Minden trolleybus
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| Route length: | 13.9 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The trolleybus Minden was the trolleybus system of the East Westphalian city of Minden in North Rhine-Westphalia . It existed from 1953 to 1965 and - like the Minden tram that ran between 1893 and 1959 - was operated by EMR GmbH Kraftverkehr . This was a subsidiary of the Minden-Ravensberg power station , which later became the Minden-Ravensberg transport company (VMR), which no longer exists . The trolleybus was replaced by omnibuses after its closure .
history
Prehistory and opening
After the Second World War , the Minden tram was considered technically obsolete. Since it was mainly single-tracked and thus got in the way of the rapidly increasing double-sided motorized individual traffic, it had become a traffic obstacle. According to the ideas of the time, trolleybuses should replace the tram, a logical and economical decision for the operating power company . In addition, electric operation was cheaper back then because diesel buses were not yet exempt from mineral oil tax in the 1950s .
As a trial, the company therefore converted part of a route served by buses for trolleybus operations. The choice fell on the long-distance bus route 8, which opened in 1928 and was then heavily used ; it connected Minden's city center with Vlotho . The trolleybus line O8, the additional letter represented Obus, perverse as of 19 December 1953 at the 30-minute cycle as a radial line between Minden and Holzhausen . The approximately ten kilometer long trolleybus overland route led over the city district of the right bank of the Weser and the then independent communities Neesen , Lerbeck and Hausberge to Holzhausen, now all districts of Porta Westfalica . The southern terminus was the Holzhausen district of Hitzepohl. "Vlotho" was written on the trolleybuses as the destination; From the Hitzepol stop , however, the onward transport took place with diesel buses. On the way there, they also served the communities of Holtrup and Uffeln .
As a special feature, there was no continuous overhead line available in Minden's old town, and contact wires were not allowed to be installed around Minden Cathedral for aesthetic reasons. The trolleybuses bridged a distance of around 300 meters in the center with their auxiliary drive . Coming from the direction of Holzhausen, they wired off at the Vinckestrasse stop - this was on the Großer Domhof , in front of the former main post office. Wiring was done on the way back at the beginning of Lindenstrasse, in front of what was then the Scala cinema . From this operating point - where there was no change of passengers - the electrified route led back to the Weser Bridge via Tonhallenstrasse and Klausenwall . The block loop in the old town was thus driven counter-clockwise.
After the Rheydt trolleybus, Minden was one of the first trolleybus companies in the world to use auxiliary engines. Unlike in Rheydt, the auxiliary drive in Minden was also used for the first time to transport passengers. The vehicles also needed the emergency drive unit in order to reach the depot on Portastraße , which is located about one kilometer away from the main route and is shared with the tram . The conductors took off and put on the pantograph poles manually ; automatic systems were not yet available at the time.
The end of the trolleybus, Domeck , was on the Kleiner Domhof , in front of the old town hall . The city's new central bus station was also built there in 1955/56 . In contrast, there was no direct transition to the tram , it still ran on the market until it was shut down in 1959.
Extensions
The trolleybus infrastructure was slightly expanded twice. After the completion of a new bridge over the Weser between Hausberge and Barkhausen , an approximately 700-meter-long branch line to the Porta tram terminus at Hotel Kaiserhof was opened on May 29, 1954 . In order to avoid an intersection with the overhead lines of the tram, no catenary loop was installed in the area of the Porta turning loop - the sweeping there was also carried out using an auxiliary drive. At that time , the Weser Bridge was located north of Porta train station , today's Porta Westfalica train station, which could also be accessed. The bridge was demolished at the end of the 1990s in the course of the construction of the expressway and replaced by today's crossing - located further south.
The branch to Porta was the first step to replace the tram between Minden and Porta. This would also have made the temporary turning loop without a catenary superfluous. A catenary triangle was installed near the eastern bridgehead, although the corner connection Minden - Barkhausen via Lerbeck was insignificant in terms of traffic. Due to a rock slide in the Jakobsberg area , continuous operation north of the station was interrupted for a long time. The service was therefore temporarily limited to the two sections Minden - Lerbeck and Porta - Hitzepohl.
In the fall of 1954, an approximately two-kilometer route was added to serve the Neu-Lerbeck settlement and the center of Lerbeck . Before that, the trolleybus only touched the community on the western edge in the course of Hausberger Straße. The alternative route branched off from the existing route at the Neu-Lerbeck stop at that time - which was still in the Neesen district, before the intersection with Meißener Straße. From there she followed the Kirchweg and the street Zur Porta , which was formerly called Dorfstraße. From then on, every second course served the center of Lerbeck. The Minden trolleybus thus reached its maximum length of 13.9 kilometers.
attitude
However, a lack of flexibility was quickly recognized in the trolleybus operation and it was decided to replace the tram not with trolleybuses but with conventional buses. At the time, local public transport in a medium-sized city could only be managed sensibly with one mode of transport - the diesel bus. The trolleybus in Minden did not replace a single tram line, and on July 20, 1965 - more than five years after the tram was shut down - the trolleybus operation finally ended.
Today, the formerly continuous line 8 is served by line 408 to Hausberge, where there is a connection to line 418 to Hitzepohl. The connection between Hausberge and Vlotho, however, is only offered to schoolchildren today . On the left side of the Weser, there are continuous buses to Hausberge, but they do not go to Porta Westfalica station.
vehicles
For the trolleybus Minden, five solo cars of the type ÜHIIIs with the company numbers 1 to 5 were procured from the Waggonfabrik Uerdingen and Henschel & Sohn , their electrical equipment came from Siemens-Schuckertwerke . The Volkswagen auxiliary drive required to operate the Minden city center and the Porta terminal only allowed a low top speed of 25 kilometers per hour. In addition, trailers were also used in which smoking was allowed.
Four trolleybuses were sold to the Solingen trolleybus in 1965 , where they were in operation for a few years under the new numbers 76 to 79. The fifth car was badly damaged in an accident.
Today's stop names
Some of the earlier trolleybus stops later changed their names, sometimes several times:
- Minden, Kaiserstraße: in the meantime Minden, Hausberger Straße, today Minden, Chancellor's Weide
- Neesen, Niemeier: today Neesen, Mittelfeldstrasse
- Neu-Lerbeck: today Neesen, Meißener Strasse
- Lerbeck, Schütte: in the meantime Lerbeck, Kirchweg, today Lerbeck, Georg-Rost-Straße
- Lerbeck, Fricke: today Lerbeck, Pfahlweg
- Lerbeck, Hausberger Strasse: today Lerbeck, Hausberger Strasse 14
literature
- North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse . In: Ludger Kenning, Mattis Schindler (Ed.): Trolleybuses in Germany . tape 2 . Kenning, Nordhorn 2011, ISBN 978-3-933613-31-8 .
- Werner Stock: Trolleybus systems in Germany , Hermann Busch Verlag, Bielefeld 1987, pages 175–176, ISBN 3-926882-00-X
- Ingrid Schütte, Achim Overath, Minden-Herford Transport Company : Bus travel - yesterday and today: Regular services in the Minden, Lübbecke and Herford area , Uhle & Kleimann, Lübbecke 2000, ISBN 3-928959-31-X
- Ingrid and Werner Schütte: Minden and his tram , Uhle and Kleimann Verlag, Lübbecke 1986, ISBN 3-922657-47-8