Rain forest railways
The narrow-gauge routes that were built by the Regenwalder Kleinbahnen AG and incorporated into the Pomeranian State Railways in 1940 are referred to as the Regenwalder Bahnen .
history
The rear Pomeranian district of Regenwalde was opened up in 1859 by the Berlin-Stettiner Eisenbahn- Gesellschaft with the Stargard – Köslin line , on which the district town of Labes was also located. The north of the district and the city of Regenwalde only received a rail connection in the eighties and nineties of the 19th century. At that time, the additional development of the district area by narrow-gauge railways began.
While Kolberger Kleinbahnen AG opened a line to Regenwalde from the north as early as 1895, Regenwalder Kleinbahnen AG, founded on February 5, 1895, started operating the 27-kilometer-long Labes - Meesow –Sallmow line the following year on July 26, 1896 In Meesow a seven-kilometer-long branch went off to Daber in the Naugard district , where a community station with the Saatziger Kleinbahnen was created.
Ten years later - on November 18, 1907 - the 19 km long gap between Sallmow and Regenwalde was closed. The meter-gauge network of the Regenwald small railways had a circumference of 52.7 kilometers, five kilometers of which were in the Naugard district. On the other hand, there was a connection to the narrow-gauge network of the Kolberger Kleinbahnen in the Regenwalde Nord small station, of which almost 30 kilometers were in the Regenwalde district.
In 1912, the Naugarder Bahnen standard-gauge line was extended from the previous end point at Daber Nord to Daber Süd station, so that standard-gauge wagons could be handed over there, and there was roll-headed traffic to Daber Freiheit station.
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The shareholders of the railway were the Regenwalde district as well as the Prussian state and the province of Pomerania , in the first years also the company Lenz & Co GmbH , which ran the business until 1910. Then the small railway department of the provincial association took over this task; it was followed in 1920 by the Association of Hinterpommerscher Kleinbahnen GmbH and, from 1936, by the Pomeranian Regional Railway Directorate. With effect from January 1, 1940, the Regenwalder Kleinbahnen AG as well as its neighboring railways became part of the newly founded Pomeranian State Railways . This gave them the name Regenwalder Bahnen and was administered by the State Railway Office in Labes.
The timetable for 1914 and 1927 shows three pairs of trains each day from Labes to Daber and two from Regenwalde to Daber, so that from Meesow five pairs of trains were on the route. In the following time the traffic was expanded by one or two pairs of trains. In the summer of 1944 there were also direct trains from Labes to Regenwalde.
In 1945 the Polish State Railways (PKP) took over the routes. The traffic usually consisted of one or two pairs of trains Regenwalde – Daber and Labes – Daber. In 1979 there was only freight traffic. Traffic was completely stopped by 2001.
vehicles
In 1939 there were four steam locomotives and two railcars, as well as six passenger cars, one pack wagon and 79 freight cars. The 5 C locomotive , which was procured in 1930 and is in service on the Selfkant Railway, has survived . In 1939 and 1940 two railcars were delivered by the Wismar wagon factory, the T 1 and T2.
literature
- Wolfram Bäumer and Siegfried Bufe: Railways in Pomerania . Bufe Fachbuchverlag, Egglham 1988, ISBN 3-922138-34-9 , p. 182f.