Lauenburg railways

Neustadt – Garzigar
(Wejherowo – Garczegorze)

126z (1944)

Route length:

63.8 km

		from Gdansk
	0.0	Neustadt in West Prussia ( Wejherowo )
		to Lauenburg
	2.3	Bohlschau cement factory (Wejherowo Cementownia)
	10.2	Ueberbrück ( Zamostne )
		Reda
		Poland / German Reich (from 1919)
	12.317 0
	13.1	Rubbing ( Rybno Kaszubskie )
	16.8	Hammer-Chinow (Schluschow) ( Słuszewo )
	7.740	Elektrownia Vodna Żarnowiec
	20.6	Lissow ( Lisewo Kaszubskie )
	10.090	Elektrownia Jądrowa Żarnowiec
	23.6	Kolkau-Gnewin ( Gniewino )
	25.5	Fredrichsrode ( Strzebielinko Lęborskie )
	27.3	Burgsdorf-Bychow ( Toliszczek )
	29.8	Prüßau ( Prusewo )
	32.7	Lüblow ( Lublewo )
	35.0	Ossecken ( Osieki Lęborskie )
	37.8	Chottschow (Gotendorf) ( Choczewo )
	41.1	Chotchevke (Goths) ( Choczewko )
	42.6	Kurow ( Kurowo )
	46.6	Schwartow ( Zwartowo )
	48.1	Schwartowke (Klein Schwartow) ( Zwartówko )
	50.0	Gossentin ( Gościęcino )
	52.6	Tauenzin ( Tawęcino )
	54.5	Karlkow ( Karlikowo )
	55.4	Reckow ( Rekowo Lęborskie )
	60.0	Obliwice ( Obliwice )
	61.5	Johannisthal (Lauenburg district) ( Janisławiec )
		Railway line Pruszcz Gdański – Łeba
	63.8	Garczegorze (Garzigar; former train station)
		to Lębork (Lauenburg [Pomerania])

Under the name Lauenburger Bahnen , the Pomeranian State Railways operated a standard-gauge small railway line that ran from Garzigar via Chottschow (1938–1945: Gotendorf, Polish: Choczewo) and Prüssau (Prusewo) to Neustadt in West Prussia (Wejherowo) and was originally 64 kilometers long; At the time of the Pomeranian State Railways, 13 kilometers were no longer traveled. The management was incumbent on the Gotendorf State Railway Authority, where the operating center was located.

Kleinbahn Neustadt – Prüssau

On February 3, 1902, the Prussian State, the Province of Pomerania , the Province of West Prussia , the District of Neustadt and the District of Lauenburg founded the Kleinbahn-AG Neustadt – Prüssau with its headquarters in Neustadt (West Prussia) with the railway construction company Lenz & Co. On November 25, 1902, the first section from Neustadt - located on the main Köslin – Stolp – Lauenburg – Danzig line - opened in a north-westerly direction via Rieben to Prüssau (30 km); the extension to Chottschow followed on September 18, 1905 and the track was now 38 km long. At that time the first section lay almost exclusively on West Prussian territory. In the 1913/14 financial year, three pairs of trains ran and carried 98,629 people and 76,018 t of goods.

Chottschow – Garzigar small railway

In the neighboring district of Lauenburg, the Kingdom of Prussia, the province of Pomerania, the district of Lauenburg, the city of Lauenburg and ten private investors founded the Kleinbahn-AG Chottschow-Garzigar (from July 19, 1939: Kleinbahn-AG Gotendorf-Garzigar) with headquarters in Lauenburg. It was to establish the continuation of the Neustadt – Prüssau small railway from Chottschow to Garzigar station (26 km), which was on the branch line from Lauenburg to the Baltic resort of Leba , which opened in 1899 . The train service was opened here on May 7, 1910 and a joint operation was formed with the neighboring railway, so that a continuous railway connection of 64 km in length was created. In 1914, three pairs of trains ran daily, some of them the entire route. They carried 73,921 people and 39,746 tons of goods in the Chottschow – Garziger section. In the first ten years of operation, a dividend between one and a half and three percent could be distributed.

Lenz & Co. took over the construction and management of both railways. From July 1, 1932, they joined the Vereinigung hinterpommerscher Kleinbahnen GmbH, which in 1937 was subordinated to the Pomeranian regional railroad management.

New demarcation after 1919

The new demarcation after the First World War left the West Prussian area around Rieben and Prüssau with the German Empire, while Neustadt and the surrounding area became Polish; The Polish State Railways ran the ten-kilometer section to Zamostne ( Ueberbrück ). No more trains crossed the border. The important sales market Gdansk was missing.

The Chottschow station was expanded as a new operational center.

On the other side of the border, the small train trains to Garzigar began in Rieben. In the summer of 1927 there was only one pair of trains running on the whole route on weekdays, another pair of trains was added from Chottschow on weekdays, and two on Wednesdays and Saturdays. In 1924/25 only 52,835 people and 49,446 t of goods were carried on the entire route. A dividend was no longer paid. The renaming of Chottschow in Gotendorf in 1937 was also reflected in the name of the Kleinbahngesellschaft, which operated from July 19, 1937 as Kleinbahn-Aktien-Gesellschaft Gotendorf-Garzigar .

Incorporation into the Pomeranian State Railways

The reorganization of the Pomeranian small railway companies also affected the two companies in the Lauenburg district. With effect from January 1, 1940, they became part of the Pomeranian State Railways . The district held 83,000 Reichsmarks (= 0.67%) in the corporation's share capital.

Although the previous state border, which had separated the two sections of the route for twenty years, was abolished in 1939, the train traffic of the “Lauenburger Bahnen” remained limited to the Rieben – Garzigar route (51 km). However, once a day a train or through car was used from Rieben to Lauenburg and back. While in 1939 and 1941 the stations were only served two to three times on weekdays and once on Sundays, the offer for the timetable from July 4, 1944 was extended to two daily trips from Rieben to Garzigar and also to two pairs of trains Gotendorf to Garzigar on weekdays (timetable no. 126z) improved.

Remain in Poland

The Neustadt – Ueberbrück line, which had been in Poland since 1920, was closed in 1939; in the course book from 1941 it says at number 131n: "Operation not yet opened". It stayed that way, because a blown bridge was not repaired until the end of 1944. There were only business trips until operations ceased on March 10, 1945 with the invasion of the Red Army.

In 1945/46 the Polish State Railways (PKP) resumed train services from Wejherowo to Garczegorze. Later, around 1975, it built a branch line to the Żarnowiec pumped storage power plant and the Żarnowiec nuclear power plant and electrified it and the Wejherowo section - branch of the main line. Traffic on both routes was discontinued in 1992.

Freight traffic to Wejherowo Cementownia was carried out until 2004.

literature

Wolfram Bäumer, Siegfried Bufe: Railways in Pomerania . Bufe-Fachbuch-Verlag, Egglham 1988, ISBN 3-922138-34-9 .
Ryszard Stankiewicz and Marcin Stiasny: Atlas Linii Kolejowych Polski 2014 . Eurosprinter, Rybnik 2014, ISBN 978-83-63652-12-8 , pp. A5–6

Web links

Wejherowo – Garczegorze. In: bazakolejowa.pl. Retrieved July 24, 2019 (Polish).
Rybno Kaszubskie – Żarnowiec Elektrownia Jądrowa. In: bazakolejowa.pl. Retrieved July 24, 2019 (Polish).