Herrhut – Bernstadt narrow-gauge railway
| Herrnhut – Bernstadt (Upper Lusatia) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Section of the route map of Saxony from 1902
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| Route number : | sä. HB | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course book range : | 161c (1944) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 10.104 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 750 mm ( narrow gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 25 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 100 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top speed: | 30 km / h | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Herrnhut – Bernstadt ( Pließnitztalbahn ) narrow-gauge railway was a Saxon narrow-gauge railway with a 750 mm gauge in Upper Lusatia . It ran from Herrnhut on the Löbau – Zittau railway through the Pließnitz Valley to Bernstadt on the Eigen and was dismantled in 1945 as a reparation payment for the Soviet Union .
history
As early as 1874 thought was given to a possible standard-gauge line from Löbau via Herwigsdorf, Kemnitz to Bernstadt or a narrow-gauge railway from Herrnhut to Bernstadt ad Eigen. A standard gauge line would have been much more expensive and complex. Work began in September 1892 after the state parliament granted the concession for the Herrnhut-Bernstadt narrow-gauge variant on the Eigen. The line was opened on November 30, 1893.
Just four years after the narrow-gauge railway went into operation, repair work was necessary due to storm damage. In the “Statistical report on the operation of the state and private railways under the Royal Saxon State Administration”, published in 1898, the following was recorded: “As a result of floods in the valley of the Pließnitzbach and the Petersbach, at various points on the Herrnhut – Bernstadt line, New embankment walls as well as embankment and embankment fortifications required. Traffic was only interrupted on July 30th (1897, note). " Almost 30 years later, additions to the locomotive shed in Bernstadt followed. In 1923, switch 15 at Herrnhut station was moved because it allowed the transhipment track to be extended. The system built initially was too small. In 1923, a treasurer also had to be employed for the cash desk operations in Herrnhut that concerned the narrow-gauge line. Before that, it was one of the station master's duties. The train station in Bernstadt (Oberlausitz) was used in spurts, there was a lack of reloading staff in Herrnhut, which was complained about in a letter to the general management in 1925 and the use of roller stands was suggested again. Their introduction was probably not carried out because of excessive costs. As early as 1924, the Reichsbahn closed the Niederstrahwalde stop because it had hardly been used.
The area was largely spared from the Second World War. After the end of the war, begging tours for groceries could be undertaken here, and the narrow-gauge railway, which has been in service with three pairs of trains since the end of May 1945, could only be useful.
Shortly after the end of the Second World War , the route fell under the reparations payments for the Soviet Union . Traffic was stopped on October 2, 1945. Immediately afterwards, the route was dismantled by conscripted men from the surrounding villages. The locomotives and wagons were transported to the Soviet Union in June 1946. According to the station master's records in Bernstadt, the line to Kunnersdorf ad Eigen was canceled from October 1 to 16, 1945. In surviving telex and telegrams from the Reichsbahndirektion Dresden to the main administration of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Berlin, however, it is reported that dismantling began on September 22, 1945. The dismantling continued from November 11 to December 15, 1945. Turnouts, rails, small iron parts and the locomotive 99 558 were taken away . Sleepers were not part of the reparations item. The high-rise buildings also remained standing, some can still be seen today, for example the bus shelters in Niederstrahwalde and Oberrennersdorf and the brick reception building of the Bernstadt train station (Oberlausitz). Sometimes a piece of the embankment and a bridge abutment were preserved as witnesses to the past. Parallel to the ongoing dismantling, the head office of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Berlin approved the reconstruction of the line and the connection Taubenheim-Dürrhennersdorf in a letter dated November 6, 1945 , but not with the permanent way materials that were being dismantled, but "using reserve material" that was not available at that time or did not actually exist. In an overview map of the Reichsbahndirektionsbezirks Dresden from August 1967, published in 1967, the Herrnhut – Bernstadt (Upper Lusatia) branch line was drawn, but with the addition “Railway body without track”.
Vehicle use
The locomotives and cars used corresponded to the general Saxon building and procurement regulations for the narrow-gauge railways and could therefore be freely exchanged with vehicles on other Saxon narrow-gauge lines.
In the early years, the triple-coupled I K locomotives were initially used on the line. From 1926 until the closure in 1945, train traffic was handled exclusively by the more powerful IV K class .
There were always only a few passenger coaches available for the sparse passenger traffic. In 1893 there were four two-axle and one four-axle wagons with a total of 126 seats. Around 1925 the two-axle wagons were replaced by four-axle wagons. Freight traffic was carried out with narrow-gauge freight wagons; rolling vehicle traffic was not introduced.
gallery
Herrnhut standard gauge station
Niederstrahwalde stop
Niederstrahwalde
Entrance in Bernstadt
Bernstadt station
Goods handling in Bernstadt
literature
- Reiner Preuß, Erich Preuß: Narrow gauge railways of Upper Lusatia. transpress VEB publishing house for transport, Berlin 1980
- Reiner Preuß: Everything about narrow-gauge railways in Upper Lusatia. transpress Verlag, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-613-71431-1 , pp. 100-109
- Wilfried Rettig: Railways in the border triangle of East Saxony (D) / Lower Silesia (PL) / North Bohemia (CZ) - Part 2: Secondary, small and narrow-gauge railways, railway operations and repair shops, railway mail , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2011, ISBN 978-3 -88255-733-6 , pp. 52-56
- Wolfram Wagner, Gotthard Paul, Peter Krause and Christoph Walter: The history of the narrow-gauge railways Taubenheim (Spree) –Dürrhennersdorf and Herrnhut – Bernstadt ; 2nd edition, German Model Railway Association (ed.), 1989; without ISBN
Web links
- Private website www.rohlands.com
- Private website www.schmalspurbahn-herrnhut-bernstadt.de
- Page about the narrow-gauge railway on the homepage of Bernstadt ad Eigen
- Herrnhut – Bernstadt at www.stilllege.de
- Route data on www.sachsenschiene.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ The history of the Taubenheim (Spree) –Dürrhennersdorf and Herrnhut – Bernstadt narrow-gauge railways, p. 45