Schuntertal Railway

Schuntertal Railway
Route number :	1953
Course book section (DB) :	ex 300, ex 222
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Berlin Fallersleben BLE Fallersleben to Lehrte – Hanover Ehmen new (PV until 1978, formerly Ehmen West ) / old Great Brunsrode Brunsrode - Flechtorf PV until 1942, GM until 1970s Weddeler Loop to Weddel (from 1998) Teaching (Braunschw) Wendhausen until 1976? Schunter Federal motorway 2 Backfilled Dibbesdorf - Hondelage passenger transport until 1975 from the Braunschweig-Schöninger Railway Braunschweig East from Wieren Connection curve (1938-2005) Overpass (1901–1942, partially built over) Connection curve (since 1936) Braunschweig-Gliesmarode to the main and marshalling yard Braunschweig North to Derneburg

The Schuntertalbahn, the former Braunschweig – Fallersleben line, was an almost 20 kilometer long branch line in the east of today's Lower Saxony . In 1998 it was replaced by the Weddeler Loop . It was named after the course of the railway line in the area between Braunschweig and Flechtorf through the valley of the Schunter River .

history

The railway was built by the private Braunschweigische Landeseisenbahngesellschaft (BLE) to open up the then rural north-east of the duchy . With the first section, which was passable from November 11, 1901, the BLE station "Braunschweig Nord" was connected to the station "Gliesmarode West" (later: "Braunschweig Ost") and a connection to the also private Braunschweig-Schöninger Railway manufactured. On September 1, 1902, the extension to Flechtorf followed. From there to Fallersleben it was possible to continue driving from November 1, 1904. For this purpose, the existing siding of a potash plant was expanded from Ehmen , which the line also followed from the east to Fallersleben station on the Berlin – Lehrte railway line . The potash plant ceased operations in 1926.

In 1936 the BLE built a connecting curve from the Braunschweig Nordbahnhof to the Braunschweig – Wieren railway line in the north, so that it could be handed over to the Reichsbahn .

As part of the industrialization of Wolfsburg and Salzgitter , the BLE was nationalized in 1938. Passenger traffic was combined in what was then the Braunschweig main station . For this purpose, a connecting curve was created at Gliesmarode on the line to Wieren. The previous connection to the North Station lost its importance and was closed in 1942.

The rural branch line no longer met the requirements of an industrial region. The new construction of the connection was planned, roughly as it would have corresponded to today's Weddeler Loop , but to the west around Lehr and further south to the west than the route completed in 1998. In 1941/42, a straight line to the west was put into operation between Lehr and Fallersleben, the intermediate stations of the old line were replaced by new ones. The new line led from the west to Fallersleben station. The old route was still used as a connection for freight customers and to supply the Ehmen air tank farm. The work to the south of Lehr was stopped due to the war, and some railway embankments can still be seen in the area.

In 1949 the old route between Flechtorf and Ehmen and in 1957 between Ehmen and Fallersleben was given up. Freight traffic existed between apprenticeship and Flechtorf until the 1970s.

At the beginning of September 1958 there was a train accident near Wendhausen station. Two freight trains collided and 15 tank cars caught fire. A stoker was killed.

The railway was now one of the connecting routes for the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg . For a branch line it was very busy. In the 1980s, it was expanded to the existing route for heavy freight trains.

With the planning of the connection between Braunschweig and the high-speed line from Hanover to Berlin , the re-routing in the southern section came back on the agenda. After the Schuntertalbahn was again fully loaded in 1997 as a diversion route during the expansion of the Fallersleben – Lehrte section , traffic from Braunschweig Ost was suspended on September 18, 1998. Three days later, the Weddeler Loop started operating and the Gliesmarode – Lehr section was shut down.

The remainder from Braunschweig-Gliesmarode to Braunschweig Ost was abandoned in 2000 and dismantled in 2005. Freight traffic to Braunschweig Nord is still weak (as of April 2012).

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  Brunsrode-Flechtorf station

literature

• Gerhard Busse, Werner Kieselbach, Dieter Nebelung: The Schuntertal Railway and the Railway in Hasenwinkel / Projected Railway in the Gifhorn District . Series of publications by the Gifhorn District Archives, Gifhorn 2000, ISBN 3-929632-46-2 , pp. 9–68
• Wolfgang Fiegenbaum, Wolfgang Klee: Farewell to the rails. Disused railway lines for passenger traffic in Germany 1998–1999 . transpress, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-613-71144-3 , pp. 9-11
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 11: Lower Saxony 3 - South of the Mittelland Canal . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-670-4 , pp. 353-382

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Krauss: Development of the Railway Infrastructure 1997/98, in: Bahn-Report 2/1999, p. 4–7, here: p. 6.

Web links

Commons : Schuntertalbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• History of the Schuntertal Railway
• Searching for traces on the former route
• State of the route at the end of December 2013