Hagendingen tram

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The former Hagendingen tram in Hagendingen ( Hagondange ) in Lorraine was mainly used to transport workers to the iron and steel works between Diedenhofen ( Thionville ) and Metz .

Thyssen AG tram

For over 50 years, a tram operated between Diedenhofen and Metz in Lorraine , which was neither an inner-city means of transport nor a connection between two cities. The Hagendingen tram was more of a factory line that served workers' traffic, but was also available to the public.

history

Before the First World War , the number of employees in the iron processing plants in the Moselle valley had increased so much that the railway line there was no longer sufficient for the arrival and departure. Hence the plan arose to build an electric tram to connect the factories to the residential areas and to the neighboring train stations.

The Thyssen AG steelworks in Hagendingen took the initiative and on January 20, 1912, opened a first 2.76-kilometer section from Hagendingen station in a southerly direction to the steelworks in Mondelingen ( Mondelange ). On April 1, 1913, the route to the works of Mosel-Hütte AG in Macheren ( Maizières ) near Metz was extended. The line passed through workers' settlements, served numerous industrial companies, crossed under two mine railways and ended in front of the Machern state train station of the Metz – Diedenhofen line , which was opened in 1854 and belonged to the network of the Alsace-Lorraine Reichsbahn .

The standard-gauge railway was a total of 5.58 kilometers long and mostly laid out on its own track body; it had a turnout in the middle of the route.

The trains, some of which were equipped with up to three four-axle sidecars at the shift changeover, ran every hour or every half hour. Since work was also carried out at night, the operating day usually lasted around 22 hours.

Initially there were four railcars, which means Lyrabügel the DC with the unusual voltage Withdrawals from the overhead wire of 1000 volts, and six sidecar available.

New owner

After the armistice of November 1918, the factories of German owners were placed under compulsory administration by the French state and then two new French companies called Forges et Acièries d'Hagondange and Hauts-Fournaux de la Moselle were handed over.

The Union des Consommateurs de Produits Miniers et Industriels (UCPMI) was now responsible for operating the tram . The vehicles originally supplied by German wagon factories were supplemented in 1938 by two railcars and five sidecars from Paris . In 1952 the fleet of cars was completely renewed and the lyre bar was replaced by pantographs .

The Hagendingen tram operation ended on January 31, 1964 after more than 50 years as a result of the crisis in the steel industry.

literature

  • Henri Domengie, José Banaudo: Les petits trains de jadis. Volume 5: Est de la France. Editions du Cabri, Breil-sur-Roya 1995, ISBN 2-908816-36-9 ( Les Editions du Cabri 10).
  • Rolf Löttgers: The early days of the Hagendingen steelworks tram - a supplement. In: Tram magazine. No. 56, Stuttgart, May 1985.
  • Wolfgang Messerschmidt: An unusual steel mill tram in Hagondange (Hagendingen). In: Tram magazine. No. 54, Stuttgart, November 1984.
  • Jean Robert: Histoire des Transports dans les Villes de France. Self-published, Neuilly-sur-Seine 1974.