Tollwitz-Dürrenberger Railway

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The Tollwitz-Dürrenberger Eisenbahn was a coal railway from Tollwitz to Bad Dürrenberg and was opened on September 15, 1836. It had a track width of 585 mm and was used to transport lignite to feed the boiling furnaces of the Dürrenberg salt works , but also to remove the ashes. It was the first railway in what was then the Prussian province of Saxony.

The Tollwitz-Dürrenberger Railway achieved national fame through its sometimes spectacular engineering structures, such as the first, by today's standards 177 meter long tunnel at the entrance to the saltworks area, at that time known as the "underground arched path". At the deepest point, the tunnel was 5 meters below the surface of the earth. This tunnel was the very first German railway tunnel . There was also a brick arch bridge about 150 meters long . This viaduct spanned Salinestrasse and led the way to Ascheplatz.

Until 1906, the company was exclusively run with horses. Only when the saltworks opened its own power station, powered by the water power of the Saale , was it switched to operation with locomotives. Thanks to the company's own power station, the railway could now also be supplied with electricity. An overhead contact line was built to feed electric locomotives with 500  V direct current . Due to the low clearance profile, however, the route through the tunnel was not provided with overhead lines; a diesel and a battery locomotive served as operating equipment. An above-ground route to the salt works was set up.

The last day of operation of the entire line was August 1, 1935. From this point in time the coal railway ran until 1963 within the saltworks area, which in 1938 was partially provided with an electrical overhead line.

In memory of this train and on the occasion of 180 years of the Tollwitz - Bad Dürrenberg coal railway on September 15, 2016 , there was an exclusive special postmark from Deutsche Post. For this purpose, an envelope was also placed with a motif from the Bad Dürrenberg saltworks as an additional print.

Traction vehicles:

  • Deutz FNo. 6281/1922, type ML132 R, B, 1435 mm; December 29, 1922 delivered to Staatl. Salzamt, Dürrenberg
  • AK FNr. ? / 1906, B-el, 585 mm; newly delivered to the Royal Salt Office Dürrenberg, Tollwitz-Saline Dürrenberg mine
  • AK FNr. ? / 1906, B-el, 585 mm; newly delivered to the Royal Salt Office Dürrenberg, Tollwitz-Saline Dürrenberg mine
  • BMAG FNr. 7318/1921 {MSW 95}, type mech. Part, B'B'-el, 585 mm; newly delivered to Salzamt Dürrenberg
  • Deutz FNo. 6359/1923, type ML122 F, B, 585 mm; 01/12/1923 delivered to Staatl. Salzamt, Dürrenberg

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Line 96306: Coal Railway Tunnel. In: eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de. 2011, accessed May 11, 2013 .
  2. ^ Dürrenberger Eisenbahn , in: Polytechnisches Zentralblatt, 3rd year (1837), pp. 299-300, digitized version
  3. ^ David Falk: The coal railway Tollwitz – Bad Dürrenberg 1836–1935 (1963) Great story of a small railway. Eisenbahnfreunde Kötzschau eV (Ed.), 2013.
  4. souvenirs. In: eisenbahnfreunde-koetzschau.com. Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
  5. Jens Merte: Coal Railway Dürrenberg-Tollwitz In: Magazin für Werkbahnfreunde , accessed on October 25, 2017.