Steinhuder Meer Railway

Wunstorf-Uchte
Route number (DB) :	9178 Wunstorf – Mesmerode
Course book section (DB) :	until 1964 215 b
Route length:	Wunstorf – Uchte: 52.7 km Wunstorf – Mesmerode: 6.4 km
Gauge :	1000 mm to Bokeloh too, since 1962 only: 1435 mm
Top speed:	30 km / h
Legend 0.0 Wunstorf Staatsbhf ( three- tier , from 1906) 0.5 Wunstorf West / Wunstorf Bhf (until 1906) from the Bremen – Hanover railway line 1.2 Wunstorf West ( trolley pit , three-rail ) old south floodplain Flood bridge / Nordaue Westaue (Route until 1906) 1.8 (Route formerly three-track ) 2.0 Wunstorf city ( wedge station ) 2.4 Sidings 4.9 Cronsbostel 6.0 Bokeloh (near Wunstorf) (from here siding) Mesmerode Sigmundshall potash plant 4.0 Klein Heidorn 6.6 Grossenheidorn 8.4 Steinhude (foam lip) 10.4 Altenhagen (Schaumb-Lippe) 12.2 Hagenburg (Schaumb-Lippe) 16.2 Schmalenbruch (Schaumb-Lippe) 17.0 Wiedenbrügge (Schaumb-Lippe) 18.5 Winzlar 20.8 Bad Rehburg 24.0 Rehburg city 27.1 Hormannshausen Former railway line Stadthagen – Stolzenau 30.4 Loccum 37.0 Leese 38.1 Leese-Stolzenau (on the Nienburg – Minden route ) Nienburg – Minden railway line Weser (track on road bridge) 40.2 Stolzenau (Weser) 43.7 Boethel 44.8 Alterkamp 46.9 Nendorf 52.7 Uchte (on the Rahden – Nienburg route ) Mindener Kreisbahnen to Minden Swell:

The Steinhude-Bahn AG (St.MB) ran a 52.7 km long railway line in narrow gauge of Wunstorf over Steinhude , Bad Rehburg , Stolzenau to lamp and a six-kilometer-long, first three bar , later only standard gauge route from Wunstorf to Bokeloh .

history

On May 21, 1898, the first section from Wunstorf with a terminus at the Hotel Ritter (intersection Hindenburgstrasse - Munzeler Strasse) to Bad Rehburg was put into operation. Further sections followed on October 29, 1898 to Rehburg Stadt, on December 9, 1898 to Stolzenau, on April 1, 1899 to Nendorf and on May 2, 1899 to Uchte Kleinbahnhof. Here was a connection to the Mindener Kreisbahnen . So you could travel on narrow-gauge tracks from Wunstorf via Uchte and Minden to Lübbecke in Westphalia.

In Uchte there was also a connection to the state railway from 1910, there were further transition options in Wunstorf , from 1920 in Leese-Stolzenau Reichsbahn and from 1921 also in Loccum . Here, however, the state and small train stations were far apart.

In Wunstorf, Bad Rehburg, Loccum and Uchte there were terminal stations , so that a change of direction was necessary there.

In 1898 the route in Wunstorf ran from the Hotel Ritter through Bahnhofstrasse (today: Hindenburgstrasse) and Südstrasse past the town church over Nordstrasse towards Klein Heidorn. After the construction of three Aue bridges, train traffic was relocated from the city center to the bypass in January 1906. As part of the construction of the bypass, the terminal station could be relocated from the Hotel Ritter to the state station, as the crossing rail connections between the Bremen and Minden railway lines to the west of the state station had been dismantled.

From November 1, 1923, operations were carried out by the Hanover State Small Railroad Authority, which later became the Lower Saxony State Railroad Authority . From 1959 the Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG took over the management.

When the Steinhuder-Meer-Bahn was converted into a GmbH in 1938 , the main shareholders were the Free State of Prussia , the district of Nienburg / Weser and the United Kaliwerke Salzdetfurth AG .

Mostly on weekends, people looking for relaxation were transported to the “ lake province”. The scenic charm of the Steinhuder Meer and the Rehburg Mountains brought full passenger trains to the St.MB. The trains that the students took to their secondary schools in Wunstorf were just as full to overcrowded.

The goods were transported on working days.

A branch line was put into operation on November 13, 1905 from the Wunstorf-Stadt station for the Sigmundshall potash plant in Mesmerode . The track initially led directly into the plant. Around 1960 the entrance was moved, initially to a pull-out track located north of the plant, from there it went south into the plant. The three-rail expansion allowed use for standard-gauge and narrow-gauge vehicles.

Operation on the north-western section between Uchte and Rehburg  Stadt came to an end in the summer of 1935 after only 36 years due to insufficient capacity utilization. From 1921, there was a competitive situation with the Stadthagen-Stolzenau railway line running parallel, particularly on the Loccum- Leese section .

On the remainder of the route, trolley operation was introduced in 1936 in order to be able to transport standard-gauge wagons and not have to reload goods. In 1962/1963 the trolley was replaced by a trolley . For this purpose, roller stands for the Südharz Railway , which was closed in 1963, were acquired.

The operation of the route sections that were still in use was switched to railcars since the 1930s, but increasingly in the 1950s . These vehicles replaced the train sets until the cessation of passenger traffic on January 18, 1964 on the Wunstorf –Stadt Rehburg line . On the line to Bokeloh , the meter-gauge track was expanded in 1961/1962, and passenger traffic, most recently with the standard-gauge T 52 railcar, was discontinued on March 2, 1964.

With the end of freight traffic on August 18, 1970 on the main line, the narrow-gauge railway was finally history. The dismantling began on the following day and the tracks between the Wunstorf Stadt train station, also known as the Kleinbahnhof (located at the southern end of Neustädter Strasse) and the Klein Heidorn train station, were removed within a few days. The dismantling of the remaining section of the line dragged on until 1971, as the use of a dismantling train was not possible.

Freight traffic on the route to Bokeloh was continued until St.MB sold the route.

Bus operations, which began in the late 1920s and ceased before the Second World War , were resumed in May 1960. It merged in 1998 with the merger of several transport companies in what was then the greater Hanover area in the RegioBus Hannover GmbH .

After the sale of the remaining route in March 2000 to Osthannoversche Eisenbahnen AG , the transport of the potash products is handled by them and after the last two locomotives of the MaK 240 B and 240 C series were handed over to a railway association and the company was liquidated, the Steinhuder-Meer- After 101 years of operation, rail is just a piece of small railroad history.

Considerations for reactivating sections of the route for passenger traffic to Steinhude were last presented in 2014.

The memory of the St.MB is maintained by the Steinhuder Meer-Bahn eV association .

Since October 2016, the HVLE has taken over the operation from the OHE. With the shutdown of the Sigmundshall potash plant at the end of 2018, the last significant freight customer ceased to exist, so that the remaining route has since been without significant regular traffic and is threatened with closure. A processing plant for aluminum salts is also served on the site of the potash plant.

vehicles

Narrow gauge

At the opening six biaxial were steam locomotives of Hohenzollern available. These were in use until the section to Uchte was closed, as were two three-axle locomotives that had been delivered in 1908/09. 1927–1929 Hanomag supplied three double-coupled locomotives, two of which had the rare 1'B wheel arrangement. These operated until the cessation of steam operation in 1959/1960. In 1957, two used diesel locomotives were procured from Wandsbeker Industriebahn , which had multiple controls and could therefore be driven with one man in double traction .

In 1931, St.MB was one of the first railways to purchase a Wismar rail bus , which was in use until the end of narrow-gauge passenger traffic in 1964 and which is still operational today at the German Railway Association . In 1936 a Wismar railcar of the Frankfurt type followed . In 1953, three other used railcars were taken over, including a VT 85.9 of the DB, which was re- gauged in its own workshop and called the T 58. All railcars were parked when passenger traffic was discontinued, only the T 53 ( DWK 1927) remained in service as a towing car in freight traffic . The T 52, originally in service on the standard-gauge line, was also on the narrow-gauge line with narrow-gauge bogies from 1957 to 1961 . The return to the standard gauge was carried out for use on the route to Bokeloh.

When operations began, 15 four-axle passenger cars were available, and in 1927 more cars were taken over by the Salzwedeler Kleinbahnen . After the Rehburg – Uchte line was closed, wagons were handed over to the Sylter Inselbahn . In 1948 there were 14 passenger cars. In addition, there were up to 85 freight wagons, the majority of which were handed over after the rolling wagon traffic began. After 1945 there were still 19 freight wagons.

Standard gauge

At the beginning of 1905, two two-axle steam locomotives were available, one of which was sold after mining in the potash plant was discontinued (1932). Only after production was resumed in 1952 a second steam locomotive was acquired.

The diesel locomotives were bought second-hand: a class V 36 in 1954 , a class V 20 in 1957 and another two-axle Deutz locomotive in 1964. At the beginning of the 1980s they were replaced by a MaK 240 B bought in 1979 and a MaK 240 C bought in 1985, which was almost identical in construction, but had three axes . These locomotives were sold to the Grafschafter Modell- und Eisenbahn-Club in 2000, where they are inoperable.

Since the passenger traffic on the route to Bokeloh was carried out in narrow gauge until the last three years, there was only one standard gauge car - a baggage / mail car that was bought used in 1957. The T 52 railcar was available from 1961.

Relics

Former Steinhude train station, wagons positioned to protect them from the weather

Inscription on the passenger car in Steinhude

Two freight cars in Leese, 2011

Since 2001 the Steinhuder Meer-Bahn e. V. about the preservation of historical vehicles and the history of the Steinhuder Meer-Bahn.

The German Railway Association in Bruchhausen-Vilsen also has some meter-gauge vehicles of the Steinhuder-Meer-Bahn in its collection. a. the Wismar rail bus, also operational.

In the center of the municipality of Leese there is a monument for the rail connection in the form of freight cars.

The pre-series -V 36 is now in the Technik-Museum Speyer . The locomotive was manufactured in 1938 by Schwartzkopff (BMAG) for the Wehrmacht and finally sold in 1962 by the Steinhuder-Meer-Bahn with the number 271 to the city of Frankfurt. The vehicle was used by Stadtwerke Frankfurt with the number 2018 . The locomotive is equipped with a pantograph to control signals on a line of the former Frankfurt Local Railway . The locomotive was parked in 1980 because of a crack in the engine block and handed over to the Frankfurt Historical Railway .

reception

• Heiner Giebel (gi): A jewel on the move / Restored sea rail car will be presented to the public on October 3rd , in: Wunstorfer Stadtanzeiger, September 30th, 2015, p. 3

literature

• o. V .: Steinhuder Meer-Bahn GmbH , in Edfried Bühler, Herbert Droste, Hans Georg Gmelin, Hans-Günter Peters, Horst Rohde , Waldemar R. Röhrbein , Diedrich Saalfeld: Heimatchronik des Landkreis Hannover (= home chronicles of the cities and districts of Bundesgebietes , Volume 49), 1st edition, Cologne: Archive for German Homeland Care, 1980, pp. 485–488
• Hans Wolfgang Rogl: The Steinhuder Sea Railway. From the narrow-gauge railway to the retax bus . Association of Seelzer Verkehrsfreunde, Seelze 1982.
• Hans Wolfgang Rogl, Ludger Kenning: The Steinhuder Meer-Bahn . Verlag Ludger Kenning, Nordhorn 1998, ISBN 3-927587-90-7 .
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2. Between Weser and Elbe . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8 , pp. 451-479.

Web links

• Steinhuder Meer-Bahn eV
• German Railway Association (DEV)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ↑ Steinhuder Meer-Bahn in front of the town church | Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Dirk Neuber: The Meerbahn Bridge over the Südaue in Wunstorfer Stadtspiegel, July 2010 / No. 80, p. 78f
5. ↑ Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2 . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8 , p. 453 .
6. ↑ Presentation of the considerations. Retrieved September 24, 2017 . 
7. ↑ Steinhuder Meer-Bahn e. V
8. ↑ n-tv news: K + S closes Sigmundshall . In: n-tv.de . ( n-tv.de [accessed on November 6, 2018]).
9. ↑ Rolf Löttgers: The narrow-gauge railway time in color . Franckh'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-440-05235-4 , p. 48 .
10. ↑ Hans Wolfgang Rogl, Ludger Kenning: The Steinhuder Meer-Bahn . Kenning Verlag, Nordhorn 1998, ISBN 3-927587-90-7 , p. 72
11. ↑ Walter Söhnlein, Jürgen Leindecker: The Frankfurter Lokalbahn and their electric Taunus-Bahnen . GeraMond, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-932785-04-5 , p. 145.

Coordinates: 52 ° 28 '  N , 9 ° 10'  E