Ennepe tram
The meter-gauge tram company Ennepe operated between several municipalities in the Ennepe-Ruhr district in North Rhine-Westphalia in the 20th century .
prehistory
In the former Schwelm district, there was no cross-connection between the municipalities of Voerde (7800 inhabitants), Milspe (Mühlinghausen) (6370 inhabitants), Gevelsberg (18,900 inhabitants) and Haßlinghausen (4280 inhabitants), although they all had a connection to the network of the state railway or to had a tram company. Gevelsberg took the initiative to create a joint tram company. On July 13, 1906, the Gevelsberg-Mühlinghausen-Milspe-Voerde tram was founded, in which Gevelsberg held 46.6%, Voerde with 30.8% and Milspe with 22.6% of the capital.
route
The majority of the line with a length of 9.3 kilometers was opened on February 24, 1907; he began in Voerde, where already since May 1, 1903, the small train to hasp started that in the opposite direction from 1 October 1907 Breckerfeld was extended, but only electrified 1927th From Voerde it reached Milspe via Altenvoerde (2.4 km) after 3.8 kilometers, where the Barmen – Schwelm – Milspe tram (line 8) ended on January 18, 1907 . After 6.3 kilometers Gevelsberg Nirgena was reached; Since April 12, 1900, the end point of the Hagen tram line 2 was located here . In Uellendahl (9.3 km) the city limits of Gevelsberg were crossed. The last 2.5 kilometers to the church in Haßlinghausen were put into operation on May 19, 1909. Haßlinghausen has belonged to the town of Sprockhövel since 1970 and was connected to Barmen by the tram of the town of Barmen (line 2) from 1908 to 1958 ; a railway line had existed since 1889.
The total of 11.8 kilometers long single-track line was laid out in meter gauge and was usually driven every 20 minutes, sometimes every 10 minutes. A pendulum line, which was opened on December 20, 1913 from Gevelsberg Nirgena - mainly on the tracks of the Hagen tram - to the former station of the Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn 900 meters away, ceased operations when the war began in August 1914.
New company
After the Schwelm district had taken over a capital share of 25% in the company on February 23, 1928, the company name was the Ennepe Tram Company in the Schwelm district . The Schwelm district merged into the new Ennepe-Ruhr district on August 1, 1929 . On September 1, 1933, the newly founded tram company Ennepe GmbH , based in Milspe, took over operations.
Initially, 8 railcars with 4 sidecars were available for rail transport, later 11 multiple units with 7 to 11 sidecars were available. The omnibus traffic, which has been part of the tramway since 1925, expanded to six overland routes with a total length of 72 kilometers by 1939, serving 12 omnibuses. Goods were also transported during the First World War, especially coal.
End of rail traffic
The Ennepe tram survived the Second World War without any significant damage. Nevertheless, in the 1950s the decision was made to shut down the railway. Driving on the narrow streets with increasing motor vehicle traffic became more and more dangerous; The Kruiner tunnel formed a particular bottleneck . The journey time of over fifty minutes was far too long in relation to the length of the route.
The last day of operation of the tram was March 31, 1956.
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The company continued its activity under the company Verkehrsgesellschaft Ennepe-Ruhr mbH (VER) with omnibuses. In 2000, 111 vehicles drove on 45 lines with a total length of 660 kilometers beyond the original traffic area to Breckerfeld, Hattingen, Herdecke, Schwelm, Wetter and Witten.
The remaining 11 railcars and four trailer cars then came to Wuppertal , where they were retired between 1966 and 1970. Two of the railcars are still there: one in the Bergisches Straßenbahnmuseum , the other - railcar no. 15 - as a memorial at the VER depot.
literature
- Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 3 Westphalia , Freiburg 1990, ISBN 3-88255-332-4
- Guido Korff: The Ennepe tram company , in the tram magazine issue 14 (November 1974)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Railcar 141. Retrieved on May 2, 2020 . , on bmb-wuppertal.de