Lawabahn

Lawabahn
Diesel multiple units in the former Onverwacht station
Routing of the Lawabahn from Paramaribo to Dam High resolution file of the map from the Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch West-Indië , which was published between 1914 and 1917
Route length:	Originally 173 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend Routing 1912 (pink) and from 1961 (red) 0.000 Paramaribo (Vaillantsplein) Domineekreek 2,500 Beekhuizen 4.060 Saron 5,800 Ephraim's Scegen 7,550 Frederikshoop 9,070 Hanna'slust 10,500 World thought 11,470 Monplaisir-way 12,310 Commissaris away 13,140 Helena Christina 13,940 Bergershoop 15,150 Braamshoop 16.040 Houttuin away 16.850 Lelydorp 17,670 Schotel away 18,600 Java away 19,400 Van Hattem-tracé 20,100 Lebanon away 20,100 Palisade way 21,500 Copy away 22,300 Bijlhout-way 23,250 Groenhart way 24,000 Rijsdijk way 26,390 Nyssen away 27,000 Toelseeda way 28,100 Meurs way 29,500 Onverwacht 32,000 Breakpoint 35,000 Breakpoint 41.200 Republiek 44.750 Zanderij I, airfield 52,400 Berlijn 61,600 Zanderij II 64,700 Section O 79,100 Kwakoegron 95,700 Guyana (gold mine) 99,600 De Jong-Noord (gold mine) 102,600 Gros Placer 105,500 De Jong-Zuid (gold mine) 115,500 Brownsweg 123,000 Camp III 133,000 Kabelstation-Noord (cable car station) First cable car; later ferry 134,000 Kabelstation-Zuid (cable car station) 145.250 Abontjema 151,800 Adjama 158,500 Sikakamp 166,500 Gégé 173,000 Dam on the Sarakreek

The Lawabahn ( Dutch Lawaspoorweg or later Landsspoorweg ) was a 173 km long single-track narrow - gauge railway with a gauge of 1000 mm in Suriname . It was built from 1903 from Paramaribo on the coast to Dam on the Sarakreek , but not, as originally planned during the gold rush , extended to the gold deposits in the southeast of the country on the Lawa river . In 1986 the last trains ran on the remaining route.

Building history

Paramaribo station (Vaillantsplein):
the railway opened in 1905

The first plans for the railway line came from private individuals. In 1902, Cornelis Lely , the governor of Suriname, announced that the government would build the line to facilitate gold mining in the Lawa area. The line should actually be more than 350 kilometers long. However, due to the disappointing gold finds, only half of it was built. In honor of the governor of the village located on the railway line was Kofidjompo in Lelydorp renamed.

In 1903, it was mainly former sailors from Curacao who began building the railway and put the first section, from Paramaribo to Republiek, into operation in 1905. They completed the section to Dam station near the Sarakreek in 1912. At that time the railway was 173 kilometers long and had already cost 8.5 million guilders.

Cable car over the Suriname River

The most notable part of the line was a 300 m long cable car over the Suriname River , which was built because building a bridge would have been too laborious. At the cable car station (cable station) , all passengers had to get off and cross the river in cable car gondolas. On the eastern bank of the Suriname River, a second train was then ready for the route to the terminus at Dam near the Sarakreek. Luggage and general cargo were transported in wooden containers that were placed on flat wagons so that they could be better picked up by the cable car. The travel time for the entire route was around 10½ hours. The southern section of the route and the cable car were shut down in 1936, so that the cable car station became the terminus.

The Lawabahn (left) in Paramaribo between Knuffelsgracht and the covered market on Heiligenweg

In 1958, the Paramaribo train station on Vaillantsplein in the city center was closed and moved to Beekhuizen . In 1961, Onverwacht, still further south, became the starting station. When the Brokopondo reservoir began to fill up in the 1960s , the section from the Brownsberg Nature Park to the cable car station had to be closed. The Kabel and Dam stations sank in the reservoir.

After the construction of the reservoir, the railway line was only used from Onverwacht to Brownsweg.

Rail traffic was definitely stopped in 1986. The occasion was the shelling of a moving rail bus during the civil war that had just started (1986 to 1992), in which a girl was seriously injured.

The attempts by Dutchman Peter Sul ( Lovers Rail ) in the 1990s to use the 86 kilometers of the line that remained at that time for tourism in particular failed. Since then, the vehicles have increasingly rusted in the Onverwacht station. The stretch through the jungle is now overgrown and has almost completely disappeared between Paramaribo and Onverwacht.

Rail vehicles

→ Main article : List of rolling stock of the Lawabahn

Steam locomotives were initially used on the Lawabahn , but in 1954, rail buses with diesel engines were used for passenger transport .

Steam locomotives

Borsig steam locomotive,
serial no. 5339-5344

The first six steam locomotives, each with a service weight of 16 t, were supplied by the mechanical engineering company Borsig from Berlin . Its box construction, reminiscent of tram locomotives, had already been successfully used on the Semarang-Joana railway line .

The Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik in Kirchen built two small steam locomotives weighing only 8.5 t each for use south of the Suriname River in 1905 . After shipping to Suriname, these were dismantled at the cable car station and transported over the river by cable car to be reassembled on the other side. They were christened Kadjoe (serial no. PS 820) and Maabo (serial no. PS 889).

The locomotive factories Krauss & Comp. in Munich in 1908 two sister locomotives, each weighing 16 t, were built with the designations Gege and Dam (serial numbers 6074 and 6075). One of them stands today ⁽²⁰¹⁴⁾ as a memorial in Onverwacht.

A steam locomotive called Para (serial number 300) manufactured by the Dutch machine factory Backer & Rueb in Breda in 1916 is still preserved today ⁽²⁰¹⁴⁾ with two passenger cars in Onverwacht station.

Diesel railcars

American LS3 rail bus

An American rail bus marked LS3 heralded the replacement of steam power with diesel drives in Suriname. This had significantly lower maintenance and operating costs than the passenger trains pulled by steam locomotives.

In 1954 Linke-Hofmann-Busch / Büssing in Germany built a three-car set with 160 hp for the Lawabahn. It consisted of a rail bus with 14 first class seats and 26 second class seats, an intermediate car with 56 third class seats and an end car with 31 third class seats and a loading capacity of 3 tons of freight.

There were also several motor vehicles and draisines .

Passenger and freight cars

Inspection of the railway line by Governor van Heemstra in July 1923

In 1904, the Belgian rail vehicle manufacturer Metallurgique manufactured 15 passenger cars with a wooden body with 12 windows each and permanently installed sunshades. The same manufacturer also supplied six boxcars and 35 ballast wagons .

There were 3 open covered wagons for excursions , which were used, for example, when the governor Aarnoud van Heemstra visited the railway and cable car in July 1923. A bogie flat bed trolley was fitted with a box structure to provide a place to rest in a neat atmosphere with silver dishes and napkin rings.

By 1959, 100 four-axle tank wagons were used to transport kerosene from the port in Paramaribo to the airfield in Zanderij, an undertaking that was not entirely harmless due to the flying sparks of the steam locomotives.

Literature and film

Market at Lelydorp station, 1910

The Surinamese teacher and writer Richard O'Ferrall published in 1923 under the pseudonym "Ultimus" a satirical novel with the title Civilization Work, a social and economic study in the form of a novel about the construction of the railway. The novel paints an ironic picture of the gigantomania of governments, the condescending attitude towards marrons and Indians , the narrow-mindedness of the royal family and the idiocy of civilization missions.

The Dutch filmmaker Hans Hylkema made a film about the railroad in 2002 on behalf of the broadcaster Humanistische Omroep under the title The Gold Line . In this documentary he also shows old black and white films from the Lawabahn.

Current plans

In November 2014, the Surinamese government announced that it had detailed plans for a new route from Paramaribo to Onverwacht. The Dutch company Strukton proposes that the route from Paramaribo-Poelepantje runs south, with stops in Latour , Hannaslust , Welgedacht and two stops in Lelydorp, one stop in Bernharddorp and the terminus in Onverwacht. A construction period of 12 months and around 130 million euros in construction costs are estimated for this. In a second phase, the line could be extended to Zanderij Airport .

Web links

Commons : Lawabahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Commons : Onverwacht Station  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Photos of the rolling stock on the Nico Spilt website.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ De Vraagbaak: Almanak voor Suriname 1913. 1912. Retrieved on May 6, 2016th
2. ↑ ^{a b c} The Railways of Surinam, 2014 - Suriname Landspoorweg. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
3. ↑ FJ Ormeling (ed.), Bos / Niermeyer Atlas der gehele aarde, 40th edition, JB Wolters, Groningen / Batavia, 1959
4. ↑ FJ Ormeling (ed.), De Grote Bosatlas, 47th edition, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1971
5. ↑ Nieuwe Geïllustreerde Lekturama Encyclopedie, Tirion, Amsterdam, 1981
6. ↑ President Bouterse D belooft spoorweg en treinen aan Suriname. (Dutch YouTube film with footage of the Maabo or Kadjoe locomotives and the cable car) Retrieved on May 6, 2016.
7. ^ ^{A b} Eric Wicherts: The Railway of Suriname. The Landsspoorweg 1902 - 2002. Publisher: Private Rail Consultants - Canada (2004). ISBN 9780973481709 , ISBN 0973481706 . P. 8 and 13.
8. ↑ De Gids: Almanak voor Suriname 1917. p. 99. Retrieved on May 6, 2016.
9. ↑ Eric Wicherts and Jan Veltkamp: Geschiedenis van de Landsspoorweg. Publisher: Veka Productions. ISBN 9789081675581 , ISBN 9081675583 . P. 37.
10. ^ Oud-director Lovers Rail ziet wat in traject naar Surinaam inland. Hoop voor mislukt Lely-spoor. (Dutch) June 5, 2001. Retrieved April 4, 2016.
11. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} NVBS : Op de Rails. Duparc, H .: Recente reisindrukken bij de Landsspoorweg in Suriname. 6-1974. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
12. ↑ Handelingen the Staten-Generaal. Bijladen. 1923-1924. N °. 5. II. Sur. Hoofstuk L. Land- en Waterwegen en bejbehoorende Werken. ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. P. 22. Retrieved May 6, 2016. 
13. ↑ NVBS : Op de Rails. Luyken, R .: Spoorwegen in Surinam. 9-1961.
14. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Steam in Surinam on www.internationalsteam.co.uk . Retrieved May 6, 2016.
15. ↑ www.steamlocomotive.info/...12132 Retrieved on May 6, 2016.
16. ↑ Groepsfoto in rijtuig van trein. (Group photo in the railroad car: meal with the Calkoen couple) Retrieved May 6, 2016.
17. ↑ Bogie tank wagons. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
18. ↑ Ultimus (pseudonym of Richard O'Ferrall): Een Beschavingswerk, een sociaal- en economisch-politieke studie in romanvorm . (Dutch) Retrieved May 6, 2016.
19. ↑ Rail Movies: The Gold Line. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
20. ^ Suriname railway plan announced. Railway Gazette, November 7, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
21. ↑ Suriname to build new railway system. ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. Jamaica Observer, November 8, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2016. 
22. ↑ Ir. Imro Fong Poen, Ir. Johan Martinus and Kevin van Varsseveld: 'Verkeersplan Spoorbaan, fase infrastructurele aanpassingen van Wanica West met focus op het verkeer Indira Gandhiweg.' Version 3 from May 19, 2015. Accessed May 6, 2016.

Coordinates: 5 ° 35 ′ 34.4 "  N , 55 ° 11 ′ 42.9"  W.