Narrow-gauge railway Diedenhofen – Mondorf

Diedenhofen – Mondorf

Route length:

25.9 km

1000 mm ( meter gauge )

Maximum slope :

33.3 ‰

	0.0	Diedenhofen-Beauregard
	1.3	Florage
	2.8	Diedenhofen Church of Saint-François
	3.6	Chafing (Lagrange)
	5.8	Marienhof (Château Sainte-Marie)
	7.1	Garsch (Garche)
	8.1	Kettingen (Koeking)
	10.4	Kattenhofen ( Cattenom )
	12.2	Sentzich
	15.2	Fixheim (Fixem)
	17.5	Faulbach
	19.5	Rodemachern (Rodemack)
	22.8	Püttlingen (Puttelange-lès-Thionville)
	25.6	France / Luxembourg
		from Remich
	25.9	Mondorf
		to Luxembourg

The narrow-gauge railway Diedenhofen – Mondorf connected the center of the Lorraine industrial area Diedenhofen with the Luxembourg spa town of Bad Mondorf .

history

The construction of this narrow-gauge branch line was first discussed at the end of the 19th century. Based on a plan drawn up in 1901, a Berlin company specializing in the construction and operation of branch lines received the concession for a meter -gauge railway on February 28, 1902 : the Vering & Waechter GmbH & Co. KG railway construction and operating company .

The new railway, which gradually had five steam locomotives, opened on April 3, 1903. The 26-kilometer route initially began in the Diedenhofen suburb of Beauregard . It circumnavigated the city's fortification ring on a route that was originally used since August 11, 1859 by the Diedenhofen – Luxembourg line of the French Eastern Railway. However, after the opening of the new Diedenhofen main station, it was given up by the now authoritative Reichseisenbahn Alsace-Lorraine.

The starting point of the passenger trains was from October 10, 1904 at the Luxemburger Tor, and from December 22, 1906 at the Diedenhofen main station; while in Beauregard the cargo handling continued. Also in 1906 a short branch line was added to the suburb of Niederjeutz (Basse Yutz).

In 1907, the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebsgesellschaft (DEBG) took over the railway's concession from its “mother”, the Vering & Waechter company. When it opened an electric tram network in Diedenhofen and the Fentschtal on May 8, 1912 through its daughter, the Lothringische Eisenbahn-AG , it made sense to electrify the existing sections from St. Franz to the Diedenhofen station and on to Niederjeutz and the future electric ones Assign city network.

The trains to Mondorf, which mostly ran four times a day, only began (1912) in St. Franz, where the main workshop of the Rodemachern railway had also been relocated.

After the First World War

After the First World War, the "Schängelche" (Hänschen), as the Mondorfer Bahn - but also other small railways - was popularly called, was placed under French administration as a German company. In addition, the traffic ended at the Luxembourg border. The owner became the Moselle department in 1921, which from April 1, 1924 transferred the management of the " Société générale des chemins de fer économiques " (SE) (German: Allgemeine Kleinbahn-Gesellschaft) in Paris. This was also active in the neighboring departments of Meurthe-et-Moselle and Meuse.

The new management reopened the connection across the border to Mondorf in Luxembourg, which had been interrupted during the war, and expanded the transport offer. For a short time, the transport of building materials for the Maginot Line brought a considerable boost to freight traffic. But overall the decline was unstoppable.

The end of railway operations was a done deal.

On December 31, 1934 the passenger traffic and
on June 20, 1935, freight traffic was also shut down.

Bad Mondorf was served by the narrow-gauge railway Luxembourg – Remich of the Chemins de fer Secondaires Luxembourgeois (CSL) until May 1955 . In Diedenhofen, too, the inner-city tram was shut down on September 22, 1935; the suburban railway in the Fentschtal was able to hold its own until 1953.

literature

Meinhard Döpner: The Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebs-Gesellschaft AG , Lokrundschau Verlag, Gülzow 2002, ISBN 3-931647-13-7
Henri Domengie, José Banaudo: Les petits trains de jadis - Est de la France , Breil-sur-Roya 1995