Breitenlee marshalling yard

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Breitenlee marshalling yard is an abandoned transport project of Austria-Hungary and the early First Republic . The area is located in the 22nd district of  Vienna, Donaustadt . Construction began in the First World War in 1916, but finally stopped in the post-war economic crisis around 1925. The marshalling yard would have been the largest train station in Europe at the time.

location

The station area encompasses the whole area north and east of Breitenlee , a small village on the northern border of Vienna, which was incorporated into Vienna in 1904/1905 and became part of the Floridsdorf district.

Building history

investment

Today's end of the railway line at Oleandergasse. Above: 1985, below: 2017

The Breitenlee marshalling yard traffic point was built between the Laaer Ostbahn , the Nordbahn and the Marchegger Ostbahn . The layout was around 4 km long and up to 500 m wide without exit tracks. In the final stage, the station should have 100 pairs of tracks next to each other; round locomotive sheds with a turntable, water station, workshops, boiler house, coal bunker were also planned .

Its north-western exit formed a loop to the northern line towards Floridsdorf and a second to the eastern line (there traffic point Breitenlee north branch ) towards Laa an der Thaya and to the northern line towards Gänserndorf . Its south-eastern exit formed a loop to the Marchegger branch in the direction of Stadlau and a double-track loop to the Marchegger branch in the direction of Marchegg (border with Slovakia ). The Breitenlee Südabzweigung traffic point was in the Gleisdreieck .

The feeder lines from the Leopoldau station (northern line), Süßenbrunn-Entsefung (Laaer Ostbahn) station and the double-track south branch from the Marchegger Ostbahn ( ) officially existed from December 1, 1916 (opening) to May 15, 1926 (cessation of operations). The single-track south branch from the Marchegger Ostbahn towards Stadlau ( ) station was opened on November 7, 1917 and closed on May 15, 1926. World iconWorld icon

Construction work

Breitenlee marshalling yard was planned from 1912-1914 by the kk Austrian State Railways  (kkStB.). However, construction could only begin some time after the outbreak of the First World War, after noticeable capacity bottlenecks in the railway systems in the Vienna area as a result of the transport movements at the beginning of the war had convinced the Austro-Hungarian military of the need to support the project. As a replacement for the missing civilian workforce, the construction companies commissioned by the state railways were assigned Serbian, Russian and Italian prisoners of war as forced laborers until 1918. From 1916, the commissioning of individual construction phases took place. During the First World War, the station was very important for the transport of troops and materials.

After 1918, construction work with civilian workers continued almost seamlessly, but was discontinued in 1922 as part of the state budget consolidation to combat inflation due to a lack of funds when about two thirds of the project had been completed. A few years later, the station was shut down as a marshalling yard because it could not be operated economically at the time - shortsighted - because of the unfinished track, boiler house, workshop and signal box systems and the reduced traffic flows to the north and east.

Further use

Before 1930, with the beginning of the global economic crisis , the dismantling of the existing track system for the extraction of rail and construction material was pushed ahead. In 1928, 38 homeless families of employees of the railway administration were housed in the area of ​​the former main service building. After 1945, the increasingly smaller track systems were practically only used to park excess rail vehicles and as sidings for some of the companies that had meanwhile moved to the area. Today (2017) there are track remains up to the level of Oleandergasse, only accessible from the Laaer Ostbahn. They only serve as operational sidings.

natural reserve

The entire area is owned by the ÖBB , and unauthorized entry was prohibited.

The former station area (90.31 hectares) is today the most important natural habitat (1999: urban wilderness area ), a cohesive complex of dry grass, shrubs and natural ponds, in Vienna between Bisamberg and Lobau . Is growing here endangered in Austria and some endangered species such as the late bitterling ( Blackstonia acuminata ), the sparrow's tongue ( Thymelaea passerina ), which has its largest occurrence here in Vienna, the field black cumin ( Nigella arvensis ), the salt centaury ( Centaurium littorale ), the flax leaf ( Thesium ramosum ) and the hairy awl grass ( Stipa capillata ). The Ost-Sesel ( Seseli campestre ), which in Austria only appears here and in Marchfeld , is a new citizen from Eastern Europe. The hemp marshmallow ( Althaea cannabina ) is also a very rarely occurring neophyte. During the construction of the marshalling yard, the Kellerberg , a mighty sand dune, was removed. Remnants of the Kellerberg can still be seen east of Oleandergasse as soil forms. The xerophilic flora of the former Kellerberg is likely to be responsible for today's remarkable dry vegetation.

A declaration on the protected part of the landscape was proposed as early as 1998 . In 2015, the areas were incorporated into the newly established Donaustadt landscape protection area (LGBl. 22/2015). The area is part of the planned Norbert Scheed Forest .

photos

  • Former railway area at Breitenlee marshalling yard, on the right the main service building, 1986

  • After the station was abandoned, nature recaptured it and habitats of valuable nature protection were created.

  • The very rare late bitterling ( Blackstonia acuminata ) grows in the area of ​​the train station and is threatened with extinction in Austria.

  • The salt-centaury ( Centaurium littorale subsp. Uliginosum ) occurs in Austria outside the Seewinkel rarely and is considered endangered.

  • The tufted Miere ( Minuartia rubra ) is considered to be threatened with extinction in Vienna.

  • The lime-loving sparrow's tongue ( Thymelaea passerina ) is found scattered or rarely in the Pannonian and is endangered.

  • The East Sesel ( Seseli campeste ) is a very rare new citizen from Eastern Europe who has settled at the former marshalling yard.

  • The foreign Austrian wormwood ( Artemisia repens , Artemisia austriaca var. Advena ) is only known in Austria from the Breitenlee marshalling yard.

literature

  • Hellmuth Fröhlich: Forgotten rails . In: Railway. Technical supplement "Die Modelleisenbahn" . 21st year, Minirex, Lucerne 1968, ISSN  1421-2900 , ISSN  0013-2756 , OBV :
    • 27. Jedlersdorf – Leopoldau – Breitenlee Vbf. , P. 162,
    • C. Track loops and connecting tracks , p. 179 f.
  • Sepp Snizek, ARGE Vegetation Ecology: Securing the Breitenlee marshalling yard as a protected part of the landscape. Report . MA 22 Referat 3, Vienna 1999 ( full text online ; PDF, 1.6 MB; wien.gv.at).
  • Birgit Trinker, Michael Strand: Vienna district handbooks. 22nd district - Donaustadt . Pichler Verlag, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-85431-231-8 .

Web links

Commons : Verschiebebahnhof Wien-Breitenlee  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Vienna's true ghost train: In the thicket of Breitenlee. Andreas Tröscher / APA on vienna.at, July 19, 2009.
  2. ↑ Railway and shipping map of the Republic of Austria , published by Kartographisches, formerly Military Geographic Institute, Vienna 1922
  3. ↑ Lit. Fröhlich: Forgotten rails , p. 162 and p. 179.
  4. ↑ Lit. Fröhlich: Forgotten rails , p. 180.
  5. ↑ Ruins in front of the big city. How the railway workers from Breitenlee have to live. In:  Das Kleine Blatt , No. 207/1928 (Volume II), July 27, 1928, p. 6. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dkb.
  6. ↑ a b c d Lit. Snizek: Securing the marshalling yard at Breitenlee , p. 1.
  7. ↑ Information from the City of Vienna (PDF file; 4.69 MB)
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Manfred A. Fischer , Karl Oswald, Wolfgang Adler: Excursion flora for Austria, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol. 3rd, improved edition. State of Upper Austria, Biology Center of the Upper Austrian State Museums, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-85474-187-9 , p. OA
  9. ↑ Lit. Snizek: Safeguarding the marshalling yard at Breitenlee , p. 4.
  10. ↑ Ordinance of the Viennese provincial government regarding the declaration of parts of the 22nd district of Vienna as a landscape protection area (landscape protection area Donaustadt). LGBl. 22/2015 (online, ris.bka ).
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Adler, Alexander Ch. Mrkvicka (Ed.): The flora of Vienna - yesterday and today. The wild fern and flowering plants in the city of Vienna from the middle of the 19th century to the turn of the millennium , Vienna 2003, p. 16ff, ISBN 978-3-900275-96-9 , p

Coordinates: 48 ° 15 ′ 31 ″  N , 16 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  E