Goettingen tram
 |
|
|---|---|
| Basic information | |
| Country | Germany |
| city | Goettingen |
| opening | never |
| electrification | December 1914 |
| Shutdown | Construction was due to the First World War interrupted |
| Infrastructure | |
| Route length | 8.5 km |
| Gauge | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Depots | 1 |
| business | |
| Lines | 3 |
| Top speed | 15 km / h |
The Göttingen tram was a partially built tram in Göttingen that was never put into operation due to the First World War .
history
In September 1881, Count Oscar von Reichenbach applied for a concession for a horse-drawn tram in Göttingen. He kept the option open of converting to electrical operation later. The world's first electric tram, an invention by Werner Siemens , went into operation in Lichterfelde near Berlin in the same year . Count von Reichenbach planned two lines. The first line was to run from the train station via Theaterplatz to Herzberger Chaussee and the second line from Weender Chaussee via Kornmarkt to Reinhäuser Chaussee. In 1883, the city finally received a second application, this time from the Royal Commissioner J. Lehmann, who ran the New Berlin Horse Railroad. In the end, both plans came to nothing and a horse-drawn tram was no longer considered worthwhile.
After ten years of calm, the Allgemeine Deutsche Kleinbahn-Gesellschaft from Berlin showed interest in building a tram in the Göttingen area. This was to connect Göttingen with the communities of Geismar and Weende , which were still independent at the time . A few weeks later, the Schönebeck tram director W. Theuerkauf also presented a concept. Magistrate and Mayor Georg Calsow accepted the proposals, but the negotiations failed.
In the meantime, the city has drafted its own plans for a tram network. This time she got in touch with the Deutsche Gasbahn-Gesellschaft , which had operated the world's first gas-powered tram in Dessau since 1894 . The society began with planning and finally presented it in May 1896 in the town hall. The company proposed two lines: one line should lead from Weende to the barracks near Geismar, the other from the train station to the Albanikirchhof. The speed was set at 12 to 13 km / h and the fare was ten pfennigs . The company proposed the establishment of a stock corporation to Göttingen, in which the company wanted to contribute half of the capital itself. The magistrate did not want to agree to this.
In 1900 the question of building a tram in Göttingen came up again. At that time, the Allgemeine Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (AEG) from Berlin put the city's first power station into operation in Godehardstrasse . Since the AEG also dealt with trams, plans were also made for a tram. The AEG also proposed two lines. The Göttingen magistrate found the costs too high.
It was not until 1908 that a tram commission was formed in Göttingen under the direction of building officer Friedrich Jenner, which made contact with the Wiesbaden company Hecker, which built and operated trams. In the end, the preparations got off to such a good start that the city decided to implement the project without Hecker. But this time, too, construction did not begin. That is why the city came to Hecker again four years later. At that time, almost all cities with more than 35,000 inhabitants already had a tram; Göttingen was one of the two exceptions. This time a total of 8.5 kilometers long rail network with three lines was planned: The first line was to run from Weende via the Kornmarkt to Grone, the second from the train station via the Kornmarkt to the barracks near Geismar and the third from the train station to Herzberger Chaussee and der Wilhelm-Weber-Strasse. According to Dieter Höltge , a route network with two lines was planned at the time: Line 1 ran as described above from Weende via Kornmarkt to Grone and Line 2 as a ring line through the city center.
As a result, the Göttingen municipal tram was founded in June 1914 and construction work began that same month. The first line should go into operation at the end of the year, the other two at the beginning of 1915. In July 1914, the first earthworks were carried out in Weender Strasse between Weender Tor and Prinzenstrasse, but the rails did not arrive until September 1914. The supplier was the Phönix company in Duisburg-Meiderich . The delivery also included 23 turnouts. In Prinzenstraße, Weender Straße, Groner Straße and Nikolaistraße, electrical actuating devices were to be installed at the switches and in both directions. Since the construction of the wagon hall had not yet started, the city of Göttingen had no storage facilities for the rail material, so that it had to be stored at the R. Hahn company at Weender Chaussee 29 on a 600 square meter rented storage space. The material was there until September 30, 1919.
On August 1, 1914, the First World War broke out and the construction workers were gradually drafted. In addition, the war office in Hanover confiscated the rails, but did not transport them away.
After the end of the war in 1918 there was an attempt to put at least one of the lines into operation. It was to lead from the train station through the city center to the barracks near Geismar. Due to its financial situation, the city decided to sell the now rusted rails for 640,000 marks. As a result, the concession for a city bus was commissioned in 1925. When the politicians saw that the new passenger business was paying off, the city took over the concession itself in 1927. As a result, the Göttingen municipal tram, which had existed on paper until then, was officially dissolved.
The idea of building a tram in Göttingen came up again and again over the years, for example in 1973 when Weender Straße was to be converted into a pedestrian zone, and the Göttinger Tageblatt piqued that it had been there since 1914 Rails lay in the street and you could run them as a mini-train. Walter Theine's suggestion in December 1991, however, was more serious: In his integrated transport concept developed for the city, he described the construction of a tram as the “most consistent solution” to the traffic problems in Göttingen, because a tram hardly pollutes the environment, is fast and can hold many people. The then senior city director Hermann Schierwater called the idea "utopian", but "not unreal". Due to the cost of five million euros per kilometer of rail during construction, the city decided against the construction.
Route network
The tram should be run in standard gauge . The depot was to be built on Weender Chaussee. Overall, according to the latest planning status, the network should include the following three lines:
- Blue line: Weende district boundary - Weender Chaussee - Weender Tor - Markt - Groner Strasse - Groner Torstrasse - railway underpass (2.6 km).
- red line: Bahnhof - Alleestraße - Prinzenstraße - Weender Straße - Markt - Groner Straße - Nikolaistraße - Bürgerstraße - Reinhäuser Chaussee - Feuerschanzengraben - Geismar Chaussee - Schillerstraße (barracks) (2.4 km)
- green line: Bahnhof - Alleestraße - Prinzenstraße - Theaterstraße - Theaterplatz - Bühlstraße - Wilhelm-Weber-Straße - Dahlmannstraße - Herzberger Chaussee - Theaterplatz and back to the train station (3.1 km).
All routes were to be single-track, only the section between Bahnhof / Alleestraße and Leinekanal was planned to be double-track. It should be driven in the conductors , whereby a fare of ten pfennigs was planned. The eleven motor vehicles as well as an assembly and salt spreader were to be delivered by the Hannoversche Waggonfabrik in Hannover-Linden . However, inquiries were also made to other wagon factories: including Lindner in Ammendorf , Gebr. Gastell in Mainz , Gebr. Credé in Kassel-Niederzwehren , Waggonfabrik Uerdingen , Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (MAN) and Norddeutsche Waggonfabrik Bremen .
For an extension of the tram from the terminus on Weender Chaussee to Weende, planning should only begin after it has been clarified whether the connection would compete with the railroad.
A connection to the Gartetalbahn was also planned from 1915, but this was never reached as planned, because all plans were put on hold by 1916 at the latest.
outlook
As part of climate protection , a renaissance of the tram in Göttingen is being discussed again in recent times. Among other things, the idea was raised to run a line of the RegioTram Kassel to Göttingen.
literature
- Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany. Volume 2: Lower Saxony / Bremen . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1987, ISBN 3-88255-336-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Göttinger Tageblatt, Eichsfelder Tageblatt ,: construction work stopped in 1914 - when Göttingen almost got a tram. In: goettinger-tageblatt.de. August 31, 2010, accessed December 10, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g Göttingen traffic history. (PDF) Retrieved December 10, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c d Jens Fleischmann: Disused trams and trolleybuses in German university towns. In: bahninfo.de. Retrieved December 10, 2016 .