Pforzheim tram

Pforzheim tram
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	600 volts  =
Legend Gasworks graveyard railway station Leopoldplatz Sand road Car hall Copper hammer Brötzingen Eisenbahnstrasse Brötzingen Eisenbahnstrasse Brötzingen small train station Small train to Ittersbach Dillweißstein paper mill

The Pforzheim tram was the tram operator of the city of Pforzheim . It existed from 1911 to 1964. The transport company in charge was initially the Pforzheim municipal tram , which on January 1, 1939 again became part of the Pforzheim municipal utilities (SWP). The 1968 disused Pforzheimer Kleinbahn after Ittersbach and the existing 1951-1969 trolleybus Pforzheim belonged to the same company. The company Stadtverkehr Pforzheim (SVP) is responsible for bus transport until 2016 , and SüdwestBus from 2017 .

history

At the beginning of the 20th century , the Baden city of Pforzheim had grown into a prosperous industrial city, in which gold, silver and jewelry production predominated. The expansion of the urban area with almost 70,000 inhabitants made the establishment of public transport connections necessary. This is how the local railway in the direction of Ittersbach was created, later referred to as the Kleinbahn, and later the tram, which was electrically operated from the start.

On January 2, 1900, the Badische Lokal-Eisenbahnen AG (BLEAG) opened a meter-gauge branch line that reached the state capital of Karlsruhe from Pforzheim's neighboring town of Brötzingen via the Busenbach – Ittersbach railway and the Alb Valley Railway . From July 2, 1901, the terminus of the local train was Leopoldplatz in the city center. Right from the start, the local trains ran between Brötzingen and Leopoldplatz like a tram on grooved rails .

Even before the municipal tram opened its own tram lines, BLEAG handed over the Brötzingen – Leopoldplatz section to the city. From October 3, 1911, an electric locomotive took over the trains going to the city center in Brötzingen. On December 1, 1911, the city tram lines A (Gaswerk – Leopoldplatz – Brötzingen) and B ( Bahnhof –Leopoldplatz – Kallhardtanlage) were finally put into operation.

In 1914 the network was 6.25 kilometers long and was used by 26 railcars and 30 sidecars ; there were also three electric locomotives available. An extension of the tram had to be avoided because of the First World War and its consequences. The main cemetery in the north of the city was not connected until August 1, 1926, and the line to Dillweißstein in the south opened on February 6, 1927 , which branched off at the market square and largely followed the course of the Nagold .

The network had now almost doubled to a length of 12.3 kilometers and was used by three lines:

• 1 Gasworks – Marktplatz – Leopoldplatz – Brötzingen
• 2 Main cemetery – train station – Leopoldplatz – Kallhardtbrücke – Kupferhammer
• 3 Leopoldplatz – Marktplatz – Kupferhammer – Dillweißstein

The statistics for 1939 show 33 railcars and 24 sidecars; In 1951 there were still 20 railcars and 23 sidecars.

Although the tram suffered severe damage in the Second World War , operations were gradually resumed from 1945 onwards, but the tracks and vehicles were not completely renovated. Rather, the city planned to gradually switch to trolleybuses . In 1951, the route from the main train station to the cemetery was the first to be converted, followed in 1953 by the Leopoldplatz – Hauptbahnhof section - where trams and trolleybuses ran parallel to each other for two years - and the Dillweissenstein route. In 1963, the municipal utilities shut down the branch to the gas works, and buses operated here from then on.

October 10, 1964 was the last day of operation of the Pforzheim tram. Most recently, only a residual operation was maintained on Line 1. In the end, it served the 2.7 kilometer section between Leopoldplatz and Brötzingen, which was then used by the tram-like vehicles of the Kleinbahn until 1968. This section on Westliche Karl-Friedrich-Strasse was also where the depot , commonly known as the Wagenhalle, was used together with the small railroad and trolleybuses .

literature

• Dieter Höltge: German trams and light rail vehicles , Volume 2: Northern Baden-Württemberg, Gifhorn 1979, ISBN 3-921237-45-9
• Kurt Schwab: Tram and small train in Pforzheim, Nordhorn 1997, ISBN 3-927587-64-8
• Gerd Wolff and Hans-Dieter Menges: Deutsche Klein- und Privatbahnen, Volume 2: Baden, Freiburg 1992, ISBN 3-88255-653-6

Web links

• Historical local traffic Pforzheim e. V.
• Pforzheim tram in the Pforzheim-Enz-Wiki