Altena Railway District

Altena-Lüdenscheid
Route number (DB) :	92002
Course book section (DB) :	239d (1951)
Route length:	14.6 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend -1.00 Altena -graben 152  m Ruhr-Sieg route 0.00 Altena (Westf) 158  m 0.65 Middle bridge Altena tunnel (55 m) 2.10 Stone bridge 160  m 2.70 Crown Prince 3.10 City Rahmede 5.30 Mill frame 6.40 Old rye frame 6.95 To the hollow 7.55 Green meadow 8.70 Thin board 9.75 Upper frame I 10.20 Upper frame II 10.62 Hardt 11.20 Noell 12.70 Sheep bridge 12.95 Lüdenscheid switch (see below) 14.60 Lüdenscheid KAE 383  m
Werdohl – Lüdenscheid
Course book section (DB) :	239e (1957)
Route length:	16.4 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend -0.45 Werdohl freight yard 186  m -0.10 Lenne 0.00 Werdohl passenger station 1.20 Versevörde 2.10 Osmecke 3.32 Kleinhammer 4.37 Deitenbecke 5.16 Eveking I 5.26 Eveking II 6.42 Altenmühle 7.17 Bear stone 7.74 Borbecke 9.00 Trempershof I 10.15 Augustenthal Plate, Brüninghausen 11.35 Wettringhof 12.75 Peddensiepen 12.70 Ludenscheid Worth 406  m 15.75 12.95 Lüdenscheid turnout (see above) 14.60 Lüdenscheid KAE 383 m
Schalksmühle – Halver
Course book section (DB) :	240f (1948)
Route length:	9.97 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Legend 0.0 Schalksmühle 224  m 1.4 Schalksmühle Halver 3.5 Steinbach 4.2 Karthausen 4.7 Deitenbecke 5.1 Oeckinghausen 8.7 Oak wood 9.1 Märkisches Werk 9.4 Halver 418  m Swell:

Kreis Altenaer Eisenbahn AG (KAE) was the name of the railway company founded on July 21, 1886 as Kreis Altenaer Schmalspur-Eisenbahn-AG since June 1, 1922 in the former Altena district . The company expired on January 31, 1976. In the vernacular of the Sauerland, the name Schnurre is also known for the Altenaer railway district.

Society

Former memorial with Carl der KAE locomotive at Altena station

Around half of the share capital was raised by private individuals and businesses, the other half by the Prussian state and the rural community of Lüdenscheid , and to a small extent also by the community of Halver . Their goal was to connect the diverse small iron industry in the valleys of Rahmede, Verse and Hälver between the Lenne and Ebbegebirge in the Sauerland to the main railway network. The Berlin company Soenderop & Co, which also ran the building until April 1, 1889, took over the construction .

Over time, the proportion of private shareholders decreased. In 1975 99% of the capital belonged to Kraftverkehr Mark-Sauerland GmbH (MS). This society was founded on May 22, 1925 by KAE together with the Altena district and several municipalities. MS merged with Iserlohner Kreisbahn AG and took over Plettenberger Kleinbahn AG (PKB) and Kreis Altenaer Eisenbahn AG on January 14, 1976 . The new company was now called " Märkische Eisenbahngesellschaft AG" (MEG), since 1981 GmbH. The MEG is part of the Märkische Verkehrsgesellschaft GmbH (MVG) based in Lüdenscheid. The MEG is now primarily responsible for the handling of goods at the transshipment station in Plettenberg (formerly PKB) and also has the transshipment office there.

Development of the rail network

The KAE route network was entirely in what is now the Märkisches Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia. Legally, it was a matter of railroads, not small railways , although the one-meter gauge and the entire route and layout of the railway would lead to the assumption that this was largely on public roads. The first part of the 41-kilometer network was built in 1887/88. From the station forecourt in Altena im Lennetal , where the connection to the Ruhr-Sieg line built in 1860/61 by the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was made, the Rahmedetalbahn started on October 1, 1887 and ran 14 kilometers up the valley to the KAE -Bahnhof in Lüdenscheid . As part of this route, a short 55-meter-long railway tunnel was built shortly before Steinerne Brücke station , which is still there and is now used as a garage.

The second route was 16 kilometers long and also began in the Lennetal, at the Werdohl station on the Ruhr-Sieg route. From November 19, 1887, it initially ran 10.59 kilometers only to Augustenthal. It was not until April 1, 1905 that the Versetalbahn was extended to Schafsbrücke Weiche, where it merged with the above-mentioned route to the KAE train station.

A third line, the 9.45-kilometer-long Hälvertalbahn, was opened with passenger and freight traffic on March 5, 1888 between Halver and Schalksmühle . In 1910, Halver was connected in three directions by the Wuppertal Railway to the State Railway to Radevormwald , Wipperfürth and Oberbrügge . The Halver – Oberbrügge line was later called the Schleifkottenbahn . However, there was no connection between the two railways in Halver. In Halver there was an approximately 500-meter-long siding to the Märkisches Werk on a separate route parallel to Haus Heide .

From April 11, 1904, the one-kilometer route between Schafsbrücke Weiche and the freight station Wehberg served as a connection with the state railway in Lüdenscheid .

The Hanoverian railway industry was a regular supplier to the Altenaer narrow-gauge railways around 1908 .

The last track system was added on November 28, 1925, a 2.5-kilometer-long connecting line from the Augustenthal train station to the Plate plant in Brüninghausen .

traffic

The traffic on the Lenne and Rahmetalbahn was considerable. In the 1950s, 13 passenger trains and two to three freight trains ran on the Lennetalbahn on weekdays.

Since the route was mainly in the road space, it increasingly became a traffic obstacle. In front of the Altena state train station, the locomotives of the passenger trains moved around the street, with longer trains the train was moved with chains so that the points were free to move. In 1958, moving there was banned, the trains had to continue to the Hünengraben freight yard.

Traffic decline and shutdown

The Schnurrenweg in Schalksmühle on the route of the former Hälvertalbahn

The volume of traffic developed in line with the general economic situation and grew particularly strongly before the First World War. But even after that, with the exception of the Hälvertalbahn, the KAE retained its importance in passenger and freight traffic. Only after the currency reform, i.e. in 1949/50, did more and more problems arise. In particular, the income from passenger transport left a lot to be desired, although a very dense timetable was used to adapt to the wishes of the passengers. Difficulties were increasingly caused by the growing motor traffic on the narrow streets that the railway shared.

In the following decade, rail passenger traffic was initially discontinued:

• Halver – Schalksmühle in December 1949,
• Werdohl – Lüdenscheid on May 22, 1955,
• Altena – Lüdenscheid on May 28, 1961.

The freight traffic followed accordingly:

• Halver – Schalksmühle on July 25, 1952,
• Werdohl – Augustenthal in autumn 1955,
• Altena – Lüdenscheid on February 14, 1961,
• Brüninghausen – Augustenthal – Lüdenscheid – Wehberg on May 22, 1967.

Until the merger with Kraftverkehr Mark-Sauerland GmbH, KAE continued to exist as a bus and freight forwarding company. The company ceased to exist on January 31, 1976.

Today (2019) passenger traffic is served by buses of the Märkische Verkehrsgesellschaft GmbH (MVG) .

Vehicle fleet

Locomotives and railcars

For its extensive transport tasks in passenger and goods traffic , the KAE had a corresponding stock of steam locomotives and railroad cars . When the company was founded, the number of locomotives was nine and later increased to 15. The HERMANN and CARL were also there . Due to the usual fluctuation in locomotives , the company has owned a total of 26 steam locomotives in the course of its history. The locomotives numbers 1 to 19 had mostly male first names - a fact that made them particularly popular.

In the period between the transition from steam operation to the complete shutdown of operations, two diesel multiple units ( KAE VT 1 and 2 ) and the V 15 diesel locomotive were used. After the closure, the railcars were sold to the Inselbahnen von Juist and Langeoog , and the diesel locomotive found a new owner in Belgium .

Passenger and freight cars

Over the years, a total of 35 passenger cars were in use at KAE , plus six baggage cars . Most of them had two bogies with two axles each . In addition, there were a total of up to 240 freight cars , some of which were used as special wagons such as tank cars . Because of the bottleneck in the Altena tunnel near the Steinerne Brücke train station, no trolley or trestle traffic was carried out on the KAE .

Existing remains of the railway company

Small train in the Lüdenscheid History Museum

Although the Altenaer Eisenbahn AG ceased its railway operations in 1967, there are numerous relics of their operations:

• a former railway tunnel in Altena (within sight of the Ruhr-Sieg route, south of Altena station, one side bricked up, temporarily garage, a replica of a steam locomotive has been at the northern tunnel entrance since 2019),
• many still recognizable sidings of industrial enterprises at the Rahmede- and Verse train ,
• the former route of the Hälvertalbahn in Schalksmühle, used as a cycle path ,
• the hiking trail between Halver and the Hälvertal,
• The cast iron decorative sign from the small train station in Halver is in the Halver local history museum .
• the steam locomotive Carl was erected as a memorial in Altena from 1965 to 2016 and was sold in autumn 2016 to a private person who would like to have it reconditioned and then used on the Sauerland small railway , among other things .
• a complete train in the history museum of the city of Lüdenscheid , consisting of the steam locomotive 22, two freight cars and the passenger car 7,
• an operational train set in the Lower Saxony small railway museum Bruchhausen-Vilsen , consisting of locomotive Hermann , passenger cars 3 and 32 and freight cars 380 (G), 555 (O), 805 (S) and 1303 (GG),
• four passenger cars converted to railcar sidecars and several freight cars at the Sauerland Kleinbahn in Plettenberg ,
• the two diesel railcars VT 1 and VT 2, today as 187 011 and 187 013 in service with the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways.

literature

• Hermann Bürnheim, Gerhard Moll : The district of Altenaer railway. Eisenbahn Kurier, Freiburg 1983, ISBN 3-88255-541-6 .
• Ludger Kenning: The Altena Railway District. (= Secondary railway documentation , volume 17.) Kenning, Nordhorn 1996, ISBN 3-927587-45-1 .
• Rolf Löttgers: Small railways in the Sauerland. Alba, Düsseldorf 1981, ISBN 3-87094-533-8 .
• Rolf Löttgers: Sorrow, fear and misery. 50 years ago: KAE celebrates its 75th anniversary. In: Eisenbahngeschichte , Heft 54 ​​(2012), pp. 4–7.
• Christoph Riedel: Small railways in the Sauerland. In: Christoph Riedel: Railway in the Sauerland. Geramond, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-932785-22-3 .
• Christoph Riedel: The Altena Railway District. In: Wolf-Dietger Machel (ed.): Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany. Munich 1994.

Web links

• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Altena Railway District in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
2. ^ ^{A b} Christoph Riedel: Railway in the Sauerland, railways between Ruhr and Sieg . Verlag Geramond, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-932785-22-3 , page 112.
3. ↑ see this letter from the Hanover Railway Industry (La / Ro.) To Colberger Sprudel GmbH , Coburg , Raststrasse 8 dated December 19, 1908
4. ↑ Gerd Wolff: Traffic fright KAE . In: The Museum Railway . No. 4 , 2019, ISSN  0936-4609 .
5. ↑ https://eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de/lb/inhalt/tunnelportale/i2002.html Used as a garage in 2009
6. ↑ Björn Braun: Locomotive Carl has evaporated - the new owner wants to let Carl drive again . In: Lokalstimme.de . November 11, 2016 ( Lokalstimme.de ).
7. ↑ Harzer Schmalspurbahnen: Railcar 187 011 arrived back in Wernigerode after general repairs