Nims-Sauertal Railway

Nims-Sauertalbahn
Bitburg-Erdorf-Igel

Route number :

3104

Course book section (DB) :

last 263 h (1968)

Route length:

44.6 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Route class :

C4

Legend

		Line from Cologne
	0.0	Bitburg-Erdorf
		Route to Trier
		Kyll
	6.2	Bitburg (city train station)
		to Bitburg Airport ( Awanst )
	8.1	Masholder
	10.5	Messerich
		RWE UA Niederstedem open loading siding
	14.3	Wolsfeld
	17.5	Niederweis
		Nims
	21.0	Irreler Tunnel (400 m)
	22.2	Irrel
		Irreler Viaduct
	23.8	Menningen
		Menninger Viaduct
	26.0	Minden (sour)
	27.2	Edingen (Bez Trier)
	29.0	Ralinger Tunnel (336 m)
	29.9	Ralingen
	34.8	Winter village
	39.6	Metzdorf
	42.6	Mesenich
	43.3	Mesenich Tunnel (827 m)
		Stretch of Luxembourg
	47.0	Hedgehog
		Route to Trier

The Nims-Sauertalbahn was a single-track, standard-gauge, non-electrified branch line (state railway) from Bitburg-Erdorf (on the Eifel route Trier-Cologne) to Igel in the Moselle valley. It led from the Kylltal via Bitburg , Irrel , through the Nimstal and the Sauertal . The line has been shut down and dismantled from Bitburg-Stadt station in the direction of Irrel or Igel. The section between Bitburg and Bitburg-Erdorf is still passable; scheduled, regular traffic takes place e.g. Not currently.

Route and history

The line was built in several sections from 1910 from Erdorf to Bitburg and on to Igel on the Moselle. The gap in the last section of the line was closed in 1915. The extension of the line over the Trier western line made it possible to connect the southern Eifel to the regional center via the Trier-West station. Whether strategic reasons were decisive for the construction of the border railway can be assumed, but has not been proven. In the course of the railway construction, some bridges, viaducts and culverts as well as a total of three tunnels (from the north: Irreler Tunnel, Ralinger Tunnel, Mesenicher Tunnel) were built. A special feature of the Irrel tunnel was the “Russian block construction” in the superstructure. Furthermore, there is a connection to the Katzenkopf tank factory located just above , which has given rise to speculation to this day.

On the border river Sauer, the railway ran parallel to the Prince Heinrich Railway (Ligne de la Sûre) on the Luxembourg side, which had been built decades before, and to which a temporary siding over the Sauer from Edingen (district of Trier) during the Second World War duration. The connection of the villages in the Nims and Sauer valleys to the railway brought them a considerable economic boom in the 1920s. Due to the comparatively low volume of traffic, a simplified branch line service ( train control operation ) was introduced, since the branch line was always only of regional importance because the through traffic ran via the Eifelbahn Cologne – Trier . (In 1933, an additional new connecting line from Bitburg via Sinspelt to Irrel was in the planning stage; the project was not carried out, however.) At the end of the 1930s, the volume of traffic temporarily increased significantly due to the construction of the Siegfried Line . The railway facilities - especially bridges and tunnels - were significantly destroyed in 1944/1945 by Allied shelling, but also by the Wehrmacht , so that the sections of the line were not reopened until years later. In the 1950s the railway experienced an upswing; This was due above all to the increased use of the then new diesel multiple units (" rail buses "), which soon replaced the (steam) locomotive-hauled passenger trains and made more economical operation possible.

In the 1960s, as in many places in Kyll, Nims and Sauer, private transport increased sharply to the detriment of the railroad. As a result, passenger traffic was discontinued on September 29, 1969 and shifted to rail buses; In the same year, all traffic, including freight transport by rail, was discontinued on the southern part of the route between Edingen (Bez Trier) and Igel. The rail infrastructure was soon dismantled. The rest of the freight traffic from / to Irrel (including the Edingen junction (Bez Trier)) was maintained via Bitburg for almost 20 years; in recent years the freight trains only ran on weekdays when required. On September 24, 1988 the Edingen – Irrel – Wolsfeld section was closed and the tracks dismantled in the following years. Since then, only Wolsfeld has been approached when required . Despite a fundamental renovation of the superstructure at the beginning of the 1990s, which can be traced back to the provision of a NATO tank farm at Wolsfeld station, the Bitburg - Wolsfeld section was dismantled after the freight traffic was stopped on August 31, 1995 by the DB .

The railway infrastructure is kept operational on the approximately 6-kilometer section between Bitburg-Erdorf and Bitburg (city).

In the Bitburg - Igel area (approx. 40 kilometers), the dismantled route was largely converted into a paved bike path ( Nimstal-Radweg / Sauertal-Radweg ), in the southern area of which the former railway line partially touches the subsequently built B 418. For a few kilometers the route has also fallen into a slumber; nature reclaims itself here. A very small part of the property was sold privately and partially built over.

South portal of the Ralinger tunnel

On 16 April 2002, the Stadtwerke Bitburg took over the 6.34 km long railway line Bitburg City - Bitburg-Erdorf of the DB and the railway infrastructure companies of public transport they had since 26 July 2002, the license for the operation of the railway line. RWE took a 40 percent share in the purchase price of one million euros and thus received a guarantee that transformer transports for the Niederstedem substation could be handled via it for 30 years . Since the beginning of 2008, a connecting road has crossed the tracks at the level of the Bitburg train station as an extension of the Güterstraße with a level crossing at the same level. Where loading tracks were laid in Bitburg-Stadt station until years ago, a cycle path now runs parallel to the remaining track. There has also been a senior citizens' home here since 2013. At the beginning of August 2014, the decommissioning procedure according to § 11 AEG was initiated due to the deficit operation and pending line investments and in mid-October the city of Bitburg decided to sell the line. Because of the connection to the Niederstedem substation, the electricity network operator Amprion , an RWE affiliate, bought the railway line in 2015 and from September 2015 to June 2016 the line was fundamentally renovated on behalf of the new owner (superstructure, bridge structures) because of the expansion of the Niederstedem substation (Route for high-voltage network) heavy transformer transports by rail to Bitburg-Stadt are still planned. At the end of the repair work, on June 23, 2016, invited guests were given a tour on behalf of the operator with a Vulkan-Eifel-Bahn rail bus from Gerolstein via Erdorf to Bitburg and back. The line is no longer part of the public railway infrastructure, but an Amprion works railway .

The connecting line from the Bitburg-Stadt train station to the former US Air Base Bitburg , now an industrial park , is no longer passable, the superstructure was dismantled piece by piece after it was abandoned by the United States Air Force in 1994, and there are still a few meters of track in front of the former airfield totally overgrown and in a correspondingly desolate condition. None of the companies located there have tried to establish a siding; reactivation as an industrial track can be described as impossible.

The AG Eisenbahngeschichte Nims-Sauertal-Bahn in the historical working group Bitburger Land has been dealing with the processing and documentation of the history of this former branch line since 2000.

Today's traffic

Scheduled rail traffic is currently not taking place on the route.

Passenger transport: After the SPNV on the Nims-Sauertalbahn was discontinued in 1969/1970, the services were taken over by the regular buses of the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the Kraftpost . At the moment the public transport is carried out by the RMV .

Freight traffic: The freight train traffic to and from the last remaining rail customer, the Bitburger Brewery , was discontinued on December 31, 2005 and has been transported to trucks since then. Since January 2006 there has been no regular rail freight traffic in the Erdorf – Bitburg section. In 2010 the station was used to park temporarily unneeded CFL freight cars . If necessary, i.e. sporadically, with long interruptions, transformer transports were and will be carried out to Bitburg-Stadt, which are then taken to the Niederstedem substation as heavy road transport. This has been the main operational purpose since the Amprion company took over and repaired the line.

Special trips: In October 1980 a rail bus set traveled to Edingen (Bez Trier), organized by the DGEG. In 1986, 1987 and 1988 a total of four special trains hauled by locomotives to Irrel - and z. T. to the junction Edingen (Trier district) - guided. Since the 1990s, special trips have been made to Bitburg (city), some of them nostalgic trips by clubs or chartered so-called dance trains. From 2009 to 2014, as part of the “Kylltal aktiv” cycling adventure day (each on a Sunday in July), there is a shuttle service with the option of taking bicycles between Bitburg-Erdorf and Bitburg-Stadt from DB Regio Südwest with a Silberling push - pull train or diesel multiple unit (628 ) Have been carried out; after that, the shuttle service to Bitburg-Stadt was no longer continued, presumably because the 628s have not been used since the previous timetable change. Since the line was taken over by Amprion, the line is no longer available for public rail traffic (works railway), so that special trips are likely to be the exception even more. In addition to a non-public rail bus special trip on June 23, 2016, four public special trips by VEB / AKE from Gerolstein to Bitburg and back took place in July 2017.

Buildings and monument protection

Fixed station buildings were built in the following localities: Erdorf (as part of the Eifel route Trier - Cologne), Bitburg, Messerich, Wolsfeld, Niederweis, Irrel, Edingen (Bez Trier), Ralingen, Wintersdorf, Metzdorf, Mesenich, Igel. The station buildings were all sold to private buyers after the end of passenger traffic. The village station buildings have a homeland security style that is characteristic of the period before and during World War I, with a central gable and a long hipped / mansard roof. Similar building types can be found especially in the Hunsrück and Saarland from this period. Simple shelters were found at the stops during the time of passenger traffic in Masholder, Menningen and Minden. In addition to numerous smaller bridge structures, overpasses and underpasses as well as culverts, the following engineering structures should be emphasized:

Kyll Bridge * near Erdorf,
Nims bridge between Niederweis and Irrel,
Irreler Tunnel (400 m),
Prümbrücke at the Irreler mill,
Menninger Viaduct *,
Ralinger Tunnel (336 m),
Mesenich tunnel (827 m).

Protected as cultural monuments are u. a. the engineering structures marked with *).

literature

The Nims-Sauertal Railway . Volume 1: From Erdorf to Menningen . Photo book, compiled by Markus Schiffer and Jörg Husinger. The editor is the Historical Working Group Bitburger Land (GAK).
Special volume 68/69 of the contributions to the history of the Bitburger Land , gak-bitburg.de