Narrow gauge railway Zittau – Hermsdorf

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Zittau – Hermsdorf (near Friedland)
Line of the narrow-gauge railway Zittau – Hermsdorf
Excerpt from the route map of Saxony 1902
Route number : sä. ZH
Course book range : 160f (1944)
Route length: 15.73 km
Gauge : 750 mm ( narrow gauge )
Maximum slope : 36  ‰
Minimum radius : 75 m
Top speed: 25 km / h
Legend
End station - start of the route
 0.008 Zittau
crossing
 0.575 Liberec – Zittau of the Zittau-Reichenberger Railway Company
Stop, stop
 1.159 Zittau Hp
   
 ~ 1.6 Neisse bridge railway stop
   
 1.647 Abzw Neißebrücke 235 m
   
 to Kurort Oybin / Kurort Jonsdorf (formerly ZOJE )
   
 1,843 At the slaughterhouse
   
 ~ 2.5 First Junkers aircraft and engine works
   
 2.919 Neisse bridge , since 1945 the border between Germany and Poland
   
 2.96 Kleinschönau today Sieniawka 231 m
   
 5.42 Friedersdorf (b Zittau) later Biedrzychowice Górne 254 m
   
 7.65 Reibersdorf later Rybarzowice 254 m
   
 9.61 Wald- Bad Oppelsdorf today Opolno Zdrój 246 m
   
 Connection of coal railway company Reichenau (Saxony)
   
 12.12 Reichenau (Sachs) today Bogatynia 247 m
   
 13.52 Markersdorf (b Reichenau Sachs) today Markocice 260 m
   
 14.71 Markersdorf (b Reichenau Sachs) Hp 279 m
   
 State border Poland - Czech Republic
   
 15.73 Hermsdorf (b Friedland) today Heřmanice u Frýdlantu 295 m
   
 to Friedland i. B. (formerly Friedländer Bezirksbahn )

The narrow-gauge railway Zittau – Hermsdorf was a Saxon narrow-gauge railway in Upper Lusatia . It ran from Zittau via Reichenau to Hermsdorf in Bohemia , where it was connected to the Hermsdorf – Friedland line of the Friedland district railway . In 1945 most of the route remained on what was now Polish territory; continuous rail traffic was discontinued.

history

Due to the brown coal mines located near Türchau and Reichenau and the numerous industries, the Saxon state government considered building a railway from Zittau to Reichenau, which would also serve the health resort Bad Oppelsdorf . In 1882 this proposal was approved.

In November 1883 the Kgl. Saxon State Railways with the construction. The opening of the 13.72 km long route from Zittau via Reichenau to Markersdorf took place on November 11, 1884.

Hermsdorf border station; in the foreground freight car of the K. Sächs. Sts. EB. (around 1900)

The basis for the extension of the route to Austria was a state treaty between Austria-Hungary and Saxony dated November 27, 1898. It came into effect in Vienna on January 25, 1899 when the ratification documents were exchanged. The Saxon government undertook to "put the line into operation at the same time as possible with the Austrian connecting line ". A location "in the immediate vicinity of the border " near Hermsdorf in Bohemia was planned for the border station . This station should also be the seat of the border customs office. In addition, the contract contained the agreement that at least two passenger trains should run daily in both directions across the border.

In July 1899, construction of the line to the Hermsdorf border station in Bohemia began. On the Austrian side, the Friedland District Railway built a 10.78 km long connecting line to Friedland . This line was the only one of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy that was built with a 750 mm gauge. The 2.2 km long section from Markersdorf to Hermsdorf was opened on August 25, 1900.

The train station in Reichenau now serves as a bus station (2009)
Hermsdorf border station (2009)
Remaining track in Kleinschönau

However, there was never a continuous passenger service between the Saxon and Bohemian routes, instead the passengers always had to change trains in Hermsdorf to continue their journey. Only in freight traffic was there a passage after a locomotive was changed.

In 1921 a 4 km long branch to Seitendorf was created in Reichenau by the coal railway company Reichenau (Saxony) .

The top speed was 20 km / h and the 15.7 km route was covered in about 84 minutes.

Due to the definition of the border on the Lusatian Neisse , most of the railway line after the Second World War lay on the area now under Polish administration. That is why continuous rail traffic ended on June 22, 1945, and on December 10, 1945 a special train with Soviet officers drove for the last time. On the German side, the track systems were dismantled in the border area in 1945. Until 1961, the remaining systems in the urban area of ​​Zittau were still used as a siding to the slaughterhouse and a coal trade and then dismantled up to km 1.65, where the switch system to the Oybin line was located.

In Poland, train traffic between Sieniawka ( Kleinschönau ) and Bogatynia ( Reichenau ) was resumed by the Polish State Railways (PKP) as Bogatyńska Kolej Dojazdowa . The line was connected to the coal railway Bogatynia - Turoszów ( Türchau ) and initially operated as a common line under course book table number 274, from 1959 under number 253. 1960 ended due to the extension of the standard gauge line from Turoszów to Bogatynia, the operation on the former coal railway. In the summer of 1959, passenger traffic was started on the Bogatynia– Markocice ( Markersdorf ) section under course book table number 253a, but as early as 1961, the Bogatyńska Kolej Dojazdowa was completely stopped. The tracks were not dismantled, but the section between Sieniawka and Opolno Zdrój ( Bad Oppelsdorf ) has been dredged away by the Turów open-cast lignite mine since the 1970s .

Since August 1, 2020, two cross-border bus routes have been running from Zittau to Bogatynia and Frýdlant (and from there to Świeradów-Zdrój ) through several locations that were once connected by the narrow-gauge railway . For the first time since 1945, Zittau received a daily connection by public transport to Bogatynia. The other line runs on weekends and public holidays.

Vehicle use

After the Second World War, the PKP moved two locomotives of the Saxon class IK to Bogatynia, which had already remained in Poland after the First World War. From the mid-1950s, three locomotives from the PKP Px48 series were also used. Between 1959 and 1961, two narrow-gauge railcars that had already operated there before the Second World War came back to the route. These were motor coaches 137 323 and 324 , which were run by the PKP as MBxd1-114 and 115 .

literature

  • Gustav W. Ledig: Zittau-Reichenau-Markersdorf line in The narrow-gauge state railways in the Kingdom of Saxony , pp. 88 ff., Leipzig 1895. Reprint: Zentralantiquariat der DDR, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-7463-0070-3
  • Reiner Preuß: Everything about narrow-gauge railways in Upper Lusatia. transpress Verlag, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-613-71431-1 , pp. 80-93
  • Wilfried Rettig: Railways in the border triangle 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. 40-47

Web links

Commons : Schmalspurbahn Zittau – Hermsdorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ State treaty between Austria-Hungary and Saxony, concerning several railway connections on the Austrian-Saxon state border from March 14, 1885
  2. ^ L. Čada, K. Just, M. Kunt, R. Sedláček: Úzkorozchodná místní dráha Frýdlant v Čechách - Heřmanice. Litoměřice / Chlumec nad Cidlinou 2000, ISBN 80-902706-2-X , p. 30
  3. ↑ Through three countries in 90 minutes . In: Saxon newspaper . July 31, 2020 ( saechsische.de [accessed August 19, 2020]).
  4. ↑ List of the locomotives of the Bogatyńska Kolej Dojazdowa
  5. ↑ Torsten Sameiske, Lothar Dinkel: Zittau railcar VT 137 322-325 . SOEG Medien, Zittau 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-021920-7 , p. 50ff