Mitau ) was also built in 1868, but the Daugava Bridge in Riga was not opened until 1875. This route was extended in 1873 to Mažeikiai in today's Lithuania . There it was linked with the 1871 to 1874 from Liepāja ( German  Libau ) via Mažeikiai to Vilnius and further towards Minsk and Romny . With the Libau Railway, the important port of Libau was connected to Riga. From the Lithuanian Radviliškis , this route also received a connection to Daugavpils, which thus received a second route to the Baltic Sea. In 1877 the bathing railway from Riga to Tukums was opened, which was of particular importance for excursion traffic to the Baltic Sea. In 1894 the line to Ventspils was extended, giving the third Latvian port a rail connection.

The last new buildings before the First World War mainly improved the connection between the Latvian ports and the Russian hinterland. The route from Riga via Walk (today Valga / Valka ) to Pskow went into operation in 1889 and considerably shortened the connection to St. Petersburg. It is the only line in Latvia built by the Russian state. All other routes were built and operated by private companies and mostly later nationalized. In 1904 the railway line of the Moscow-Windau-Rybinsk railway from Moscow via Rēzekne ( German  Rositten ), Krustpils ( German  Kreuzburg , today part of Jēkabpils ) and Jelgava to Tukums was opened. It was the only company that was not nationalized and remained a private railway until the end of the tsarist empire. All routes were built in the Russian gauge of 1524 mm.

In addition to the through lines to the ports, hardly any further routes were built up to 1914 to develop the former Baltic Governments of Livonia and Courland. From 1895 onwards, a number of narrow-gauge railways were built, mostly with a 750 mm gauge. These included the route of the Wolmarschen supply line from the Baltic Sea port of Ainaži ( German  Haynasch ) via Valmiera ( German  Wolmar ) to Smiltene ( German  Smilten ) and the route of the First Russian Supply Railway Company from Walk via Rūjiena to today's Estonian Mõisaküla ( German  Moiseküll ) and further in Towards Tallinn . South of Walk, the Livonian supply railways built a route via Gulbene ( German  Schwanenburg ) to Pļaviņas ( German  Stockmannshof ) on the Riga – Daugavpils route. The route of the Libau-Hasenpoter supply railway from Liepaja to Aizpute was built in meter gauge . Other planned routes, such as from Mõisaküla to Riga and from Bauska to Riga, were no longer carried out due to the outbreak of war in 1914.

New routes in the First World War

The First World War led to extensive changes in the route network. After the conquest of Libau in the spring of 1915, German railroad troops initially reopened the broad-gauge line towards Mažeikiai. The lack of broad-gauge vehicles and ever longer distances to the front led to the fact that the line was nailed to the European standard gauge with 1435 mm gauge from the summer of 1915. In addition, a new line to the Latvian Priekule (German Prekuln ) was built from the northernmost German train station in Bajohren near Memel in order to make the supply independent of ship transport to Libau. Another war line was the new railway line from Jelgava to Šiauliai in Lithuania , which went into operation on October 1, 1916. In addition, the German field railroaders built various lines on two tracks, for example from Riga to Jelgava. The remaining lines behind the German front were also converted to standard gauge, so that a completely standard gauge network was created south of the Daugava. In addition, stations were expanded and German security and signaling technology was installed. The German troops also built various field railways in 600 mm gauge, for example south of the Daugava to supply the positions around Jēkabpils and north of the Ventspils – Tukums line to supply the coastal batteries there.

On the Russian side, the rail network was adapted to the requirements of the war. As an extension of an existing line from Pytalowo (Latvian: Abrene ) to Sita , a line via Gulbene to Ieri Ii on the Riga – Walk line was built by Sita , and the line of the Livonian supply line between Gulbene and Pļaviņas was converted to Russian broad gauge.

In 1918, after the collapse of the Russian front and the peace of Brest-Litovsk, German troops occupied the entire Baltic region. Attempts to expand operations with European standard gauge beyond Riga were soon terminated.

The state railway between 1919 and 1940

Route network

Latvia declared its independence on November 18, 1918. In the turmoil of the post-war period with the uprising of the Red Latvian Riflemen and the coup of the Baltic German minority, the first director of the new state railway , Latvijas Valsts Dzelzsceļi (LVD), could not be appointed until August 1, 1919 , and the general board of in Riga start work. The LVD had 600 employees at the time. She was faced with great tasks. Large parts of the route network were destroyed, especially the five important bridges over the Daugava. It was not until 1930 that the last of the dune bridges near Krustpils was put back into operation, together with the complete change of gauge from the Krustpils – Jelgava line to broad gauge.

The importance of the Latvian ports for Russian exports initially declined sharply after the war. To the west of Riga and south of the Daugava, the entire network had been switched to regular gauge. This proved impractical if Russian exports were to be routed via Latvian ports again in the future. The LVD therefore converted the lines to Ventspils back to broad gauge. The Riga – Jelgava line was rebuilt for both gauges in order to secure the direct connection of Riga to the European standard gauge network. Extensive reloading facilities were built in Riga and Daugavpils-Griva, as well as gauging devices for freight wagons.

The route from Riga to Liepaja passed through Lithuania. Since the network of the Lithuanian state railway had been converted to European standard gauge as a result of the war, this route, over which traffic to the Lithuanian port of Klaipėda ran to Priekule , could not be converted to broad gauge. In addition, there were several mutual route closures due to disputes over transit and customs regulations. The LVD therefore built a line between Jelgava and Liepaja between 1926 and 1929 exclusively over Latvian territory and in broad gauge.

Further routes were started from 1928. The planned route from Riga to Kārsava on the Warsaw-Petersburg Railway was only completed on the sections Riga– Ērgļi and Madona - Lubāna until 1938 . From 1933 to 1937, the line to Rūjiena , a station on the narrow-gauge railway from Valka to Tallinn , which is now part of the Riga suburb network , was built. In 1934 the branch line from Pakalnieši to Kūdupe in the north-east of the country was finally completed . The LVD also invested heavily in stations, workshops and the superstructure of its lines, so that the maximum speed on the main lines could be increased step by step up to 100 km / h.

The pre-war and wartime narrow-gauge lines were modernized and expanded. From Liepaja, new 750 mm railways to Rucava on the Lithuanian border and to Pāvilosta were built , partly using old army field railroad lines , the latter was gradually extended further in the direction of Ventspils. Further stretches were created between Meitene and Bauske and between Sita and Rēzekne. A changeover to 750 mm was also planned for the two 600-mm-gauge networks along the Riga Bay and south of Krustpils, but not implemented. In 1938, the LVD finally took over the 1000 mm runway to Aizpute and switched it to 750 mm in 1940 to standardize it with the other runways from Liepaja.

An overview of the network development can be found in the table.

Gauge 1919 1928 1939
1524 mm 1183 km 1648 km 2048 km
1435 mm 0643 km 0305 km 0306 km
1000 mm 0049 km 0049 km 0049 km
0750 mm 0277 km 0166 km * 0514 km
0600 mm 0611 km 0474 km 0433 km
total 2763 km 2642 km 3350 km

* Part of the 750 mm lines was privatized from 1924 and later nationalized again.

vehicles

Express locomotive A 2/4 No. 114 of the Swiss Federal Railways, the machine ran between 1919 and 1923 as the An 28 for the Latvian State Railways

The number of vehicles when the LVD was founded had shrunk considerably due to being transported away by German and Soviet troops. In February 1920 only 118 locomotives were available, 34 of them for broad gauge and 14 for standard gauge. With the peace treaties, the LVD received 51 locomotives from Germany and 110 locomotives from the Soviet Union and a total of 2274 passenger and freight cars.

In 1922 excess standard gauge locomotives were exchanged with Lithuania for broad gauge locomotives that were no longer required there. In addition, 23 used old Russian locomotives from Polish stocks were acquired, six locomotives corresponding to the Finnish type Tk came as new constructions from Lokomo from Tampere . In 1931 there were 190 locomotives for the broad gauge, and 45 locomotives for the few remaining standard gauge lines.

In addition to modernizing the vehicle fleet that was taken over and acquired second-hand, LVD procured various new locomotives. From 1928 onwards, several series of tank locomotives with a 1'A1 ' wheel arrangement were procured, which were primarily intended for light passenger trains on routes with little traffic. The first three of these locomotives, classified as the Tk series, came from Hohenzollern in Düsseldorf , the other 17 locomotives built from 1931 to 1934 were manufactured by Krupp , Henschel and LVD's own main workshops in Daugavpils and Liepaja. The Ct and Rt series , which were obtained almost exclusively from Henschel from 1934 onwards, with the 1'C1 'h2t axle arrangement and differed only in the size of their drive wheels, were suitable for larger tensile loads . Wheelsets of the Ct series had a diameter of 1720 mm, those of the Rt series only 1400 mm. Analogous to this, the 1'B1 'tank locomotive series Bt and Pt were procured from Henschel from 1936 onwards, which had the same wheel diameters. All of the 50 locomotives of the Ct / Rt and Bt / Pt series that were procured could also be re-gauged and converted to wide or standard gauge in the workshops. Shortly before the Second World War , the LVD also planned the procurement of five 2'C1 'express locomotives of the Finnish class P1 (from 1942 Hr 1 ) in order to haul express trains between Daugavpils and Liepaja. For its narrow-gauge lines, the LVD procured 25 used army field railway locomotives from German stocks for the 600 mm lines in 1923, and from the same year fourteen 1'D tender locomotives for the 750 mm lines in several series.

The LVD was skeptical about railcars, as the newly acquired locomotives of the Tk series had shown themselves to be more economical under Latvian conditions. From 1930, therefore, only a few test railcars were put into operation; it was not until the late 1930s that several small series were procured for wide and narrow-gauge routes. These included three articulated multiple units for 750 mm, one of which was used after the war by the Deutsche Reichsbahn as the VT 137 600 on the Wilsdruffer network for a few years .

traffic

In the post-war turmoil, the LVD was only able to reintroduce international trains in 1921, from August 16, 1921, through trains ran to Estonia, and from April 15, 1922 to Lithuania. Passenger traffic to the newly formed Soviet Union was resumed on the old routes in 1923 when through trains were introduced from Riga to Moscow on April 1. From May 15, 1923, through traffic between the Baltic States and Germany was resumed. The through express train between Riga and Paris with sleeping cars, originally planned for 1921, was not introduced until 1927 due to disputes with Lithuania and between Germany and Poland. A wing train to the Nord-Express was planned , only a through car from the Nord-Express was implemented, which was carried by the D 1 from Berlin to Riga . Until then, passengers had to change trains in Eydtkuhnen on the Lithuanian-German border or in Kaunas .

Soviet occupation

After the occupation of the Baltic region in June 1940, the state railways of the three Baltic states also lost their independence. From October 1940, the LVD and the neighboring Lithuanian and Estonian railways were subordinated to the Soviet People's Commissariat for Transport and converted into a directorate of the Sovetskije schelesnyje dorogi .

The LDz since 1992

Local train on the Riga - Jelgava route

organization

On January 1, 1992, all Baltic railways were formally spun off from the Sowetskije schelesnyje dorogi (SŽD) or the Baltic Railroad as a regional subsidiary of the SŽD and became independent again. The Latvian railways temporarily operated under the pre-war name Latvijas Valsts Dzelzsceļi (LVD), but soon changed this name to the current name Latvijas dzelzceļš .

The LDz railway company employs 10,000 people in the parent company and the seven subsidiaries:

Group structure
  • SIA "Dzelzceļa apsardze" (German: Eisenbahnschutz GmbH ), a 100% company founded in 2003 for the protection of the railway lines and other operating facilities of the LDz. The head office is in Riga, with branches in Jelgava , Ventspils , Daugavpils , Rēzekne and Liepāja .
  • SIA “LDz Cargo” (German: LDz Freight GmbH ), 100% subsidiary,
  • SIA “LDz infrastruktūra” (German: LDz Infrastructure GmbH ), 100% subsidiary,
  • SIA “LDz ritošā sastāva serviss” (German: LDz Servicegesellschaft für rolling inventory mbH ), 100% subsidiary,
  • a / s “Pasažieru vilciens” ( Eng . Passenger Train AG ), 100% subsidiary,
  • a / s “Starptautiskie pasažieru pārvadājumi” , (German: Internationale Personentransport AG ), a 51% stake
  • a / s “VRC Zasulauks” , (Eng .: locomotive repair and improvement company "Zasulauks" ), founded in 2003, is owned by 51% of the LDz and 49% of the Rīgas Vagonbūves Rūpnīca . The company is responsible for the maintenance of locomotives.

Railway infrastructure

With the exception of the Gulbene – Alūksne railway line , which is still in operation as the last line of the former 750 mm network, the track width in the current network of the LDz is 1520 mm (Russian broad gauge ).

The following lines are electrified with 3.3 kV DC voltage:

Long-term expansion of the railway in connection with Rail Baltica is planned.

business

In the years after Latvia regained independence, the LDZ's rail passenger transport suffered a significant slump. In 1990 around 134 million passengers were still being carried, but by 1993 this number had fallen to around 58 million. In the period that followed, the LDZ therefore closed various branch lines. In passenger transport, in addition to suburban rail transport with electric multiple units in the greater Riga area, connections with diesel trains to Liepāja (operations resumed in 2006), Cēsis , Gulbene , Rēzekne and Daugavpils as well as international connections in 2019 with night trains to Moscow and Saint Petersburg will be established as well as with a regional train to Valga in southern Estonia. Trains of the Belarusian and Ukrainian railways can reach Minsk and Kiev from Riga , in the past there were also LDz trains going to Belarus and Ukraine, through-coaches of the LDz even reached the Russian Black Sea coast.

In contrast to passenger traffic, freight traffic remained relatively stable due to its importance for transit traffic between Russia and the Latvian seaports of Liepāja and Ventspils .

literature

  • Herman Gijsbert Hesselink, Norbert Tempel : Railways in the Baltic States, Lok-Report publishing house, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-921980-51-8

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Annual Report 2009. (PDF; 4.8 MB) Latvijas Dzelzceļš, September 26, 2010, archived from the original ; accessed on April 18, 2016 (English).
  2. ↑ LDZ press release: Year of 2019 Marks the 100th Anniversary of the Latavian Railway . In: OSJD Bulletin 3/2019, pp. 44f (44).
  3. ↑ LDZ press release: Year of 2019 Marks the 100th Anniversary of the Latavian Railway . In: OSJD Bulletin 3/2019, pp. 44f (44).
  4. ↑ LDZ press release: Year of 2019 Marks the 100th Anniversary of the Latavian Railway . In: OSJD Bulletin 3/2019, pp. 44f (45).
  5. ↑ Herman Gjisbert Hesselink, Norbert Temple: Railways in the Baltics. Lok-Report publishing house, Münster 1996, pp. 44, 60.
  6. ↑ Herman Gjisbert Hesselink, Norbert temple railways in the Baltic States , publishing Lok report, Münster 1996, pp 110
  7. ↑ a b Herman Gjisbert Hesselink, Norbert Tempel: Eisenbahnen im Baltikum , Verlag Lok-Report, Münster 1996, p. 139
  8. ↑ LDZ press release: Year of 2019 Marks the 100th Anniversary of the Latavian Railway . In: OSJD Bulletin 3/2019, pp. 44f (45).
  9. ↑ Tīkla pārskats 2017–2018. Valsts akciju sabiedrības “Latvijas dzelzceļš” publiskās lietošanas dzelzceļa infrastruktūras tīkla pārskats 2017/2018. In: ldz.lv. January 16, 2017, p. 7 , accessed July 8, 2019 (Latvian).
  10. ↑ LDz network statement 2019/20

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