Rubble Railway Freiburg
| Rubble Railway Freiburg | |
|---|---|
 Map of the Freiburg rubble railway
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| Route length: | 2.6 km |
| Gauge : | 600 mm ( narrow gauge ) |
The Freiburger debris path , also called Trümmerexpreß , Schuttexpreß , debris removal belt or gravel track , was one for the transport of debris from when the air raid on November 27, 1944 , built especially hit areas Feldbahn the Association Freiburg construction firms (ARGE). The 600 mm track , 2.6 km long, was put into operation on February 12, 1947 and led from Albertstraße (Institutsviertel) via Mathildenstraße, Barbarastraße, Robert-Koch-Straße and Breisacher Straße to the Flückiger gravel works the Grenzstraße ( Mooswald district ). Five steam locomotives, four diesel locomotives and 146 dump trucks or lorries were available for operation. In addition to the municipal rubble railway, there were several privately-built connecting lines. In mid-1949 the rubble railway was given up in favor of a truck operation and then dismantled.
history
prehistory
After the air raid on Freiburg on November 27, 1944, the streets were completely buried for 24 kilometers. The compact amount of rubble was around 520,000 m³, in loose form the volume was given as one million cubic meters. The priority given by the French military government was to clear the roads. A systematic removal of debris in the area failed because of the vehicles and labor required. To make matters worse, the rubble was usually not removed or recycled, but only sunk in the cellar.
In December, the incumbent Lord Mayor Hoffmann turned to the civil engineering office to end this situation as quickly as possible and to move on to an orderly, more efficient rubble removal.
“Given the lack of suitable transport vehicles, this primarily requires the use of transport tracks. I therefore ask you to immediately ensure that sufficient field railways (tracks and wagons) are procured and to report to me [...] regularly. "
Planning and obtaining various offers
Hoffmann suggested for the fastest possible establishment of such a transport path before, the tracks of 3-4 km of standard gauge track from freight station Freiburg-South on the Opfinger Str. To the nursery when spillage that of the last few months of the war it possible to link ammunition depots had been erected, to be dismantled and made safe. However, this project failed because of the French administration office "Détachement d`occupation Societé Nationale des Chemins de Fer", Wilhelmstrasse 19, which justified the planned dismantling and the subsequent transport of the material to France by stating that these rails were of French origin .
“It is not possible for us to give you permission to use the track, even temporarily. We have just received instructions to dismantle the track [...] and to transport the building materials to France. The dismantling work will be started immediately. "
On December 11, 1945, a decree initiated by the Civil Engineering Office on “Devices and Machines to be Notified” came into force. Five Freiburg companies then transmitted their inventory of light rail tracks, switches, crossings, turntables and carts.
| company | Light rail tracks (in m) | Switches, pcs. | Intersections | Turntables | Lorries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armbruster & G. | 1070 | 8th | - | - | 25th |
| Baden construction company | 1500 | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| FX Sichler & Co | 285 | - | - | - | 8th |
| G. Olbricht | 700 | - | - | - | 35 |
| Max Kühlsheimer | - | - | - | - | 4th |
| Nickel & Seditz | - | - | - | - | 16 |
| 600mm total | 3555 | 8th | 1 | - | 89 |
The companies mentioned above should be obliged to provide these devices for the usual rental of the city. The building department noted that there were enough tracks, but “disproportionately few switches, crossings and turntables ”. Since the civil engineering department's own ownership did not meet the requirements either, the search increasingly concentrated on attracting foreign companies. For example, an offer was received from FC Glaser & R. Pflaum, Berlin, to provide field railway equipment from Friedrich Krupp on loan . R. Harderer, Hoch-Tiefbau, Kehl also agreed to conclude a rubble removal contract. This would have included 2–3 diesel excavators, 3 160 or 200 hp steam locomotives from the manufacturer O. u. K. and Henschel , 30–40 box tipper trucks with a capacity of 3.5 m³ and 4 m³ as well as 5-7 km of track with a gauge of 900 mm and the associated points.
The contract for the removal of rubble was finally awarded on August 8, 1946 to the company Dyckerhoff & Widmann (Dywidag) , Karlsruhe. Freiburg received light rail equipment previously used at the Balingen oil shale works. The as Operation Desert designated and primarily performed by concentration camp internees degradation of oil shale on the edge of the Swabian Alb to use for the urgently needed fuel was inspected during the July 1944 by Albert Speer arranged Geilenberg program carried out. Despite the agreement of the military government, the machinery in Dotternhausen, Württemberg , could only be transferred to Freiburg after lengthy negotiations. Other devices for debris removal were supplied by the Bährle company, Offenburg .
The debris removal, which had previously been carried out independently by the civil engineering department, was transferred to the privately operating Arbeitsgemeinschaft Freiburger Baubetriebe (ARGE) in mid-September 1947 . For this, the ARGE received remuneration from the city of RM 0.65 for each m³ of rubble removed.
Establishment
An inspection of the planned route with a view to the feasibility of the project took place at the end of September 1946 by the municipal construction management. Political prisoners began laying the tracks on November 13, 1946 . For this purpose, the internees who were entitled to the reconstruction were increased to 170 men. A total of five kilometers of narrow-gauge tracks (600 mm) were available for construction. The first locomotives also arrived in November 1946. At the beginning of January 1947 the tracks from Grenzstraße were already up to Bismarckstraße. Of the 4,000 ordered and urgently needed wooden sleepers, however, only 1,000 had arrived by this time, and the Richtberg company, Neuenburg am Rhein, was to deliver 1,000 more in advance.
Commissioning - 1947
The rubble railway was officially opened on February 14, 1947. Eight lorries laden with rubble, pulled by “a steaming and shrill whistling locomotive”, began their maiden voyage from Albertstrasse to the Flückiger gravel works. On the occasion of this event, Lord Mayor Hoffmann insisted on riding the machine himself. A special fir-decorated car was made available for the gentlemen of the French administration and the press.
"Everyone had the feeling that something very important was happening in the rebuilding of the city of Freiburg, that it was literally going full steam ahead."
A total of 9 locomotives from various manufacturers were kept for operation, including five steam locomotives and four diesel locomotives from the Gmeinder and Kälble factories . The power of the steam-powered machines was 50 HP in contrast to 25 HP of the diesel locomotives, but the latter was cheaper in terms of operating costs. 146 lorries and dump trucks of different capacities (30 dump trucks 3/4 m³, 36 dump trucks 2 m³, 30 lorries 1.5 m³ and 50 wooden dump trucks 2 m³) ensured the daily removal of 150 m³ debris. At the end of 1947 this amount was increased to 400–500 m³ per day.
The debris clearing began in the institute quarter in order to expose a sewer system and to be able to realize the planned sand extraction system on Rheinstrasse. The Flückigersee , created by gravel mining in the 1920s, was filled with around half of the rubble carried away by the light railroad , while the other half was used for rubble recycling. The available 300 workers were not yet sufficient for the possible maximum daily output of 20 trains per day.
A locomotive operation for six trains comprised the following items (excluding overtime, data refer to 1948).
| activity | number | Working time (totaled) | Hourly wages | Cost / day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Train driver | 9 | 72 h | 1.10 DM | 79.20 DM |
| Stoker / passenger | 9 | 72 h | 1, - DM | 72 DM |
| Workers in the gravel pit | 147.16 DM | |||
| Track maintenance | 6th | 48 h | 0.88 DM | 1, - DM |
| Workshop | 86 DM | |||
| Welder column | 34.10 DM | |||
| Gatekeeper | 8th | 64 h | 0.88 DM | 56.40 DM |
Private connecting railways and connection to the sorting plant - 1948
In the following year, the route was extended over Hebelstrasse and Friedrichstrasse to Fahnenbergplatz. A previously planned continuation to Kaiser-Joseph Straße , however, was not implemented - among other things because of the resumption of tram operation, which would have required a second crossing at the same level.
Private companies also recognized the advantages of transporting the rubble away by rail. From the beginning of March to the beginning of May 1948, for example, there was a connecting line to the Badische Landesstrafanstalt on Johanniterstraße (today: Hermann-Herder Straße), which established the connection to the municipal rubble railway in Albertstraße via Katharinenstraße. However, this route did not necessarily meet with approval from the civil engineering department. It was found that, in particular, the prior approval of the municipal civil engineering office (city administration) as the carrier of the road construction work and the police department as the responsible public transport authority should have been obtained. Attention was also drawn to the fact that the prison administration would assume liability for accidents and damage caused by this light railway, to lay the light railway for traffic reasons "with good building rubble, if necessary by the civil engineering department at [its] expense with soaked gravel and stone chippings" and when crossing at right angles to the road or direction of travel, it is to be compensated to about 3 m. A monitoring and maintenance service must also be set up. Because of the traffic regulations (setting up the necessary traffic signs) one should contact the police department. After completion of the construction work, the light rail system must be removed immediately. Other private connecting railways led from Albertstraße via Sautierstraße to Herder-Verlag (May - September 1948) and from Breisacher Straße to Kilianstraße to the Scholz cement works (July 1948).
In mid-1948, the city's civil engineering department suggested the installation of grooved rails instead of the previously used vignole rails at the busy crossings such as Albertstrasse, Hohenzollernplatz and Breisacher Strasse , "since the rubble was likely to be in place for a decade or more" . This enables better maintenance of the track zones and the road vehicles are less exposed to vibrations. At the same time, the poor condition of the level crossings in Friedrichstrasse and Hebelstrasse was criticized. The track laid with the road pavement (small pavement) in Friedrichstrasse adjacent to Hebelstrasse and up to Fahnenbergplatz is particularly dangerous for motorists and pedestrians, as “the rubble track zone has considerable holes”. In August 1948, a sorting and recycling plant was put into operation on the fallow area north of Breisacher Strasse between Kilianstrasse and Robert-Koch-Strasse at the city's expense. Due to the lack of wooden sleepers for the track construction within the facility, an order was issued for the delivery of 150 solid meters of felled round timber from the Schluchsee / Neustadt area to the Richtberg sleeper works in Neuchâtel am Rhein. This was justified by the fact that "a connection [of the rubble railway] to this workplace must be made." In total, the Richtberg company delivered over 1,500 wooden sleepers from the end of 1946 to mid-1948. The sorting and recycling plant was able to collect and process 300 cubic meters of rubble a day, a quantity that could be easily brought in using two excavators and a rubble track. The debris was sifted out of the rubble and the raid was then sorted out by hand using a treadmill according to bricks , brick quarries and rubble stones. However, due to unprofitable the plant was shut down again in the winter of 1948/49.
By the end of 1948, 20% of the debris had been cleared, half of it in 1948 alone.
Cessation of operations and relocation to truck operations - 1949
The currency reform of 1948 had a strong impact on the rubble removal, as enough vehicles had been available for this work since then. A new contract came into force with the ARGE at the beginning of 1949, which provided for a changeover from fixed to performance prices.
“Furthermore, we had to move from clearing the area to moving rubble removal, ie removing rubble where construction is possible wherever possible. [...] This required a transition from light rail to truck operation. "
The previous operation with excavators and transport tracks enabled the removal of 2900 m³ of rubble at an average price of 13.50 DM / m³, i.e. for approx. 39,150.00 DM / month. On the other hand, the variant with truck operation had become more economically sensible, which enabled the removal of a significantly larger amount of rubble at the same price of 4000 m³ (DM 9.80 / m³). The resulting layoffs were sharply criticized by the unions . Since half of those dismissed are under 26 years of age, this “dismissal measure, which is devoid of any social responsibility, is of particularly extreme importance”. The reconstruction office replied that "according to information from the employment office, the men would all be housed again" and justified these measures with the effects of the change from a cost reimbursement contract to a service contract . As a result of this changeover, the consortium “is now forced to calculate and to limit the general costs previously imposed on the city.”
The rails of the rubble railway were finally dismantled in August 1949.
swell
- File C5 / 3132 (1945–1948), Building Department
- File C5 / 3133 (1948–1951), Building Department
- File D. Ti. 2.10, Civil Engineering Office 616-00-1 Rubble Removal Issue 1 (1945–1948)
- Act 611-10-2 (1945-1948: Reconstruction of the city of Freiburg), Städt. Headquarters
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The first trip of the rubble express , Badische Zeitung , February 14, 1947, In: D. Ti. 2.10 Tiefbauamt 616-00-1 Rubble removal, booklet 1 1945–1948, Freiburg im Breisgau city archive.
- ^ Letter from the civil engineering office to Schiele & Schild, end of 1945, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ↑ Quotation from the letter of Mayor Hoffmann to the civil engineering office of December 7, 1945, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ^ Answer of the French administrative office of January 12, 1946, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ^ Letter to five Freiburg companies, December 11th. 1945, In: D. Ti.2.10.
- ^ Letter to the companies of January 25, 1946, In: D. Ti. 2.10
- ^ Letter from Lord Mayor Hoffmann to Commandant Montreux, June 17, 1946, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ^ Letter to Dyckerhoff & Widmann, August 8, 1946, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ↑ Memorandum on equipment status and outlook, February 10, 1947, In: C5 / 3132.
- ↑ a b WAB, Dept. of rubble removal: “Brief report on equipment inventory”, January 3, 1947, In: C5 / 3132.
- ^ Letter from the Civil Engineering Office, September 16, 1946, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ↑ "The small train for the rubble" ,? Newspaper, November 22, 1946, In: C5 / 3132.
- ^ Letter from the Civil Engineering Office, September 16, 1946, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ↑ The Schuttexpreß drives , southwest German People's Daily, February 15, 1947 In: C5 / 3,132th
- ↑ Fuel consumption of the locomotives, cost overview ARGE, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ^ Letter from the rubble removal department to ARGE dated November 14, 1947, In: C5 / 3132.
- ↑ ARGE costs, In: D. Ti.2.10.
- ^ Vetter, Walter: Freiburg in Trümmern 1944-1952 , Freiburg 1983, p. 12.
- ^ Letter to the prison administration in Freiburg i. Br., Johanniterstraße, March 16, 1948, In: D. Ti.2.10.
- ^ Civil engineering office: Feldbahnanlagen in Verkehrsstraßen, April 14, 1948, In: D. Ti. 2.10.
- ↑ Disposal of logs taken from Schluchsee / Neustadt, July 3, 1948, In: C5 / 3133 (1948–1951), Building Department, Freiburg im Breisgau city archive.
- ^ WAB, August 6, 1948, In: C5 / 3133.
- ↑ Article in the Südwestdeutsche Volkszeitung No. 64, August 6, 1948, In: Städt. Headquarters File 611-10-2 (1945-1948): Reconstruction of the city of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau city archive.
- ^ WAB, January 5, 1949, In: C5 / 3133.
- ^ Conclusion of a new contract with the ARGE for clearing the city of Freiburg, September 1, 1948, In: C5 / 3133.
- ↑ Excerpt from “Our Day”, Volume 3, No. 110 of December 11, 1948: Union youth and reconstruction; In: C5 / 3133
- ^ WAB position paper on the article "Union Youth and Reconstruction", In: C5 / 3133.
- ↑ The People, No. 49, August 13, 1949, In: C5 / 3133.