Colmar tram

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Historic street view (1940) of Colmar with tram rails on the carriageway

The former tram in Colmar ran from 1902 to 1960. As early as 1885, two small railways existed in the area around the Alsatian city of Colmar , which belonged to the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, with the Kaysersberg valley railway and the Türkheim - Drei Ähren electric railway , some of which in 1932 were taken over by the Colmar tram.

Kaysersberg valley railway

The Krauss locomotive factory built and opened three meter-gauge railway lines in 1885 , starting with Colmar:

  • the 20.3-kilometer route via Kaysersberg to Schnierlach (French: Lapoutroie ) in the north-west of Colmar
  • a connection to Winzenheim in the southwest with a length of 4.6 kilometers
  • the route to Horburg, 4.5 kilometers to the east .

The three routes operated from 1887 by the Kaysersberger Talbahn Aktien-Gesellschaft (KTB). In 1890 the Reichseisenbahnen in Alsace-Lorraine took over the connection to Horburg and extended it to Markolsheim , where there was a connection to an overland route operated by the Strasbourg tram company . The Reichseisenbahnen also opened a narrow-gauge railway from Colmar via Ensisheim to Bollweiler in 1901 . From 1907 to 1914 there was a connection to the tram network in Mulhouse via this route .

Timetable Colmar - Schnierlach 1944

In 1912, nine steam locomotives, 24 passenger cars, three post cars and 78 freight cars were available to operate the routes to Schnierlach and Winzenheim. In the 1914 summer timetable, seven trains ran daily to Schnierlach and ten trains to Winzenheim. In the 1913/1914 financial year, 531,104 people and 69,140 tons of goods were transported.

After the end of the First World War , Alsace became part of France, and from 1919 the Kaysersberg valley railway was under the administration of the Haut-Rhin department under the name Chemin de fer de la Vallé de Kaysersberg . In 1932 the company was closed; the route to Wintzenheim was taken over by the Colmar municipal tram. The connection to Lapoutroie came into the possession of the French state railway SNCF . During the German occupation of France between 1940 and 1944, it was operated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn; In 1947 the company was closed.

Colmar tram

Railcar No. 2 with open platforms in 1905

The municipal tram in Colmar opened a 2.4-kilometer-long meter-gauge line on March 15, 1902, which connected the old station via Theaterplatz with the port on the Canal de Colmar in the east of the city and was extended to the new station in 1906. In February 1914, line 2 (“red line”) to Straßburger Strasse in the north went into operation, but during the First World War its operation was discontinued for the purpose of non-ferrous metal extraction and after 1918 only partially resumed. Operated under the name Usines municipales de Colmar (UMC) after 1919, the small railway to Wintzenheim was taken over in 1932, electrified and integrated into the tram network as line 3 from May 1, 1935.

When the first line went into operation in 1902, nine two-axle railcars were available, and seven more railcars were added for the second route to Straßburger Strasse. For the overland route to Wintzenheim, two railcars and four trailer cars were procured from the Société Anonyme du Tramway Moderne (SATRAMO) in 1933.

Line 2 was discontinued on January 15, 1938, and the main urban route ("blue line") of the Colmar tram was able to operate without a conductor until March 17, 1957, after the changeover to bus operation from November 10, 1956 onwards November was suspended again due to lack of fuel as a result of the Suez crisis . The overland service to Wintzenheim ended on January 31, 1960. In the summer of 1954, trains to Wintzenheim were offered every one to two hours; the urban line ran every six minutes on weekdays and every eight minutes on Sundays.

Electric train from Türkheim - three ears of corn

From June 5, 1899, the Türkheim - Drei Ähren electric railway connected the small town of Türkheim , located six kilometers west of Colmar, with the pilgrimage site Drei Ähren ( French Trois Épis ). The construction of the railway was an initiative of the electricity company Schuckert & Co. back. Three ears of corn is a good 400 meters higher than Türkheim, which gave the railway the character of a mountain railway  - albeit without cogwheel operation: with a total length of 8.65 kilometers, the maximum gradient was 9.8%. In addition to a freight car and a baggage car, seven tram cars were available for operation.

At times there were plans to extend the route from Türkheim to Winzenheim and thus connect it to the Colmar small and tram network. The plans were not implemented. After an interruption of operations in the First World War since 1919 under the name Société d'Electricité de Turckheim et Tramways de Turckheim aux Trois Epis (TTE), the railway was shut down on April 1, 1937.

literature

  • Walter Söhnlein: Trams and small railways in the Colmar area. In: Tram magazine November 22 , 1976, pp. 293-304.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Erhard Born: The Alsatian-Central Baden narrow-gauge network. In: Erhard Born (arrangement): Narrow gauge between the Vosges and the Black Forest. Self-published, Schwäbisch Gemünd 1972, ISBN 3-9800014-0-7 , p. 19.
  2. ↑ Figures in Söhnlein, p. 295.
  3. ^ A b René Courant: Le temps des tramways . Éditions du Cabri, Menton 1982, ISBN 2-903310-22-X , p. 41 .

Web links

Commons : Colmar tram  - Collection of images, videos and audio files