Tram Naumburg

Tram Naumburg
Tw 36 and Tw 51 in front of the depot
Route length:	2.9 (with 9 stations) km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	600 volts  =
opening	September 15, 1892
operator	Naumburger Straßenbahn GmbH
Line vehicles	7th
Work vehicles	1
Nostalgic vehicles	7th

Logo Naumburger Straßenbahn GmbH

The Naumburg tram has been running in the city of Naumburg (Saale) since 1892 with a few interruptions on a ring-shaped route - since 1994 only on a part of it. The meter-gauge railway operated today by Naumburger Straßenbahn GmbH has often been called Wilde Zicke since the GDR era . Today it is the smallest tram company in Germany with daily operation and one of the smallest in Europe.

history

Steam tram (1892–1906)

Tram locomotive "Saale" at the opening of operations on September 15, 1892 at the depot

With the construction of the Thuringian Railway and the Naumburg Central Station in 1846, the desire arose to better connect this station to the old town. The main train station is more than a kilometer from the old town and about 40 meters lower. After the project for a horse-drawn tram in Naumburg failed twice in the 1860s and 1880s, a municipal committee was founded in 1889 to build a tram. Because of the steep incline, a horse-drawn tram was out of the question, but an electric tram was too expensive, so the committee suggested running steam locomotives . According to the original planning, the route was to be expanded considerably within a few years.

Steam locomotives "Naumburg" and "Saale" in the Jägerplatz siding

In 1891, the lead engineer Georg von Kreyfeld from Halle was finally granted the concession to operate the first line for a period of 40 years. However, the construction was delayed for another year due to financial difficulties. Von Kreyfeld then sold the concession to a company from Wittenberg . However, this did not begin with construction either, but instead promoted an electric tram. The company therefore wanted to sell the concession again. The city could not raise the necessary funds, which is why the Naumburger Straßenbahn Aktiengesellschaft was founded on June 18, 1892 . The necessary capital was raised by the fact that numerous interested Naumburg citizens subscribed for shares.

A steam tram at the Markt, Jakobstrasse entrance

A week later, the newly founded company bought the concession with the option that the tram should become the property of the city when it expired. Construction work began shortly thereafter. The assembly of the first tracks began in July and the first vehicles arrived in Naumburg in September. The grand opening took place on September 15, 1892. In the first few years, the income was well below expectations. In April 1894, operations were stopped for a week, as the daily loss amounted to 30 to 40  marks . Planned extensions of the route could not be carried out due to lack of funds. Foreign investors were therefore sought to take over the operation of the tram. These attempts failed, and so the company went bankrupt in 1900 and the city first took over the operation of the tram, later also its vehicles and equipment.

Ticket for the Naumburg steam tram

The financial problems could be resolved in the following years, but the technical problems increased and the Prussian State Railways as the supervisory authority demanded a complete overhaul of the facilities and new vehicles. Therefore, under the direction of Mayor Kraatz, the conversion of the tram to electric operation was planned over the next six years. On October 25, 1906, the steam tram ran for the last time. The vehicles and tracks were soon sold or scrapped.

Electric Ringbahn (1907–1991)

The open railcar 3 shortly after electrification

In May 1906 the city assembly decided to build an electricity station and an electric tram, the first work had already been commissioned. Initially, the old route of the steam train was retained and only extended by a few hundred meters from the Wenceslas Gate to the Salt Gate.

In October 1906, construction work began on the new route and the electrification of the old route sections. On December 5, the concession for operation was granted. Ten days later, the power station went into operation and the first test drives could be made. After about two months, the new electric tram went into operation on January 2, 1907, and it ran every ten minutes. A trip cost ten pfennigs. The new tram generated a surplus, so that the city, as owner, significantly increased the price of electricity for the railway.

In addition to the proposed Ringbahn, several expansion plans were discussed in the following years. In 1910, the line was initially extended from Salztor to Michaelisstraße. After the further route had been clarified, the ring over the Moritzberg to the main station was finally closed in 1914. From Easter 1914 on, the trains ran through the city in both directions. Other route constructions were discussed, among other things a route to the neighboring Bad Kösen was planned. However, there was never any construction.

At the time of the First World War and the inflation in the 1910s and 1920s, the operation of the tram was severely restricted and the fare increased sharply. With these measures, operations could be maintained until the end of 1923. Then it was inactive until the Reichsmark was introduced in 1924, mainly because the vehicles and equipment had been badly damaged and had to be repaired. The situation improved by 1928, and the ring was once again driven in both directions after the lack of vehicles meant that it was only possible to drive in one direction for three years. With the economic upswing, voices were raised calling for an expansion of the route network. The Great Depression of the early 1930s prevented this measure.

Despite the improvement in the economic situation, the financial problems of the railway persisted, mainly because the city still demanded the increased electricity price, which had been introduced with the profit situation at the beginning of electrical operation. The workers in the workshop nevertheless kept the railway running, even if numerous temporary arrangements had to be accepted. Since the existing tram turned out to be the cheapest solution, the switch to trolleybuses or omnibuses was not considered at that time .

Actually, the tram should have been shut down for a while at the end of the 1930s for safety reasons, because the technical condition had deteriorated significantly. This was prevented by the start of World War II in 1939. The only thing left to do was to drive through the ring in one direction. After several cars with major damage were no longer operational, operations were temporarily stopped in 1940 and resumed after the vehicles had been repaired. From 1943 to 1945 the tram also took over the transport of mail between the two post offices at the train station and the tram depot, as the post office no longer had enough vehicles available.

On April 12, 1945, a few weeks before the end of the war, the city of Naumburg was badly affected by an American bombing raid, and the tram was also badly damaged. The operation was stopped again for several months. From September 1945 operations could be resumed, but in only one direction. After Naumburg was initially occupied by the US Army, the city later came under the Soviet occupation zone and from 1949 belonged to the German Democratic Republic .

With the beginning of the first five-year plan , the urban tram was converted into a VEB (K), a municipal, state- owned company in 1950 . In the mid-1950s, the substation, the workshop and the waiting halls at the stops were modernized and the track systems were renewed.

From 1957, after around 20 years, the Ring was used again in both directions, the trains went clockwise as Line 1 and in the opposite direction as Line 2. The number of passengers rose sharply, especially because numerous Naumburgers took the train to work and the tram as Use the shuttle to the train station. After the first bus routes began operating in Naumburg, the tram was no longer the only means of local transport in the city from the end of the 1950s. In order to rationalize, conductors-free operation was introduced in 1962, with a modified system of OS operation being used . In doing so, the usual, standardized payment boxes were not installed , and instead the drivers were equipped with plywood boxes that had been built together in a primitive way. The drivers, who now had to run through the car at the main station and collect the passengers, quickly gave the wooden boxes the derisive name “begging box”. The unattractiveness of the Naumburg tram caused the city officials to consider discontinuing operations several times in the following years - as in other smaller cities in the GDR.

However, the 1973 oil crisis ensured that the tram could continue to operate for the time being, nine older Lindner railcars were taken over from Halle, primarily to improve the space available in rush hour traffic. Expansion plans for the tram were also drawn up again. However, it stayed with plans. In 1976 the Ringbahn was interrupted because the city center was converted into a pedestrian zone and the tram was no longer allowed to run through the city center. In August 1979, operations were completely shut down once more after the supervisory authority discovered significant deficiencies. A switch to bus operation was actually planned. The high oil price led to renewed repairs to the railway and operations could be resumed a month later.

Railcar 51 on a driving school trip

From 1980 the track system was further renovated and a restoration of the ring with a changed route over the city promenade instead of the market square as previously planned. This new line was built a year later and ring traffic was possible again from 1982. At the same time, the transport companies in the entire GDR were combined into larger combines, whereby the Naumburg tram came to VEB Kraftverkehr Zeitz , which in turn belonged to VE Verkehrskombinat Halle . The track renovation was only carried out on short sections due to a lack of material.

In January 1986, operations were stopped again to carry out urgent renovations to almost all of the systems. This move was viewed by many observers as a secret shutdown. After 18 months of replacement rail services with buses, the tram resumed operation in June 1987, initially in one direction (line 1, counterclockwise). With the takeover of the first sidecar, the tram used the ring clockwise from now on, as the steep section over the Moritzberg was only permitted for sidecar operation in this direction .

With the reunification of Germany and the transition from the state-planned economy to the market economy in 1990, as in many other cities, the number of journeys fell sharply due to increasing individual traffic and the closure of entire branches of the economy. Elsewhere, used trams were procured from West Germany or the existing vehicles and systems were modernized, the Naumburg tram was a special case: the existing systems were in a very poor condition and only allowed the use of two-axle trams without major modifications; a refurbishment would require twelve million Germans Mark cost. The city could not raise this sum, so the discontinuation of the tram and the switch to trolleybus or omnibus operation were discussed again.

In 1990, some Naumburg citizens founded an initiative group for the preservation of the tram, which worked intensively to procure operating resources from other cities. The responsible authorities never reacted to the offers, and an application for monument protection was rejected. Eventually the city took over the tram and carried out some urgent renovation work, several proposals for long-term security of operation were not implemented. The concession expired in March 1991, but initially operations continued until August 18, 1991, when the railway was out of service again due to construction work.

The plan was to resume operations after four months, but the slow construction work meant that not all of the funds could be used. The construction work was then canceled, the route was interrupted in several places. In April 1992 the city officially took over the tram from the Treuhandanstalt , most of the workers were laid off and the rest were used on the ferry route across the Saale.

For the 100th anniversary of the tram in 1992, some special trips were carried out on a short section of the route at the depot, soon afterwards, to the regret of the association, the remaining rails were tarred in several places, although the goal of continued operation of the tram was officially maintained. In the following year, private partners had the idea of ​​a tourist tram, which was approved by the city council.

Reconstruction (1994-2005)

Car parade on Vogelwiese, led by Car 33 (today in Chemnitz), the first car with which the tram resumed operation in 1994

The historic railcar 17 during refurbishment in the depot

On March 14, 1994, the Naumburger Straßenbahngesellschaft mbH was founded by the partners Andreas Plehn (Naumburg), Robert Wittek (Heidelberg), Günther Weisse (Naumburg) and Joachim Friedrich (Darmstadt), which primarily aimed at the tourist marketing of Europe's only ring tram . Soon after, this company began to restore some sections of the former ring. With the support of the collector Friedrich, who owned a large number of tram cars, the first trips after the quasi-closure in 1991 were made on June 25, 1994 with a horse-drawn tram. In November, the company was also able to lease the vehicles and equipment from the city; the 20-year contract also provided for the entire ring route to be restarted. First of all, in 1995 the route from Theaterplatz to Jägerplatz was restored for electrical operation.

In the following years, a tense relationship between the city and society determined the further expansion: while in some places no longer passable tracks were renewed, in other, not used places the tracks were removed. As a compromise, from 1999 the company decided not to rebuild the tracks from the Salztor via Moritzberg to the main train station, in return received from the city a security for the route from the main train station via Jägerplatz and Theaterplatz to the Salztor. With the redesign of the station forecourt and the overbuilding of the former route, the ring closure was buried for the time being in 1999, as the tram could no longer drive in front of the station, but initially ended about 200 meters south-east.

From 1999, after further renovation work, it was again possible to operate between Jägerplatz and Vogelwiese. Since April 1999, the company has also had a license to operate scheduled services according to the timetable; an exemption had to be applied for for each of the previous journeys. In 2001, the then Lord Mayor Preißer declared that the route of the ring railway would continue to be kept free in order to enable a later ring operation. Despite this announcement, he voted in the city council to dismantle the tracks in Roßbacher Strasse, which earned him the displeasure of tram drivers and Naumburg citizens.

Two years later, the renewed route from Jägerplatz to the provisional main train station stop was put into operation, and at the end of 2005 a new main train station stop was set up in front of the Hotel Kaiserhof.

Resumption and securing of regular operation

In 2006 the tram ran for the first time every weekend from Easter to October; daily traffic was resumed on March 31, 2007. The operation is marketed under the name Naumburger TourismusBahn. It runs from Monday to Friday from 5.37 a.m. to 8.44 p.m. and on the weekend from 8.37 a.m. to 8.44 p.m. every half hour between the main train station and Salztor. For events in and around Naumburg, the timetable is partially extended until late at night to enable guests arriving by train to connect from the main train station to the city center. In addition, special trips can be booked in addition to the daily timetable.

Since the city bus network includes lines 1 to 3, the tram was given line number 4, which it had at times before the city bus system started. In 2007 the Naumburg tram celebrated the 100th anniversary of its electrification and its own 115th anniversary. With the start of daily operations, the price for a one-way trip rose from EUR 1 to EUR 1.50 (reduced EUR 1.00). However, four-trip tickets are also available for EUR 4.40 (reduced EUR 3.00), and a day ticket for EUR 4.00 (reduced EUR 3.00) is available, which is valid in both the tram and city buses . There are also season tickets (weekly tickets, monthly tickets and half-yearly tickets).

At the end of 2008, the redesign of the Theaterplatz stop began, which will be converted into a “rendezvous stop” for trams and buses. The track construction work was completed in December 2008. The design of the stop and the adjacent square began on June 22, 2009.

After more than 73,400 passengers used the tram in regular service between March 2007 and March 2008 , daily operations were extended. On average, the tram carried over 200 people per operating day. From the end of 2009, the railroad ran within a model test financially supported by the state of Saxony-Anhalt after the number of customers had risen to over 120,000. However, the funding expired on April 30, 2010. Until then, the authorities involved had time to clarify the legal and financial requirements for continued operation. Otherwise, as in 1991, the line operation would have had to be given up. The state of Saxony-Anhalt also declared its willingness to contribute financially to the costs of the line operation, but with the proviso that the tram is integrated into the regular local public transport . This was rejected by the Burgenlandkreis as the provider of the local public transport it co-financed due to the additional costs it would then incur in the district council meeting on March 1, 2010. Negotiations continued behind the scenes, and Saxony-Anhalt's transport minister, Karl-Heinz Daehre , promised financial means for continued operation: the amendment of a state law on December 10, 2010 decided to subsidize the Naumburg tram as part of local public transport with state funds. Thus, for the first time since the de facto shutdown in 1991, an unlimited financially secure operation is possible again.

Further expansion (from 2014)

On November 11, 2014, construction work officially began with a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the extension from the bird meadow to the Salztor. Sleepers were replaced and the track bed renewed for the approximately 440-meter-long route. The construction work was financed by donations, by 2014 over 100,000 euros had been raised. The groundbreaking ceremony for the reconstruction took place on August 24, 2017. The tracks were completely re-laid over 140 meters and the existing rails replaced or repaired on the remaining 290 meters. Scheduled traffic to the Salztor began on December 1, 2017.

On September 14, 2018, the new Hauptbahnhof tram stop was opened on Aachener Platz. The state sponsored the redesign of the station forecourt with 324,000 euros.

In 2016 the Naumburg tram counted 134,000 passengers. In a press release by the Naumburg tram on January 11, 2019, a new record for passenger numbers was set for 2018. The total number rose to 181,000 passengers, 178,600 of them in regular traffic. This corresponds to 489 passengers per day.

route

The route, which is still in operation today, runs from the main train station to the northwest corner of the historic old town, circles it along the former wall ring to the north and east and ends at its southwest corner. The central tourist attractions of the city market, old town and cathedral are thus bypassed. This is a disadvantage of the network structure.

The route length is currently around 2.9 kilometers, the entire ring was around 5.4 kilometers long. Currently, a little more than half of the former ring line is in operation with the section Hauptbahnhof - Salztor . On part of the former outer ring between the former Salztor and Moritzplatz stops, the tracks are still preserved under the asphalt pavement of the streets. Between Moritzplatz and Markgrafenweg, the sideways tracks were removed as part of the road renovation. During the renovation of the main station forecourt, the double-track stop was initially removed and relocated to the neighboring “Hotel Kaiserhof”. In 2018 a new single-track stop was built in front of the station.

The abandoned inner ring section through the city center via Postring, Lindenring, Herrenstrasse, Markt, Jakobstrasse to Theaterplatz (today Curt-Becker-Platz), which was used until April 1976, is barely visible. Only track remains are preserved, including on the Postring and on the market. In the course of road construction work between Michaelisstrasse and Moritzplatz in 2007/2008, everything here has also been dismantled and no replacement is planned when the roads are redesigned. Thus, the remaining tracks end under the bitumen cover at Othmarsfriedhof.

A review by the traffic authorities in the years 2003 to 2006 showed that the existing and decommissioned tracks from the time before 1990 no longer comply with the current safety guidelines and would have to be replaced.

vehicles

Depot and administration building of the Naumburg tram

In the first half of the 1950s Naumburg received two brand-new tram cars from VEB Lowa Waggonbau Werdau . This type of LOWA ET50 , the first standard tram car of the GDR, did not prove itself in Naumburg. Therefore, in 1956/57 eight older cars were taken over by the Leipzig tram , which had previously been rebuilt and modernized in the Gotha wagon factory . From 1980 the fleet was renewed again with used vehicles from the Plauen tram and the Nordhausen tram . After a large variety of vehicles was already available in GDR times, this collection was further completed after the association took over the tram. Today almost all types are available that were produced in the GDR for trams with a gauge of 1000 millimeters. In addition, there is a horse-drawn tram from the manufacturer SIG from 1894 and a freight cart from Gottfried Lindner AG built in 1929 .

Some of the vehicles maintained and restored by the association in Naumburg are now running as historic trams in Frankfurt (Oder) , Jena and Chemnitz . For financial reasons, some vehicles had to be scrapped or sold to private customers after 1991. For example, the former railcar 25 has been back as a museum railcar in Stassfurt since June 2010 and the body of the former sidecar 13 (most recently as 007 ) as a bar car in the discotheque on Kroppentalstrasse in Naumburg. From 1996 to 2002 the Swiss standard car number 582, which was taken over from Switzerland by the Neuchâtel tram, was in Naumburg, and today it is on the open-air site of a model railway exhibition in Wiehe . The railcar Tw18, built in 1956 by VEB Waggonbau Gotha, was handed over to the Halle Tram Museum in Halle (Saale) (there Tw15).

Railcar
image	number	Manufacturer	Type	Construction year	In Naumburg since	comment
	17th	Lindner		1928	1978	in use as a museum car since December 24, 2016 after rebuilding
	23	LOWA / LEW	ET54	1956	December 29, 1981	inoperable
	29	LOWA / LEW	ET54	1955	April 23, 2004	previously work car 29, since August 20, 2010 museum car
	36	Gotha / LEW	T57	1961	November 18, 2002	suspended since 2010 due to expiry of the deadline
	37	Gotha / LEW	T57	1959	February 21, 2003	In operation
	38	Gotha / LEW	T57	1960	February 20, 2003	In operation
	50	Raw Sw / LEW	TZ 70/1	1971	2000	In operation
	51	Raw Sw / LEW	TZ 70/1	1973	2001	In operation
	202	Gotha / LEW	G4-65	1965	1999	not operational as a one-way vehicle currently not usable
sidecar
image	number	Manufacturer	Type	Construction year	In Naumburg since	Status
	1	LOWA / LEW	EB 50	1951	1985	In restoration
	14th	Gotha	B 57	1959	January 10, 2003	canceled due to expiry of the deadline
	19th	Raw Sw / LEW	BZ70 / 1	1972	2001	In operation

literature

• Reiner Bimmermann, Andreas Plehn, Henning Wall: Naumburg and his tram , 2nd edition, Schweers + Wall publishing house, Aachen 1995, ISBN 3921679761 .
• Nahverkehrfreunde Naumburg-Jena eV (Hrsg.): The ring tram in Naumburg. From the "Wild Zicke" to the "Ille". 1st edition. Verlag Dirk Endisch, Leonberg-Höfingen 2003, ISBN 3-936893-09-8 .
• Nahverkehrsfreunde Naumburg-Jena eV (Ed.): 100 Years of Electricity through Naumburg , 1st edition, self-published 2007, without ISBN.
• Joachim Warth: 90 years of Naumburg trams , 1st edition, VEB Kraftverkehr Zeitz / Druckerei Schmidt 1982, without ISBN.
• Sylvia Pachutzki: Wilde Zicke - Die Naumburger Straßenbahn , DVD, tram-tv publisher, ISBN 978-3-9813669-8-3 .

Broadcast reports

• Katharina Schröder and Janett Eger : ( page no longer available , search in web archives: old-timers tram in Naumburg require a lot of inventive talent ), MDR - Simply brilliant from February 20, 2018 ( page no longer available , search in web archives: (YouTube) )

Web links

Commons : Naumburger Straßenbahnen  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Website of the Naumburger Straßenbahn GmbH
• Website of Nahverkehrsfreunde Naumburg-Jena eV
• Route map with all stops in Google Maps
• ditto in gleisplanweb.de
• ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: historical and current pictures of the Naumburg tram )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Timetable line 4. In: Website of Naumburger Straßenbahn GmbH. Archived from the original on July 2, 2007 ; Retrieved November 12, 2014 . 
2. ^ Albrecht Günther: Land supports until October. (PDF; 22 kB) Naumburg tram: Up to now 73,400 passengers have been transported in daily operation. In: Naumburger Tageblatt. April 2, 2008, accessed November 12, 2014 . 
3. ↑ «Zicke» escapes the siding. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . December 29, 2009, accessed November 12, 2014 . 
4. ^ Albrecht Günther: Land confirms aid for trams. (PDF; 27 kB) In: Naumburger Tageblatt. March 3, 2010, accessed November 12, 2014 . 
5. ↑ Naumburger “Zicke” can continue. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . December 10, 2010, accessed November 12, 2014 . 
6. ↑ "Wilde Zicke" gets tracks back. (No longer available online.) In: Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk . February 15, 2014, archived from the original on November 11, 2014 ; Retrieved November 12, 2014 . 
7. ↑ 494,000 euros in funding for the Naumburg tram. Press release no .: 104/2018. Ministry of State Development and Transport, September 14, 2018, accessed November 9, 2018 . 
8. ^ Kai Michael Neuhold: With the Naumburg tram directly to the station forecourt. In: blogspot.com. September 14, 2018, accessed November 9, 2018 . 
9. ^ Albrecht Günther: Local transport: In future to the train station. In: naumburger-tageblatt.de. September 13, 2018, accessed June 6, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Daniel Wrüske: Great comeback for railcar. In: Volksstimme . June 16, 2010, accessed November 14, 2014 . 
11. ^ Naumburger Straßenbahn GmbH car park list. In: website of tram-info. Retrieved June 10, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Our current project: Project 1. In: ringbahn-naumburg.de. Retrieved June 6, 2019 . 

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 14, 2007 .