Letmathe – Fröndenberg railway line

Letmathe – Fröndenberg
Western part of the route
Route number (DB) :	2850
Course book section (DB) :	437 (Menden – Fröndenberg) 440 (Iserlohn-Letmathe – Iserlohn)
Route length:	25 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	Iserlohn-Letmathe-Iserlohn: 15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Top speed:	Iserlohn-Letmathe-Iserlohn: 100 km / h Menden-Fröndenberg: 80 km / h
Dual track :	Menden – Fröndenberg – Ruhr bridge
Legend Route from Unna Upper Ruhr Valley Railway from Hagen 25.1 Fröndenberg Upper Ruhr Valley Railway to Warburg Dysentery 23.9 At the new rolling mill 23.3 Evil earth 22.8 Instead of RWE Menden 22.0 Anst Menden KM Europa-Metall 21.6 Anst Schmöle 20.4 Menden (Sauerland) Hönnetalbahn to Neuenrade ~ 19.4 18.9 At the fruit farm 16.0 Eyelet 15.4 Instead of Niemeyer 15.2 Höcklingsen 15.0 First Hemer Jost 14.1 Bräuckerstrasse 13.7 Hemer Former branch line to Sundwig (1.8 km) 12.9 Hemer's office 11.9 Western L 680 (official reason for closure) 8.0 Beech grove 6.9 Iserlohn East Viaduct "Obere Mühle" 5.9 Initially Kissing and Möllmann (formerly built over) 5.5 Iserlohn (Hp on two routes, formerly Bf) Ardeybahn to Dortmund 1.9 Letmathe Dechen Cave Lenne Ruhr-Sieg route from Siegen 0.0 Iserlohn-Letmathe Ruhr-Sieg route to Hagen Swell:

The Letmathe – Fröndenberg railway is a partly double-track , partly electrified and partly decommissioned secondary railway line in North Rhine-Westphalia .

It originally led from Letmathe via Iserlohn , Hemer and Menden (Sauerland) to Fröndenberg . Only the two end sections are currently in operation, i.e. Iserlohn-Letmathe - Iserlohn (single-track electrified) and Menden - Fröndenberg (double-track except for a single-track section in the area of ​​the Ruhr Bridge, non-electrified). From Iserlohn via Hemer to Menden, the route has been converted into a pedestrian and cycle path.

history

When building its supra-regional railway lines, the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (BME) initially bypassed various poorly located cities such as Iserlohn. Based on their highways , the BME also began the difficult due to their topographic location accessible tourist destinations of Western in the second half of the 19th century Sauerland to tap.

Iserlohn-Letmathe - Iserlohn

Iserlohn-Letmathe station

First, on March 31, 1864, the BME opened a branch line to Iserlohn station , which is also known locally as the Iserlohn Railway .

The starting point of this compound was Letmathe railway station in the district of Genna , who previously initiated in the five years of Ruhr-Sieg railway BME from Hagen Central Station to Station victories is.

The route was expanded in the following years, during this expansion work the Dechen cave was discovered in 1868 . The Letmathe Dechenhöhle stop is located in the immediate vicinity of the show cave .

Fröndenberg - Menden

Eight years later, the BME built another branch line, this time starting from Fröndenberg station on its Hagen – Warburg line to Menden station (Sauerland) . It was completed on August 7, 1872. This line was then built on by the Royal Elberfeld Railway Directorate of the Prussian State Railways (PSE) in 1878, initially to Rödinghausen, which later became the Hönnetalbahn to Neuenrade.

The double-track bridge between Ruhr Fröndenberg Menden and was posted on May 17, 1943 during the Möhne disaster in a British bouncing bomb a hole in the Möhnetalsperre destroyed pulled from the water masses and then rebuilt only a single track.

Menden - Hemer

The plans for the further construction of the line from Menden (Sauerland) to Hemer go back to the 1860s.

On April 17, 1873, the BME had signed a contract for the construction of a railway line and secured funding from the Prussian Ministry of Commerce. In 1881 the BME received the concession, but the line was not completed until September 1, 1882 shortly after the complete takeover of BME by PSE.

Hemer - Iserlohn

On June 15, 1885, the last section between Hemer and Iserlohn was finally completed. This enabled continuous traffic from Letmathe via Iserlohn, Hemer and Menden to Fröndenberg.

It wasn't until another 25 years later that a second line reached Iserlohn with the Ardeybahn from Schwerte.

Shutdowns

former Iserlohn Ost train station

Hemer - Iserlohn

A good hundred years after the opening, passenger traffic on the middle section of the route between Iserlohn and Menden was suspended on May 28, 1989, while the route between Iserlohn Ost and Hemer was shut down and completely dismantled in the three following years. The reason for the shutdown was the dense parallel bus offer of the Märkische Verkehrsgesellschaft with incompatible tariff offers, which led to steadily declining passenger numbers on the railway since the 1970s. The low top speed of 60 km / h due to the many unsecured level crossings also contributed to the unattractiveness. At the same time, no investments were made in infrastructure. The route was secured with a high level of personnel effort until the shutdown. The trigger for the closure was ultimately a dilapidated bridge on the L 680 that spanned the railway line. In the last few years before it was shut down, it even had to be supported with additional steel girders. Six years later, on May 27, 1995, the remaining one and a half kilometers long section in Iserlohn's city center was shut down.

Menden - Hemer (Oesetalbahn)

Special train to the State Garden Show on July 31, 2010 in Hemer

On March 31, 2006, freight traffic on the Menden - Hemer section was discontinued and continued use was put out to tender six months later. On April 14, 2007, it was converted into a connecting railway with handover at Menden station (Sauerland) . From June 11, 2007 to May 31, 2008, this connection was then rented by the city of Hemer in order to be able to carry out timber transports for the removal of storm wood.

It was considered early on to reopen the route to the State Garden Show 2010 . In November 2007, however, the Hemer Transport Committee decided not to want to reactivate the line because, according to experts, rail operations would not be profitable. Alternatively, the conversion into a cycle path was considered.

In order to still maintain the line, the Bonn Rhein-Sieg-Eisenbahn GmbH (RSE) brought an action against the Federal Railway Authority at the Arnsberg Administrative Court in autumn 2008 because of the impending dismantling of the tracks and, as a railway infrastructure company, applied for an operating license for the line . The RSE will withdraw the lawsuit if the city of Hemer negotiates a cooperation agreement to reactivate and operate the route.

As a result, the city of Hemer finally acquired the line on December 23, 2008 in order to be able to use the railway areas south of Hemer station that were no longer required for reactivation for their own urban development measures.

After the end of operation during the State Horticultural Show 2010, the route was taken out of service again on November 1, 2010 after the RSE applied for closure.

In 2012 there was great controversy in politics about converting the route between Hemer and Menden into a cycle path. On September 7, 2012 it was announced that the CDU and Green Alternative List of the city of Menden would stick with their no to an immediate track dismantling on the Menden – Hemer railway line. According to the CDU parliamentary group leader, Martin Wächter, a decision should only be taken on a possible dismantling of the rails when the results of a potential study by the Ruhr-Lippe Railway Passenger Transport Association (ZRL) regarding the chances of realizing a Hemer – Menden – Dortmund line are available. This study will be started in autumn 2012 in order to shed light on the technical condition of the infrastructure and the necessary investments for reactivation. For the CDU parliamentary group, a direct connection between Menden and Dortmund would have top priority and such a connection would be even more likely if the section to Hemer was included. In February / March 2014 the tracks were finally dismantled.

Todays situation

At the moment, only the two sections of the line that were originally opened at both ends are still in operation.

Iserlohn-Letmathe - Iserlohn

Iserlohn city station

The Iserlohner Bahn, the oldest section of the route, is still in operation today and has run completely within the Iserlohn city area since the former town of Letmathe was incorporated. This section has remained a single-track branch line, which has been electrified since May 30, 1965.

The non-electrified Ardeybahn begins in Iserlohn and leads to Dortmund via Schwerte. Iserlohn train station is a curiosity, as the two lines that end there are no longer connected. However, there are plans to reconnect the routes using switches. In August 2016, a tongue and frogless connection was built between the two routes. This should make it possible that the Hennener siding for transformer transports can also be reached from the direction of Iserlohn-Letmathe via Iserlohn.

There were continuous express trains on the Iserlohn - Aachen route. Until the end of 2007, the route was served by the DB Regio NRW through the RB 56 (Der Iserlohner) from Hagen Hauptbahnhof to Iserlohn, using a class 143 locomotive with a single double-decker car . With the timetable change on December 9, 2007, Abellio Rail NRW took over the services in the local rail passenger transport of the Ruhr-Sieg network, after winning the tender for twelve years until 2019 in summer 2005.

The regional express RE 16 ( Ruhr-Sieg-Express ) currently runs between Iserlohn-Letmathe and Iserlohn and the regional train RB 91 ( Ruhr-Sieg-Bahn ) moves every half hour every hour. On both lines, the trains from Essen Hauptbahnhof via Hagen Hauptbahnhof (RE 16) or from Hagen Hauptbahnhof (RB 91) to Iserlohn-Letmathe station are winged . The other part of the train continues to Siegen .

A special two-part version of the FLIRT 2 electric multiple unit is used . The wing train concept doubled the number of direct connections to Hagen, and there are also direct connections to the central Ruhr area.

Fröndenberg - Menden

The section from Fröndenberg to Menden was not electrified. Today it has been developed as a double-track branch line and forms an operational unit with the single-track Hönnetalbahn to Neuenrade.

The regional train RB 54 ( Hönnetal-Bahn ) runs every hour between Fröndenberg and Menden from Unna to Neuenrade (on weekends between Menden and Neuenrade there is only two hourly traffic). The DB Regio NRW was awarded the contract in the tender for the period from 2004 to 2016 and sets two-piece railcar of the type LINT 41 a (DB Class 648).

Reactivation efforts Menden - Hemer (- Iserlohn)

Due to the poor connection of the city of Hemer to the regional center of Dortmund, considerations repeatedly arose to re-introduce a local rail service in the Iserlohn - Menden section. The journey between the cities of Dortmund and Hemer, which are around 30 kilometers apart, takes 80–90 minutes in local transport. The local public transport is not competitive here compared to the road connection. Therefore, the section was registered in 1996 as a light rail project for the public transport requirement plan of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In 2000, a structural study for the realization of a tram connection was carried out, which proved that the project is feasible. In a subsequent model calculation of the demand potential, a potential of 4,200 passengers per working day was determined at half-hourly intervals. 1,000 of them are new customers who would otherwise not use public transport. On the other hand, there are the high investment costs due to the necessary realignment between Hemer and Iserlohn. The light rail variant was not implemented.

In 2011, at the insistence of the Märkischer Kreis, the reactivation of the Menden - Hemer (- Iserlohn) section was included as a measure to be examined in the local transport plan of the Westphalia-Lippe local transport association. There it says that the measure can be implemented in the long term if the test results are positive. Special trains to the State Garden Show 2010 in Hemer showed that a more attractive local transport offer is possible between Hemer and Dortmund. On the existing infrastructure, modern diesel multiple units covered the journey via Fröndenberg and Menden in under an hour.

In 2013, the Ruhr-Lippe association commissioned a study to examine possible local transport offers by rail. Various operating concepts were worked out here. For example the extension of the RB 54 Unna - Menden to Hemer and an additional line Hemer - Dortmund via Menden and Fröndenberg. The necessary investment and operating costs were then determined for the operating concepts. Potential analyzes are currently being carried out and the cost-benefit factors determined. The investigation is expected to be completed by early 2015. If the investigation comes to the conclusion that the measure makes economic sense, it is included in the local transport plan and can be implemented in the long term.

The study, which was completed in 2015, came to the conclusion that only the variant of an extended RB 54 Unna-Hemer without waiting for the connection from the direction of Arnsberg in Fröndenberg would generate economic benefits. The cost-benefit factor was 1.01, only slightly above the required value of 1, which means that the project can be funded. The Zweckverband Nahverkehr Westfalen-Lippe (NWL) has registered the project for the public transport requirement plan of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, sees only a long-term perspective for the implementation due to the scarce result with a more positive population development than assumed.

The investigation estimated costs of 10.5 million euros for the establishment of the infrastructure. No changes in the current parallel bus offer with three journeys per hour and only one stop in Hemer were assumed for all variants examined. An hourly service with 15 pairs of trains Monday to Friday and a two-hour service with 8 pairs of trains at the weekend were considered. The investigation case of a continuous line to Dortmund achieved with 780 additional passengers the highest increase in the number of passengers in public transport compared to the absence. However, this variant also achieved the highest operating costs, which means that there is no economic benefit. The economically sensible variant of an extension of the RB 54 to Hemer achieves 570 additional passengers for local public transport, with 1060 passengers per day using the train in the Hemer – Menden section.

literature

• Bernd Franco Hoffmann: The Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn. Through the valleys of Wupper, Ruhr and Volme ; Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt, 2015, ISBN 978-3-95400-580-2

Web links

Commons : Letmathe – Fröndenberg railway line  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Description of route 2850 in the NRWbahnarchiv by André Joost

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ^ Claus-Peter Levermann, Jürgen Overkott: The night when the dysentery brings thousands of deaths. In: Westfalenpost . July 17, 2016, accessed January 29, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Eisenbahn-Magazin 4/2008, p. 14
5. ^ Paul Krumme: Dreams would come true: reactivation of the Hemer – Menden railway line. In: Iserlohner Kreisanzeiger and newspaper . November 24, 2008, accessed July 13, 2015 . 
6. ↑ List of the disused lines in North Rhine-Westphalia (since 01.01.1994). (XLS; 17 KiB) Federal Railway Office, November 21, 2018, accessed on January 29, 2020 (route number 2850). 
7. ↑ Article from the Westfälische Rundschau of September 7, 2012: "Bahn Hemer-Menden- CDU and GAL remain with no to track dismantling"
8. ↑ Three special-purpose associations award the Ruhr-Sieg network to Abellio. Abellio Rail NRW, June 24, 2005, accessed on April 27, 2018 . 
9. ↑ The starting shot for the Ruhr-Sieg network has been given! Abellio Rail NRW, December 12, 2007, accessed on April 27, 2018 . 
10. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 29, 2013 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. ZRL local traffic plan 2007, p. 188 
11. ↑ Intercommunal traffic development plan Hemer / Menden / Iserlohn, p. 22
12. ↑ Statements on NWL local transport plan, pp. 27–31
13. ↑ NWL local transport plan, p. 141
14. ↑ Notice of the VCD on shuttle trips Dortmund - Hemer during the LAGA 2010
15. ↑ State of the art feasibility study on the Hemer - Menden railway line. In: zrl.de. Zweckverband SPNV Ruhr-Lippe (ZRL), January 21, 2014, accessed on April 27, 2018 . 
16. ↑ Reactivation of the Menden - Hemer railway line makes sense in the long term . Press release, Zweckverband Nahverkehr Westfalen-Lippe, January 4, 2016
17. ↑ PTV Transport Consult GmbH, cost-benefit studies on reactivating the Hemer - Menden rail line, presented at the ZRL association meeting on December 9, 2015 in Soest