Zittau tram

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The Zittau tram was the tram network of the city of Zittau , which existed between 1904 and 1919 and was served by three lines . The railway was operated by the city as the Zittau municipal tram .

prehistory

The first considerations for building a tram in Zittau go back to 1895. In a letter dated June 21, 1895, an engineer from Trachau near Dresden offered a tram with a gas engine drive. This should be single-track in standard gauge and include four lines exclusively for passenger traffic and three combined passenger / freight lines. Technical as well as economic concerns ultimately led to the failure of the project in the spring of 1897.

In the following year and a half, a total of eight offers were received from companies, some of them well-known, who wanted to build an electric tram in Zittau. On May 14, 1898, the city council approved the construction of a tram in principle and commissioned the city to obtain specific offers. The Continentale Society for Electrical Enterprises from Nuremberg, a subsidiary of Elektrizitäts-AG formerly Schuckert & Co. , was finally awarded the contract.

On September 17, 1898, a contract was signed between the city of Zittau and the Continentale , which provided for the construction of four meter-gauge lines , single-track with switches and above-ground power supply. Bureaucratic hurdles prevented the rapid start of construction. When, at the beginning of 1900, the Saxon ministries were ready to grant the concession to build and operate a tram in Zittau, the Continentale refused. Even intensive efforts by the city and submissions from Zittau entrepreneurs did not change this situation. On November 14, 1900, the Continentale returned the concession to the state. The real reason for this is probably not the unacceptable concession, but rather the changed economic framework.

Exhibition track 1902

Exhibition track (official postcard no.7)

In 1902, as part of the Upper Lusatian trade and industrial exhibition in Zittau on the line Haberkornplatz (Hotel "Reichshof") - Augustusallee (today Theaterring) - Frauenthorstraße (today Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße) - Görlitzer Straße - Lutherplatz - Bismarckallee (today Weinauallee) to the main gate of the exhibition at Weinaupark operated a temporary exhibition train. To this end, in June 1901, a transport committee was formed as one of nine committees in preparation for the exhibition, whose tasks included “ensuring a cheap and cheap connection between the exhibition and the train station”.

Initially, the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft ( AEG ) in Berlin was asked whether they wanted to build a tram, but this was rejected due to the lack of an electrical works. The construction of a steam tram was also considered, but there were numerous objections because of the expected nuisance from the exhaust steam. Finally, the Zittau contractor Hennig made the offer to build an electric tram for his own account.

On May 13, 1902, the city council passed the resolution that Hennig could build the railway and operate it for 100 days. As early as May 24th, the Saxon Ministry of the Interior gave permission to build and operate a temporary electric tram in Zittau . This also included the requirement to restore the previous state after the approved operating time had expired. Construction began on June 2nd, but could not be completed at the beginning of the exhibition - the test drive on the approximately 1.9 km long route was not carried out until June 28th. They drove every quarter of an hour from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., every ten minutes during the day if necessary. The fare was 15 pfennigs. On the last day of the exhibition at 6:00 p.m., operations were stopped and the railway was then dismantled. A total of 270,979 passengers were carried during the 86 days of operation.

From a technical point of view, the following aspects are noteworthy:
The train ran on tracks with a gauge of 1450 mm, which resulted from the fact that entrepreneur Hennig lent some tracks from the Deutsche Straßenbahn Gesellschaft Dresden , which had used them in 1900 for an exhibition track for federal shooting in the Ostragehege . The vehicles used had huge, two-tonne accumulators that could be charged at the terminal stops and made it possible to drive part of the route without overhead lines. This was initially practiced on the section Haberkornplatz (Hotel “Reichshof”) - Frauenthorstraße (corner of Komturstraße), but it did not prove itself due to the inclines to be overcome. A continuous contact line was therefore installed in the second half of July, after which the heavy batteries were removed. Power was supplied by a generator operated by a steam engine. Since both machines were part of the exhibition, their installation and operation must have been financed by the exhibiting companies.

Urban tram 1904 to 1919

The depot around 1910

planning

After the largely successful exhibition tram project , the time was ripe for a permanent tram. On March 18, 1903, the city council decided to build a power station to power the city and a tram. The decision was extremely tight, five city councilors only wanted to build the power station, six voted for the tram to be built at the same time. On April 17, the city ​​council also approved the project, after a heated debate, but ultimately unanimously.

So the invitation to tender could be started, with which one turned to the companies that had already submitted the most serious offers in 1898, namely:

On September 30, 1903, a special committee examined the offers for the construction of a power station and two meter-gauge tram lines on behalf of the city :

  • Train station - market - Grottauer Strasse
  • Outer Weberstrasse - Markt - Frauenthorstrasse - Poritzscher Strasse

including a cost and profitability calculation. On November 23, the offers were compared in the presence of three of the four companies. Because of the numerous details, the committee was unable to make a decision immediately. After obtaining an external appraisal and intensive discussions, the decision was finally made on January 19, 1904 to split the contract. The power plant was to be built by Siemens-Schuckertwerke, the pipeline network and the tram by AEG. The city council confirmed the decisions three days later.

Construction and operation

Construction began on April 10th and the first 700 meters were completed by April 17th. Initially, two lines were planned. The white line was to lead from the train station via Bahnhofstrasse, Bautzner Strasse, Marktplatz and Rathausplatz, Reichenberger Strasse, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz and Königsplatz to Äußere Grottauer Strasse. For the red line, a guided tour was planned from the Äußere Weberstraße via the Innere Weberstraße, the Marktplatz and Rathausplatz, the Frauenstraße and the Frauentorstraße to the bridge of the Zittau-Reichenberger Eisenbahn in the Görlitzer Straße. The lines were completed on November 17th and operations began on December 14th, 1904.

On December 21, 1905, the third line was the blue line, from the train station via Bahnhofstrasse, Hospitalstrasse and Äußere Oybiner Strasse to the city limits of Olbersdorf. On June 10, 1909, the red line was extended by 1.1 kilometers to Weinau. The three routes had a total length of 9.1 kilometers. The direction indicators of the railcars of the individual lines were painted in the corresponding colors.

attitude

One disadvantage of the railway was that it was rarely used on weekdays, while it could hardly carry all passengers on weekends. After the timetable was thinned out due to the First World War and because after the war the higher wages demanded by the staff drove up the cost of tickets and therefore fewer and fewer passengers were using the train, the council decided on October 24, 1919 to shut down the tram. On November 17, 1919, the last tram went through Zittau. The last rails of the railway were only dismantled in the 1930s. Some catenary rosettes on the houses along the routes as well as the preserved vehicle hall on Friedensstrasse still bear witness to the fifteen-year history of the Zittau tram.

Plans in the GDR

According to plans from the mid-1980s, a new tram company should be built, which would have connected both Oybin and Jonsdorf. As vehicles, Tatra KT8 and T6 were thought of.

The following route was planned: Beginning at the station forecourt, it should follow the course of Arndtstrasse, at Schillerstrasse it should cross under the railway line to Reichenberg , then run parallel between Leipziger Strasse and the railway embankment to the south and swivel before the stop onto the embankment of the narrow-gauge railway that was to be closed . The railway was to follow this route to Zittau Vorstadt station and then bypass the open-cast mine in a large curve and drive back onto the planum of the narrow-gauge railway to Oybin / Jonsdorf via Eichgraben and Olbersdorf . Due to the turnaround and thus the end of lignite mining in the Olbersdorf opencast mine, the plans were no longer pursued.

literature

  • Mario Schatz, Karl-Heinz Stange: Trams in Zittau. Kenning publishing house, Nordhorn 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stadtarchiv Zittau, files: Abbot II 9, par. VI, Paragraph g, No. 6, Vol. 1, Subject 160/4