Sylt island railway

Overview of the routes of the Sylt island railway

The Sylt Inselbahn , also popularly known as Rasende Emma , was a narrow-gauge railway with a 1000 mm gauge that was in operation on the North Frisian island of Sylt from 1888 to 1970 .

stretch

Sylt island railway
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Eastern Railway
Legend ferry 0.0 Munkmarsch ferry port / pier 1.5 Lornsenhain Northern runway from List (see below) 4.2 Westerland Inselbahnhof North 1 Northern Railway to Westerland (see below)
North runway
Course book section (DB) :	ex 112q
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Maximum slope :	20  ‰
Minimum radius :	100 m
Top speed:	40 km / h
Legend 17.4 List port / village 16.2 Cunning 13.3 Westerheide / Blidsel 10.8 Klappholttal 8.9 Bird bunk 6.1 Kampen 4.1 Wenningstedt Ostbahn to Munkmarsch (see above) 1.1 Westerland Tonderner Strasse 0.6 Westerland Inselbahnhof North 1 0.0 Westerland Reichsbahnhof 2 Südbahn to Hörnum (see below)
Southern runway
Legend Northern runway to List (so) 0.0 Westerland Reichsbahnhof 2 Westerland Südbahnhof 2.9 Dikjen-Deel 4.2 House Hanna 6.3 Rantum-Seeheim 7.0 Rantum 8.6 Samoa 10.8 Zanzibar 12.3 Puan Klent 16.2 Hörnum-North 18.2 Hörnum (village) 18.8 Hörnum pier / harbor 1 later: Westerland Inselbahnhof 2 later: Westerland Bundesbahnhof

Eastern Railway

The Eastern Railway ran north of the east-west axis of the island from the then Munkmarsch ferry port on the east coast to the city of Westerland . According to the timetable, the journey on the Ostbahn took twelve minutes in 1921 . The departure times of the trains were dependent on the timetable of the ferries , which operated depending on the tide . In the winter months, rail traffic largely ceased. Until the opening of the Hindenburgdamm in 1927, a large part of the seaside resort traffic was handled by the Marschbahn to Hoyerschleuse and on to Westerland. After that, the traffic decreased drastically.

North runway

The Northern Railway opened up the villages north of Westerland. The route led mainly on the ridge of the island as well as dune areas . Important localities on the line at that time are Wenningstedt , Kampen and List terminus . Until 1937, the Lister station was roughly at the level of the later turntable , around 500 meters south of the port. Due to military construction activity in this area, the station had to be relocated around 1200 meters further south on the route kilometer 16.2. Two connecting routes to the northern tip of Sylt, the northwestern Listland and the Elbow, served military purposes. The journey time between Westerland and List was 41 minutes as planned in 1950.

Southern runway

The southern runway was built at the beginning of the 20th century to comfortably carry passengers arriving at the then newly built Hörnumer pier to Westerland. Since its opening in 1901, it essentially established bathing traffic to Westerland. On its route it opened up the villages south of Westerland, in particular Rantum and Hörnum . The route mainly ran through dune areas. Until 1935 the southern railway was the only connection to Hörnum; paved roads only existed as far as Rantum. Thus the southern runway also served to supply the southern island with goods and goods for everyday use. The travel time of the passenger trains between Westerland and Hörnum in 1950 was 42 minutes as planned.

Todays use

A large part of the old route of the railway is now used as a cycle and hiking trail , which opens up the entire island in a north-south direction and is also used for the annual Sylt run from Hörnum to List. A large part of the route of the Eastern Railway ran over the site of today 's Sylt Airport and, after extensive construction work, is no longer recognizable on this site. The sidings and lines of the Wehrmacht have also been dismantled without exception, so that today you can only begin to recognize the course of this branch line in some cases . From the ZOB Westerland in a north-easterly direction, the street Bahnweg, named after the island railway, has been running on the former route since the late 1970s .

building

There were numerous train stations and stops along the route . There were massive station buildings on the Südbahn only at the end points in Westerland - the Südbahnhof and later the Reichsbahnhof - and in Hörnum. On the northern line, apart from the endpoints in Westerland and List, there were massive station buildings in Kampen and Wenningstedt. All other stopping points had to do without permanent structures. In some cases, converted former passenger cars served as shelters. There was also a spacious depot with a repair shop and workshops on the site northeast of the North Station (old Ostbahnhof) in Westerland.

The former station building of the railway are no longer preserved. Most recently, the former station building at Kampen station was demolished in 2004 and the former station building in List in 2006. Of the operating buildings, only a former two-tier locomotive shed in the area of ​​the former turntable in List has been preserved; it is used today as a workshop and warehouse. Remnants of the track bed can still be found today at an old level crossing on the access road to the Puan Klent youth home . At the site of the former Hörnum train station, the edge of the platform and the paving of the former platform can still be seen clearly. A piece of the platform edge has also been preserved along the cycle path at the level of the former Kampen train station. The caution sign on the edge of the platform has been removed.

The station building of the Südbahnhof in Westerland had an eventful history after its original use ended in the 1920s. Initially, the so-called marine museum found its quarters in its rooms . From the 1940s until the late 1970s it housed the Sylter Hahn restaurant . In 1979 the building was demolished. In its place there is now a parking lot.

history

The Eastern Railway

The Sylt Badedirektion put the so-called Ostbahn as the first railway line on the island into operation on July 8, 1888; it initially only traveled the approximately 4.2 kilometers long route from Westerland, the capital and most important seaside resort of the island, to the port of Munkmarsch on the east coast of the island in the summer months . From there, the Sylter-Dampfschiffahrt-Gesellschaft , founded in 1883, maintained a ferry connection to Hoyerschleuse in what was then North Schleswig, Germany. The port of Hoyer was connected to the branch line of the march railway via Tondern and Husum to Altona since 1887 by a horse-drawn carriage connection, and since 1892 by a siding . This railway brought mainly bathers and supplies from the pier to the island metropolis; There were no paved roads on the island at that time.

The Eastern Railway in the Munkmarscher Heide 1894

In a contemporary description by the railway operations director Emil Kurth from Flensburg , the builder of the railway, the course of the railway is described as follows:

“The Sylt steam railway begins directly at the mooring bridge at Munkmarsch, where the steamboats that bring the spa guests to the island call. From this starting point, the train first arrives at the nearby tracks where the machine can be moved and leaves this station with a curve ( sic ) of 100 m. Radius with which the Mühlenberg is circumnavigated and then runs in as straight a direction as possible towards Westerland, where it ends in front of the Kurhaus. In the meantime, the train passes the so-called Lornsenhain in km 1.5, where there is an optional stopping point. The track is 4.2 km long and there are only 7 curves, of which the sharpest 100 m., The remaining 150–500 m. Have radius. The maximum gradient is 1:50 at 520 m. Length; By the way, the track is almost horizontal until just before Westerland, where there is a greater incline from 1:65 to 340 m. Length is to be overcome. The track width is 1 m. chosen. "

On the premises of the Munkmarsch ferry port there was a waiting room in the ferry house of the post ship, next to it a wooden pavilion as weather protection. In Westerland, in addition to a small train station that was expanded several times, a simple depot with a two-tier locomotive shed built in 1892 and a workshop barracks was built . The Westerland train station was in the immediate vicinity of the then tourist center of the seaside resort, the Conversationshaus , which later became the Kurhaus at the eastern end of Strandstrasse. In the first two years of its existence, the waiting room and ticket sales were located in the rooms of the conversation house, until the first station building could be inaugurated in the spring of 1890 .

The railway was mainly operated seasonally. When the bathers left the island after the end of the summer season in September, the train and the mail ship to the mainland only operated sporadically. In order to reduce operating costs, a horse was sometimes harnessed to the passenger car in winter and this train operated as a horse-drawn train .

When the first owner of the railway retired in 1892, the long-time operations manager Emil Kurth bought the steam railway and the city of Westerland took over the bathing rights. The number of bathers increased.

During the First World War the breakpoint Lornsenhain was (also Victoria Hain) moved a branch of the Eastern Railway as far as the western outskirts of Keitum in 1916 in the amount where the Café Nielsen an air force - field hospital was set up. However, this route and the wooden station buildings southwest of the St. Severin Church were hardly used and completely dismantled after six years.

After the island was connected to the rail network of the Deutsche Reichsbahn with the inauguration of the Hindenburg dam on June 1, 1927 , the post ship connection from Hoyer-Schleuse to Munkmarsch was discontinued. This also made the old Ostbahn between Munkmarsch and Westerland superfluous, which then also ceased operations. The route was finally completely dismantled in 1931 when the airport was expanded. The rolling stock was largely on the routes of the north runway use or was scrapped on the island.

South and North Runways

Overview of the island railway lines on Sylt in 1910

Inselbahn steam train on September 3, 1953 ( Westerland station )

Initially, the pier in Munkmarsch was served by HAPAG with steamers from Hamburg . However, because of the shallows in the tidal flats , the bathers had to cross over to Munkmarsch with small boats. Also because the timetable is dependent on tides, HAPAG relocated its landing stage to the southern tip of Sylt, where it built a pier that is independent of tides . After the turn of the century, on July 1, 1901, HAPAG opened the 14.5-kilometer “Südbahn” from the Hörnum landing bridge to Westerland Südbahnhof, where a large locomotive and wagon shed and a wooden station building were built, which in 1903 was replaced by a stone, representative building was replaced. In Hörnum the track ended on the iron landing stage. This end point also received a small engine shed and a station building, which was replaced by a more complex structure in 1903. The connection from Hamburg to Sylt only took one day and in Hamburg offered a connection to the express trains to Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt. This new connection brought a guest boom for the island of Sylt. In order to be able to offer the mostly well-to-do guests the high level of comfort that ships are used to, the Südbahn used four-axle wagons with upscale equipment from the start.

Finally, on July 7th, 1903, the “Sylter Dampfspurbahn” started operating the northern line from Westerland in the north to Kampen and extended it on June 1st, 1908 with a total of 17.5 kilometers to List , where the water depth was more stable than in the Munkmarsch ferry port. In 1910 the " Sylter Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft " acquired the Ost- and Nordbahn, but in 1926 transferred them to the "Sylter Inselbahn AG" founded in 1923. From 1929 this was also the operator of the "Südbahn". A track connection between the two railways had already been established for military tactical reasons during the First World War in 1917. On October 10, 1923, a joint small train station was put into operation. The rail network had an extension of 35.7 kilometers. In the winter of 1921/22, the Hörnum pier was destroyed by ice and immediately rebuilt.

In 1927, a small train station was built immediately to the west of the new "Reichsbahnhof Westerland" as a new central transfer station for the southern and northern railways to the trains of the Reichsbahn. Until the end of the railway, it remained the most important traffic junction on the island.

After the beginning of the Second World War , all island railways were mainly used for military purposes, not only for the navy but also for the air force . The German Reich formally took over the island railways on Sylt on January 1st, 1940 and administered them through the Reichs Vermögensstelle in Kiel .

After the war, the railway was initially managed in trust by the Oberfinanzdirektion in Kiel. In 1954, the Federal Republic of Germany sold the Sylt Inselbahnen to the Sylter Verkehrsgesellschaft GmbH (SVG) founded in 1952 by Ruy Prahl . This operated its two routes from 1957 for economic reasons on the basis of a concession according to the tram construction and operating regulations (BOStrab), although they lacked the typical features of a tram , such as rails in the street space and electrical operation. This made it possible to dispense with fixed signal systems and drive on sight .

Influences of the military

During the two world wars, the German military added many kilometers to this route network in order to connect their often remote camps and gun emplacements . So the list country and all were about the elbow with a rail network and numerous sidings provided. However, these routes were completely dismantled again immediately after the end of World War II. The Wehrmacht also had its own rail vehicles , including diesel railcars such as the Wismar rail bus , the so-called pig's nose , or draisines to transport material and personnel. In the 1950s, these stocks fell to the Sylt Inselbahn, which used usable vehicles, cannibalized damaged or unusable vehicles or sold them to other railways.

Largely parallel to the island railway line, the Air Force had the Reichsarbeitsdienst built a regular-gauge railway line in 1939 to supply its seaplane base at the Rantum Basin , which branched off from the march line in the Tinnum area . Wehrmacht plans to open up the entire island in north-south direction with this standard-gauge route instead of the island railway were rejected because the war broke out in 1939 as not essential to the war effort .

The 1950s

Light railcar on September 5, 1953 in Wenningstedt

The Sylt Borgward light railcars were based on the chassis of such trucks

The bus replaced the train - ZOB on the site of the former island train station

In the 1950s, the island railway experienced with the resumption of tourism to the economic miracle a renewed upswing. Among other things, five light railcars (LT) were used between 1952 and 1954 . It was a Sylt-house development, in the Borg Ward - semi truck to rail buses were converted (see trailer bus ). These modifications were carried out according to our own plans and in the Inselbahn workshop. The background to this in-house development was the fact that the purchased railcars often turned out to be too heavy for the tracks laid in the loose sand or too long for the tight curve radii. The 90 hp self-built vehicles with a total length (length over the buffers, overhead view) of 14.4 m in their passenger trailer offered 88 seats for passengers, 53 of which were seats. In addition, passenger or luggage trolleys could be attached to increase capacity .

In addition to these light railcars , numerous, mostly second-hand, railcars , draisines , locomotives and trailers were in service on the island.

The decline

However , this could not stop the triumph of private transport on Sylt. Towards the end of the 1960s, the number of passengers, especially on the southern runway, fell sharply, so that the runway was only able to cover costs to a large extent in the touristy summer months of June to August. An urgently needed modernization of the entire route network as well as the rolling stock used was rejected due to the inadequate profitability of the operation; it was decided to give up rail operations and use buses . The southern runway was shut down in November 1969; The northern line was shut down on December 29, 1970. Passenger traffic on the island was now taken over by buses of the Sylter Verkehrsgesellschaft (SVG). Today the SVG belongs to the shipowner Sven Paulsen, who also operates excursion boats on the North and Baltic Seas with his Adler shipping company. A restart was often discussed, but today it seems unlikely despite the sometimes problematic extent of motorized individual traffic in the high season .

Vintage buses

The SVG sees itself as the successor to the Inselbahn and celebrated on the weekend of 5–7. July 2013 their 125th anniversary. Vintage buses, traveled from all over Germany, as well as two of the SVG's own, a total of 15 hood-handlebar buses, followed by a modern bus at the bottom , drove around 1000 interested parties on a tour of the island on July 6 - from Westerland to List.

SVG-Busreisen operates modern buses, but also individual vintage buses. See Sylter Verkehrsgesellschaft .

The vehicles

The Ostbahn initially had two, later four steam locomotives . After the end of operations on the Eastern Railway, these were used on the Northern Railway. Together with its own six locomotives , the Northern Railway now operated ten machines. Four steam locomotives were in use on the Südbahn right from the start. The wagon trains pulled by steam locomotives shaped the image of the Sylter Bahnen into the 1940s. After the end of the Second World War , the steam locomotives were gradually replaced by diesel locomotives and especially by diesel railcars. Since the post-war period, there has been a colorful picture of diesel multiple units and diesel railcars as well as a wide variety of passenger and baggage cars. The origins, engines and equipment of the diesel railcars were varied, since, in addition to former Wehrmacht vehicles such as two Wismar rail buses, railcars from various small railways were purchased, including two Schleswig-Holstein type railcars . Conversions were often carried out so that there was no uniform picture of the island railway's fleet until operations were discontinued. In addition, there were the already mentioned light railcars , which were built entirely in-house on Borgward truck chassis .

In the later years of the railway, these light railcars were used almost exclusively. All that has been preserved is a light railcar that was parked in the Hanover Tram Museum in Sehnde-Wehmingen until 2013 . The managing director of Sylter Adler-Schiff GmbH bought the vehicle in order to restore it.

The rest of the Deutsche Bahn's fleet has either been scrapped on Sylt or given to other small railways. For a long time, former Sylt vehicles ran on the Juister Inselbahn and, like SVG tank car No. 1002 , are still in use on the Selfkantbahn today . At the German Railway Association (DEV) in Bruchhausen-Vilsen (Lower Saxony), the T23 (DEV T 43) acquired from the Rendsburger Kreisbahn is parked in the wagon hall, and it is still waiting to be restored. In front of the Westerland DB station , a plaque in front of two axles of a Borgward light railcar (LT) on a small piece of track bed still reminds of this railway.

See also

• Sylt transport company

literature

• Hans-Jürgen Stöver: About the island railway and the Sylt bathing ships . Schleswiger Druck- und Verlagshaus, Schleswig 1979, ISBN 3-88242-043-X .
• Jan Kirschner: It is forbidden to pick flowers while driving. History of the Sylt island railway . Schleswig-Holsteiner Zeitungsverlag, Flensburg 2002, ISBN 3-926055-29-4 .
• Hans-Jürgen Stöver: Sylter Inselbahn Vol. I – IV. Self-published by Syltbild Stöver, Westerland 1989, I and II without ISBN, III: ISBN 3-927897-00-0 , IV: ISBN 3-927897-33-7 .
• Harald Voigt : The Sylt fortress . Verlag Nordfriisk Instituut, Bredstedt 1992, ISBN 3-88007-189-6 .
• Malte Werning: island railways of the North Sea . GeraMond-Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7654-7245-X .
• Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The North Sea Island Railways . 6th edition, alba, Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87094-230-4 .
• Hans Bock: The march from Altona to Westerland . Boyens, Heide 1989, ISBN 3-8042-0458-9 .
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Part 1: Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg . Zeunert, Gifhorn 1972, ISBN 3-921237-14-9 .
• Dieter Höltge: Tram stopped on the island of Sylt . In: Der Stadtverkehr , No. 3/1971. Verlag Werner Stock, Brackwede 1971, 1 D 21850 E, pp. 94-97.
• Gerd Wolff: Deutsche Klein- und Privatbahnen, Volume 13: Schleswig-Holstein 2 (western part) . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-88255-672-8 .

Web links

Commons : Sylter Inselbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Inselbahn.de - The Sylter Inselbahn - with photos and vehicle data
• DIE SLYTER INSELBAHN - by H. Förstemann, Edemissen - November 9, 2006 ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Data sheet of the Borgward chassis (basis of the light railcars) (PDF file; 402 kB)
• When the "cheese pusher" was still twitching over Sylt. In: website. NDR 1 Welle Nord, December 29, 2015, accessed on August 2, 2020 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Island Railway . sylt-2000.de. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
2. ↑ Syltlauf . Retrieved March 21, 2014.
3. ↑ Decommissioned ... . inselbahn.de. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
4. ↑ Jan Kirschner: On rails through the North Sea, 75 years of Hindenburgdamm. edition sh: z, Flensburg 2002, ISBN 3-926055-65-0 , p. 9
5. ^ Hans Jürgen Stöver: Sylter Inselbahn IV. , Wenningstedt 1991, ISBN 3-927897-33-7 , pp. 25-27.
6. ^ Hans Jürgen Stöver: Sylter Inselbahn IV. , Wenningstedt 1991, ISBN 3-927897-33-7 , p. 33.
7. ^ The route from Wenningstedt via Kampen to List . dh4lar.com. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
8. ↑ Stretch . inselbahn.de. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
9. ^ Hans Jürgen Stöver: Sylter Inselbahn IV. , Wenningstedt 1991, ISBN 3-927897-33-7 , p. 79.
10. ↑ Andreas Jüttemann: When will Sylt finally get its island railway back? . bahninfo.de. July 31, 2013. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
11. ↑ 125th anniversary svg-busreisen.de, July 2013, accessed on April 22, 2018.
12. ↑ Sylter Verkehrsgesellschaft . inselbahn.de. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
13. ↑ DIE SLYTER INSELBAHN - by H. Förstemann, Edemissen - November 9, 2006 ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
14. ^ Sylt: The Insel-Express returns , Hamburger Morgenpost from June 8, 2013.
15. ↑ Small Railway Museum Selfkantbahn . inselbahn.de. Retrieved September 7, 2013.