Schleiz – Saalburg railway line

Schleiz – Saalburg
Route near Saalburg (2006)
Route number (DB) :	6658; sä. SSa
Course book section (DB) :	547 (1996)
Route length:	15.22 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	up to 1969: 1.2 kV  =
Maximum slope :	33  ‰
Minimum radius :	200 m
Top speed:	50 km / h
Legend from Schönberg (Vogtl) 0.00 Awanst Schleiz to Schleiz 0.49 Schleiz formerly Schleiz State Railway Station 425 m 1.13 Schleiz West formerly Schleiz Kleinbahnhof 421 m 1.20 Today's end of the route 2.85 Glücksmühle - monk green 420 m 4.78 Oschitz 430 m 6.88 Möschlitz 460 m 7.91 Burgk 475 m 11.38 0.00 Graefenwarth 460 m 0.20 Graefenwarth Hst 450 m 2.69 Graefenwarth barrier wall 440 m 2.78 Graefenwarth barrier wall Gbf 430 m 13.65 monastery 415 m 15.22 Saalburg (Saale) 427 m

The Schleiz – Saalburg railway was a standard-gauge , electrified small railway , which was originally built and operated by Schleizer Kleinbahn AG. It ran from Schleiz to Saalburg at the Bleilochtalsperre .

history

General share for 10,000 Reichsmarks of Schleizer Kleinbahn AG from July 1931

Branch of the Saalburg track (to the right) from the Schönberg – Schleiz railway line shortly before Schleiz train station (2020)

The PT 1 with sidecar, between 1932 and 1935

The construction of the Bleilochtalsperre from 1927 required a connecting railway for the transport of materials. The neighboring communities used this unique opportunity to implement the long-planned railway connection. For this purpose, a stock corporation was founded with AG Thüringische Werke, AG Obere Saale - both based in Weimar - and the German Reich as the main investors; the district and the city of Schleiz were also involved. This company built a public railway and electrified it with a direct current of 1200 volts. It is noteworthy that this railway, located in Thuringia, was subject to the Prussian Small Railway Act .

All traffic was opened on June 28, 1930. As vehicles were two electric railcars people PT1 and PT2 with four sidecar, two baggage railcars GT1 and GT2 , a trolley and two special cars available. The depot was located at Saalburg train station. In good times, up to seven pairs of trains drove on the route every day, in the war and post-war years three to four. The trains started and ended at the Schleiz Reichsbahnhof stop next to Schleiz station on the Schönberg – Schleiz railway line .

Graefenwarth station (1966)

The 2.7 kilometer long branch line from Gräfenwarth to the Barrage Wall, which is particularly important for material transport, was a connecting line that was not fully electrified until 1932. Its owner, the AG upper Saale (later Saale valley barriers AG), leased it to the Kleinbahn, which served tourist traffic there from May 5, 1932 - mostly only in summer. The timetable of May 15, 1939 provided for a twenty-minute cycle . Passenger traffic ended with the outbreak of the war on September 1, 1939 and never resumed. The last freight transport took place in 1967; In 1968 the line was dismantled.

Passenger train in Saalburg (1995)

Schleizer Kleinbahn AG initially retained its independence after the Second World War and was only subordinated to the Deutsche Reichsbahn on April 1, 1949 , which continued operations largely unchanged and integrated the railcars into the ET 188 series . An important turning point was the end of electric train transport on May 31, 1969. Passenger traffic was continued until June 1, 1996 - initially with light-combustion railcars. The passenger trains were now often tied through from Schönberg to Saalburg. They then did not drive into the Schleizer (state) train station, but stopped at the nearby stop. Freight trains have stopped running since December 31, 1994. In 1998 the Schleiz West – Saalburg section was closed.

The track of the small train in Schleiz, which branches off from the state train station to the Westbahnhof, has since been used by the railcars of the Schönberg – Schleiz connection , which was operated by the Vogtlandbahn . The state railway station was no longer served directly, the railcars stopped in Schleiz at the nearby stop of the former Schleizer Kleinbahn. On December 8, 2006, passenger traffic was stopped. The Wisentatalbahn development association then took care of maintaining the route and ordered special trips until the route was closed on October 18, 2008. Due to the subsequent upgrading of the route, the Schönberg – Schleiz West route was able to be reopened in sections. The first special train reached the final stop in Schleiz West on December 3, 2011.

Railway cycle path

At the end of 2008, the city of Schleiz managed to acquire the line from Deutsche Bahn. The dismantling of the operating facilities began, and a first section of track was removed during the renovation of the Wetterabrücke in 2001. The bridge over the Autobahn 9 was demolished in the course of its six-lane expansion. The first section from the Wetterabrücke in Graefenwarth to Saalburg should be completed in October 2009; In mid-September 2009, the expansion of the eleven kilometer long second construction phase began. The railway cycle path was opened on May 15, 2010.

gallery

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  Platform of the Saalburger Bahn at Schleiz station, 2020

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  End of track at Schleiz West stop, 2006

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  Halt and former station building Schleiz West, 2006

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  Saalburg train station, 2006

literature

• Hans-Joachim Weise: Electric to the Thuringian Sea: the Schleiz-Saalburg small train . In: EK series regional transport history . tape 1 rail courier. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1995, ISBN 3-88255-415-0 .
• Hans-Joachim Weise: 50 years of the Schleiz-Saalburg (Saale) route . In: The model railroader . Issue & / 1980, 1980, pp. 158-162 .

Web links

Commons : Schleiz – Saalburg railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Timetable of the Friends of the Wisentatalbahn
• Early documents and newspaper articles on Schleizer Kleinbahn AG in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
• Timetable 1944: Table 173f Schleiz – Saalburg (Saale)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Krauss: Development of the Railway Infrastructure 1997/98, in: Bahn-Report 2/1999, p. 4–7, here: p. 7.
2. ↑ Reopening of the railway line Schönberg (V) - Mühltroff - Schleiz West on Saturday, December 3rd, 2011. (PDF; 69 kB) Förderverein Wisentatalbahn e. V., December 2011, accessed December 6, 2011 . 
3. ^ Uli Descher: Clear the way between Schönberg and Schleiz-West. In: OTZ. December 4, 2011, accessed December 6, 2011 .