Wittingen – Oebisfelde railway line

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Wittingen – Oebisfelde
Former Parsau train station
Former Parsau train station
Route number (DB) : 9175
Course book range : 157 (1974)
Route length: 43 km
Gauge : 1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed: 60 km / h
Legend
   
 0.0 Wittingen West
   
 to Gifhorn
   
 to Celle
   
 2.2 Wittingen South
   
 to Diesdorf until 1945
   
 4.2 Suderwittingen
   
 7.9 Ohrdorf
   
 from Rohrberg until 1945
   
 11.1 Zasenbeck
   
 12.6 Plastau
   
 14.2 Radenbeck
   
 18.3 Benitz - Wiswedel
   
 21.6 Brome
   
 24.6 Tülau-Fahrenhorst
   
 27.1 Croya
   
 29.2 Parsau
   
 30.2 Connection point Lichtnack
   
 34.7 Rieten terminus 1945–1974
   
 Mittelland Canal
   
 Lower Saxony / Saxony-Anhalt state border
   
 41.0 Grafhorst
   
 43.1 Oebisfelde Nord wedge station
   
 with Oebisfelde train station
   
 to Salzwedel , to Stendal ,
   
 to Magdeburg , to Weferlingen

The Wittingen – Oebisfelde railway line , also known as the Ohre valley railway , was a standard-gauge , 43-kilometer line operated by the Osthannoverschen Eisenbahnen (OHE).

history

From the first planning to the cessation of passenger traffic

Former Oebisfelde Nord train station (2010)

The narrow-gauge railway Wittingen-Oebisfelde GmbH opened its route on 15 September 1909 by Wittingen to Brome and on 20 November of that year to the end point Oebisfelde North , who with the final leg in the Prussian province of Saxony (now Saxony-Anhalt ) was. As early as 1843 there were initial plans to build a connection from Uelzen to the southeast via Brome. First, however, the Wieren – Wittingen– Gifhorn line was built. This route lay entirely in the area of ​​the Kingdom of Hanover , while the route to Oebisfelde led to Prussia. After the plans to build a state railway line failed in 1900, efforts were made to found a small railway . The sponsors were numerous neighboring communities, other regional authorities such as the kingdoms of Prussia and Hanover and the state of Braunschweig, as well as some private individuals. The reason for the construction of the railway was the need to transport agricultural products and goods. Farmers promised low transport costs for the delivery of artificial fertilizers to the area with poorly fertile sandy soils. This in turn should increase the yields that could be transported by rail.

Wittingen West station was also used by the Celle – Wittingen and Altmärkische Kleinbahn from the start . A transition from one to the other of the three routes was thus possible. The Zasenbeck – Rohrberg junction was opened as early as October 1, 1911, which also connected the line to the Altmark's small railway system . In 1912, five pairs of passenger trains ran on the route every day. The travel time of a passenger train on the entire Wittingen – Oebisfelde route was 110 minutes on average in 1929.

The good utilization of the line is shown, for example, by the figures from 1928. Six locomotives carried 100,000 people and around 125,000 tons of goods that year. By 1931, the route in the area of ​​the Mittelland Canal, which was under construction, was changed by creating a 1,800 meter long dam and several bridges. For this purpose, from 1929 onwards, an extensive material depot was built east of Ränen . On June 2 of the same year, the first scheduled train ran on the new route. In 1939, only three daily train pairs ran on the route. In addition, a small train bus traveled the Brome – Wittingen route.

In 1944, the Wittingen – Oebisfelde small railway was merged with a few other railway companies to form Osthannoverschen Eisenbahnen AG. In the same year there were two fatal bomb attacks on trains of the Wittingen – Oebisfelde Kleinbahn. The first attack took place on March 8 near Altendorf , the other in summer near the Mittelland Canal Bridge. After the province of Saxony had become part of the Soviet occupation zone , all traffic from Rorien to Oebisfelde had to be suspended on July 1, 1945. The last train on this section had left Oebisfelde the day before.

After 1945, the trains were mainly used by commuters from the Wittingen and Brome areas, who took the train to Rüllen and then switched to buses that took them to the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg . From February 1947 to 1964, the timetables were coordinated with the VW shift times. The construction of a new railway line from Rüllen to Vorsfelde near Wolfsburg - known as the Rheni Loop - was discussed from 1949 to 1972, but was never implemented. Commuters in particular, but also freight transport, would have benefited from this.

In 1957 the line to Rieten was upgraded for a speed of 60 km / h. In 1959, the operating company applied for the line to be closed for passenger traffic. However, passenger traffic on the Wittingen – Rühren section was not stopped until May 27, 1974.

Freight traffic and decommissioning

In 1979 a natural stone company was given a siding south of the Parsau train station. Until 1983, freight trains regularly reached Rieten. On November 13, 1987, however, the traffic to the railway station in Rühren was stopped, the track to Rühren became the station track of the Parsau station in 1992 . Around 1990 there were plans to upgrade the route as a freight train route on the Magdeburg - Hamburg route , as this would have been the shortest route. However, due to the falling freight volume, the plans were never put into practice, as was the Rhenish loop.

In 1992, the previously profitable beet traffic was discontinued. Freight traffic from Parsau – Rühren was officially ended on March 31, 1996.

Most of the stretch from Wittingen to Rühren is still there today. Up to Parsau there was still freight traffic up to April 1, 2004 and a track occupancy with parked wagons in the direction of Ränen. From Wittingen to Brome there has been museum traffic with steam trains for just as long. In the meantime, the route in the Wittingen West – Radenbeck section is no longer passable (see below). Since this section of the route was uneconomical for the OHE, they put it out to tender until March 24, 2009 for takeover by other railway infrastructure companies . The deadline has since been extended.

The Radenbeck – Rüßen section has been closed since May 17, 2004, the Ränen – Oebisfelde section has been without tracks for a long time. Only a few smaller engineering structures and the almost completely preserved railway embankment remind of the railway line in this section. The bridge over the Mittelland Canal was dismantled in 1973. In June 2007, the municipality of Rüsten bought the route from the Parsau municipality border to the Mittelland Canal in order to have it built on in the local area. The Oebisfelde Nord station was used for freight traffic until May 29, 1994.

Representatives of the particleboard plant of Glunz AG in Nettgau in Saxony-Anhalt in 2007 suggested a reactivation of the section Wittingen-Radenbeck to and a continuation of Nettgau to the route in freight transport to use. The plant could have replaced 370 trucks a day. However, with the closure of this section, this is no longer possible.

Since the beginning of May 2014, the Celle – Wittingen railway line has been led directly to Wittingen station via a newly constructed 480 meter long track. Thus, the Wittingen-West station and with it the Wittingen West – Radenbeck line, which, incidentally, had already been tarred at various former level crossings, was completely disconnected from the general network.

The district council of the responsible district of Gifhorn refused to de-dedicate the route in July 2015. At the beginning of 2016, the exemption procedure that was initiated was completed and the deedication was carried out.

future

In February 2008, a development association was founded that wants to reactivate the route. For the time being, the section from Radenbeck to Rüßen will be used. In the long term, a connection from Wittingen to Wolfsburg is envisaged through an additional new building, which will be used for both regular passenger traffic and freight traffic.

literature

  • Klaus-Peter Sebastian: Unforgotten Kleinbahn Wittingen – Oebisfelde - OHE route Wittingen – Rüßen. Ingrid Zeunert, Gifhorn 2010, ISBN 978-3-924335-77-9 .
  • Klaus-Peter Sebastian (editor): The history of the small railways in Isenhagener Land; The OHE railway operations in the Gifhorn district . District of Gifhorn, Museum Association Gifhorn e. V. and Heimatverein Brome e. V., Gifhorn 2001, ISBN 3-929632-50-0 .
  • Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The East Hanoverian Railways. alba-Verlag, 3rd edition, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87094-232-0 .
  • Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2. Between Weser and Elbe. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2007, pp. 280-295, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus-Peter Sebastian: Unforgotten Kleinbahn Wittingen – Oebisfelde - OHE route Wittingen – Rüßen. Ingrid Zeunert, Gifhorn 2010, ISBN 978-3-924335-77-9 , pp. 102-103.
  2. ↑ Glunz is looking for allies in Gifhorn. Gifhorner Rundschau from 2007 (archive version from 2015)
  3. ↑ Well: district council against deedecation. waz-online.de from July 3, 2015, accessed on August 3, 2015
  4. ↑ Draisine friends step on the gas: plans to found a club. Retrieved January 27, 2017