Loschwitz – Pillnitz suburban railway
Loschwitz – Pillnitz | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A Gotha train coming from the Blue Wonder towards Schillerplatz,
the suspension railway in the background , around 1980 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Route length: | 5.98 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gauge : | originally 1000 mm, remeasured to 1450 mm before opening |
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Power system : | 600 V = | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maximum slope : | 53 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Loschwitz – Pillnitz suburban railway was a regional tram built by a community association in the Dresden gauge of 1450 millimeters , which served the formerly independent towns of Loschwitz , Wachwitz , Niederpoyritz , Hosterwitz and Pillnitz from 1903 on the side of the street . Most recently, it was operated by the VEB Verkehrsbetriebe der Stadt Dresden as part of the Dresden tram network. In 1985 the line was closed and replaced by a bus line.
Route description
The single-track route with a diversion began immediately after the confluence of the Grundstraße east on Körnerplatz and led out of town on the right edge of the lane to Gustavheim in Niederpoyritz. One stop after the start of the route was the Gleisdreieck opposite the confluence with Calberlastrasse . The passing point was located between the entry and exit track of the Gleisdreieck and, under the name Loschwitz, was the terminus for all trains coming from the city. The use of the route for Tatra wagons was only permitted up to this point, but from Schillerplatz they were only allowed to run as a solo multiple unit or in the T4D + B4D ( Mini ) train combination .
From the Gustavheim stop to Van-Gogh-Straße, on the right-hand side of the street, there was a separate railway track, the urban sidings of the An der Obstplantage stop were not on their own track, but on the subgrade on the right-hand side. Behind the Van-Gogh-Straße stop , the route changed back to the subgrade on the right out of town to the Pillnitz coupling point on Pillnitzer Straße, directly on the northwest corner of the Pillnitzer Schlosspark .
Contrary to its name, this terminal was located entirely on Hosterwitz district, only 50 meters of track, which were only used in the 1920s and 1930s for parking cars, reached over the confluence of Leonardo-da-Vinci-Straße (municipality border between Hosterwitz and Pillnitz ) into Pillnitz.
This coupling terminal was abandoned in 1967 and replaced by a turning loop , also on Hosterwitz district, but also with the terminal name Pillnitz , the entrance of which began straight out of town behind Van-Gogh-Straße. After driving through the loop, the terminus lay parallel to the street in the direction of Dresden, also on its own track structure and had two tracks, both of which were usually used due to a turning point . The actual route was then reached via the left branching off the loop entrance.
Due to the operation by the Dresden tram or its predecessor companies, no depots were set up along the route, only for the construction work in 1983/84 the inner track of the Pillnitz loop was given a temporary working pit, which was only temporarily protected. A planned from the first contractor ferry traffic across the Elbe to the car sharing with other lines had become unnecessary.
history
prehistory
The inhabitants of the Elbe valley to Pillnitz were dependent on the city of Dresden for all their relationships. Since the existence of passenger Elbe shipping in 1836, these had expanded, but were interrupted or severely restricted when the Elbe floods and in winter. Efforts to establish a fast and steady connection between the right-Elbe communities from Pillnitz to Loschwitz with the city of Dresden go back to around 1860. They were reflected in a large number of petitions for the construction of the right Elbuferstraße between Dresden and Pillnitz, the construction of a railway connection on the right Elbe and the construction of the Loschwitz Elbe bridge .
The Blue Wonder was completed on July 15, 1893 . On this day, the German tram company in Dresden (the so-called red ) reached with electric cars (line Schloßplatz - Blasewitz - Lozwitz) and the Tramways Company of Germany Ltd. (later Dresden tram A.-G. the so-called yellow ) with horse-drawn tram (line Böhmischer Bahnhof –Blasewitz – Loschwitz) the Körnerplatz. From this point on, the “yellow” track on the Körnerplatz went to the track to the south, the “red” to the track to the north. Track changes between the two tracks made it possible to move sidecars. To make things easier, the “Rote” later laid a stump track.
In 1895 and 1896, the communities on the right bank of the Elbe from Loschwitz to Pillnitz each petitioned the royal government to have a tram built to connect the towns from this end point, but this was rejected.
On January 7, 1898, the communities of Hosterwitz and Pillnitz, represented by the community councils Wilhelm Hildebrandt and Ernst Füssel, turned to the Royal Ministry of the Interior in Dresden and asked for approval for the electric tram to Hosterwitzer, which the communities of Wachwitz and Niederpoyritz had requested again and to continue Pillnitzer Flur. The plan was to continue the line from the Niederpoyritz-Hosterwitz corridor boundary on a new road to be built by the Hosterwitz municipality through the Hosterwitz corridor to the Pillnitz corridor boundary and another 320 meters to the lower district of Pillnitz. Both applications (the former as “necessary”, the latter as “desirable”) were finally approved by the state government, but not the construction of a continuation from Pillnitz to Pirna, which was also requested.
construction
The German Tram Company of Dresden (the "Red") had agreed to operate the tram from Loschwitz to Pillnitz . The company OL Kummer & Co. with its office in Dresden, Waisenhausstraße 22 (workshops in Niedersedlitz ) began to plan the route after examining the project with a gauge of one meter - at the request of the Royal State Government - and a power supply from the old town side . Also in 1898, the siblings Alfred, Felix and Bertha Finke, who owned the plantation property in Hosterwitz and most of the Hosterwitz corridor, agreed to use the main part of the new road IV (now part of the Pillnitzer Landstraße in Hosterwitz) between the Niederpoyritz corridor border at Gustavheim to finance the Pillnitz border. They took over the construction costs of the road and provided land for the road section from Gustavheim to Keppbach . The Hosterwitz municipality took over the financing and construction of the section from Keppbach to Pillnitzer Flur, also on the basis of land that was often provided free of charge. At the end of 1899, OL Kummer & Co. agreed to use this road for the route.
On June 6, 1900, the permit for the construction of the meter-gauge line was granted and the construction was started by Kummer's company, but the company went bankrupt on January 4, 1902 before the line from Loschwitz to Gustavheim was completed. The Ministry of Finance as well as the Ministry of the Interior rejected the takeover of the previously completed section of the route by the state; the bankruptcy administrator and other companies also rejected the takeover. The Dresden tram A.-G. (the "yellow") and the German tram company to Dresden ("red") rejected the takeover and even claimed that this railway line was not profitable at all. Councilor Eugen Dieterich from Helfenberg characterized the situation on April 8, 1902 in the Second Chamber of the Saxon State Parliament that it was “a nasty thing that the company, which was already in prospect of a collapse by fate, had another Got a concession… Today we are pretty much finished except for a bit beyond Niederpoyritz, whereas the stretch to Pillnitz still needs to be expanded. "
On June 4, 1902, the Niederpoyritz community took the first step to resolve the rather complicated situation; This led to the formation of the community association for the acquisition and completion of this electric tram route. This "community association for the electric tram Loschwitz - Pillnitz" finally belonged
- Loschwitz (10 percent),
- Wachwitz (21 percent),
- Niederpoyritz (21 percent),
- Hosterwitz (22 percent),
- Pillnitz (12 percent),
- Rockau (9 percent) and
- Borsberg (4 percent of the association's shares).
The Otto Conrad company (railway construction and civil engineering company, Kleinzschachwitz ) put together the necessary work and costs for the further construction and re-gauging. From these documents it emerged that 4086 meters of finished track including switches had to be widened, about 2000 meters of track and switches had to be re-laid as far as Pillnitz and 80 masts had to be erected, resulting in a cost of around 60,000 marks. The Royal Ministry of the Interior, in agreement with the finance department, gave permission for the re-gauging, whereupon the route was acquired by the municipal association from the bankruptcy trustee of Kummer's works.
The necessary work was carried out in 1902/03 on the basis of these contracts and the contract between the “Community Association for the Loschwitz-Pillnitz Electric Tram” and the respective communities. On April 21, 1903, the newly built tram route on Street IV in Hosterwitz was approved by the Royal Roads and Hydraulic Engineering Directorate, so that the commissioning could take place after a trial run. The operation was leased to the Deutsche Straßenbahngesellschaft in Dresden in accordance with the contract with the municipal association dated January 12, 1903, and the electrical power was supplied by Dresdner Straßenbahn A.-G. from their power station in the Tolkewitz tram station by means of cables through the Elbe.
Operation from 1903 to 1945
On June 17, 1903, the route from Loschwitz to Niederpoyritz (field boundary at Gustavheim) was inaugurated and on Saturday, July 11, 1903, from the Niederpoyritz-Hosterwitzer field boundary to the Pillnitz coupling point. The total track length was now 7034 meters including the switches. In the years up to 1910, an average of 800,000 people per year used the opportunity to travel by tram to Pillnitz, ie around 2200 people per day of travel.
In 1905, the city of Dresden bought the two private tram companies and on January 1, 1906, the Dresden City Tram was founded, which also took over the lease from the community association. Line numbers were introduced immediately:
- Line 1: Plauen - Blasewitz - Loschwitz (that is, the "yellow ones" were generally assigned the odd line numbers in this scheme) and
- Line 18: Schloßplatz - Loschwitz - Pillnitz.
As early as 1912, the community association offered the state and the city of Dresden the route for sale, which both refused. The association demanded large amounts of money from its members every year due to the frequent need to replace points and tracks and the repayment of loans taken out. In 1917 the financial hardship was so great that the community association even wanted to shut down the railway completely, which the government prohibited. The male staff was called up for military service and the resulting staff shortage was compensated for by the use of women. The first tariff increase took place in 1917.
From November 26, 1918, a lack of coal, reparations payments and strikes repeatedly brought the tram to a standstill; stable operation was only possible again from January 20, 1920. The onset of inflation then leads to ever higher fares and the thinning of the timetable.
On January 21, 1921 Loschwitz was incorporated into Dresden, the city of Dresden now joined the practically insolvent community association. From this point on, she planned a permanent solution with the involvement of the Saxon State, the Dresden Administrative Authority and the District Association of the Dresden-Neustadt Administrative Authority, which led to the establishment of the Loschwitz-Pillnitz GmbH tram on September 28, 1922 , which included the rights and obligations of the municipal association entered. Until 1933, the municipalities had to pay contributions to the GmbH to repay debt.
From November 6, 1922, the line was only operated to Hosterwitz, the tracks to Pillnitz were expanded and repaired. On January 28, 1923, one-man operation was finally carried out with a railcar from Körnerplatz to Pillnitz, which in part, at the height of inflation, was only operated as a shuttle service. Nevertheless, the GmbH quickly put the tracks in order, so that on April 11, 1924, the continuous service of line 18 was resumed to Pillnitz.
On May 3, 1925, the transfer system in Grundstraße was put into operation and on October 5, 1926, line 2 ended there in addition to line 1, which was extended from the previous end point in Hüblerstraße in Blasewitz (route: Schlachthof – Barbarossaplatz –Schillerplatz – Loschwitz).
On July 7, 1926, the Saxon state parliament approved a government bill that provided for the sale of the state tram routes to the Loschwitz – Pillnitz tram company . The actual sale was dated back to April 1, 1926. The Dresdner Überland-Verkehr GmbH (DRÜVEG) emerged from this by renaming it on December 10, 1926 . In 1941, the Dresdner Straßenbahn AG, which had emerged from the urban tram company, took over the DRÜVEG and was thus both owner and operator of the Loschwitz – Pillnitz suburban railway.
After the air raids on Dresden in World War II on February 13 and 14, 1945, tram operations also ceased in this undestroyed outer area of the city. As one of the first routes, the Pillnitz – Calberlastrasse route was put back into operation on February 21, 1945, which was extended to Körnerplatz on March 6, 1945, and since the Blue Wonder had remained undamaged, from there gradually towards the city center. This meant that the suburban railway line was completely passable again, although the links to the rest of the network took considerably longer due to the severe destruction of Dresden.
On May 7, 1945, the Red Army marched into Dresden. At around 5 p.m., all trains moved into the depots or the free parking spaces used and all tram traffic in Dresden was stopped again.
Operation 1945 to 1985
On May 18, 1945, line 18 ran again, coming from Pillnitz via Schillerplatz to Sachsenplatz and was extended to Postplatz on July 5, 1945 . The Loschwitz terminus in Grundstraße was not put back into operation with line 2 until December 15, 1948 (Schlachthof – Hauptbahnhof – Loschwitz). On May 16, 1950, the line previously served in Goetheallee between the Pfotenhauerstraße and Schillerplatz (Naumannstraße) was shut down to obtain track material ; from then on, line 18 ran from Schillerplatz via Blasewitzer Straße towards the city center. The material was also used to build the Gleisdreieck Calberlastraße (commissioning October 13, 1950), which at the same time made it possible to decommission the transfer point in Grundstraße.
After 1945 the Dresdner Straßenbahn AG was initially renamed Dresdner Verkehrsgesellschaft AG . In the GDR , the municipal company operated as VEB Verkehrsbetriebe der Stadt Dresden from 1951 .
On July 22, 1967, the Pillnitz turning loop was put into operation and the coupling end point went out of service.
On December 31, 1975, line 15 was set up with the Wölfnitz-Hauptbahnhof-Loschwitz (Calberlastraße) route, which was served by Tatra trains from 1978. In the summer of 1983 and in the summer of 1984, extensive track reconstructions were carried out. For this purpose, the route from Pillnitz was served by shuttle cars, for which a temporary working pit was installed in the inner track of the Pillnitz turning loop. If repairs were due, the railcars would otherwise have had to be transported with scooters over the Elbe bridge in Pirna to one of the Dresden tram stations . At the time , the Blue Wonder had been closed to this type of transport for several years.
Shutdown
The end of the suburban railway at Easter 1985 came as a surprise to the public, especially since the track layout had been largely renovated and upgraded in the two previous years. The reason for this was a bridge inspection of the Blue Wonder , which, due to its condition, required an immediate cessation of tram operations. This condition, in turn, was the result of decades of neglecting maintenance work on this bridge structure.
On April 9, 1985, the extended bus route 85 from Schillerplatz took over the tram service to Pillnitz.
The route of the suburban train
The route itself is still an integral part of the bus network of the city of Dresden, whereby the services were now taken over by route 63 instead of route 85. The buses turned in Pillnitz - as of 2018 - over the area of the departure tracks of the former turning loop of the suburban railway.
In 1986 the tracks on the Blue Wonder were removed and the entire road surface was renewed. Work on this bridge dragged on for years and was not completed until 1994. The same applied to the dismantling of the track system to Pillnitz.
As of 2018, only a few relics were left of the suburban railway. Due to its location on the side of the street, the complete renovation of the Pillnitzer Landstrasse has now been carried out and all track remains have been removed. House rosettes , which were already rare at the time of the suburban railway, can only be found very rarely. The track between Gustavheim and Pillnitz loop has been converted into a cycle path, and there are parking spaces on it in Hosterwitz.
Only the two concrete shelters from GDR times on Van-Gogh-Straße and at the terminus in Pillnitz have survived: the one at the Wendeschleife is still used by Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe AG as the terminus area.
Line allocation
Since the suburban railway was always operated by the Dresden tram or its predecessor companies, it was integrated directly into the line scheme in 1906, with the entire suburban railway always going through the line from 1906 until the line reform on May 4, 1969 (with changing other endpoints) 18 was used. After the line reform in 1969 (with the occasional change of endpoints between Weinböhla and Radebeul-West) it was always line 4 that ran this route. The main stations for line 4 were the Coswig, Mickten and (initially) Trachenberge depots , until the wagon trains used were finally concentrated in the Mickten depot in 1978. In the Weinböhla – Pillnitz route (1969–1982), the “4” was the longest tram line in the GDR with a length of 32.5 kilometers.
The Loschwitz terminus did not belong to the suburban railway in the strict sense of the word until 1950, as the coupling terminus was directly on Körnerplatz until 1925. From this point on, a two-track section a few meters long branched off into the Grundstraße, i.e. before the start of the single-track section, and the coupling point was moved there. To improve operational processes, the Calberlastraße triangle was created in 1950 and the lines approaching the Loschwitz terminus (line 2 until 1969, line E4 from 1969, line 15 from 1975) now used a few hundred meters of the suburban railway line. In the consciousness of many Dresden residents, however, the Pillnitz route began at Schillerplatz (until where it was discontinued in 1985), so that the lines to Loschwitz were added to the suburban railway.
From May 27, 1956, a commuter traffic repeater line 58 Cotta – Niederpoyritz operated to the Gustavheim siding . Due to a lack of staff, it was reinstated on this route after just under a year on May 25, 1957.
Vehicle use
As a result of the operation by the Dresden tram companies, only their vehicles were used. On July 29, 1936, the Kleine Hecht was used for the first time on Line 2 , and in 1939 it was also used on Line 1. The Kleine Hecht was still used as planned on Line 2 after 1945 (from 1948 to the Grundstraße coupling point, from 1950 to the Gleisdreieck Calberlastraße). The use of the Big Pike was possible without any problems on the entire route, but was reserved for individual special trips (no scheduled use known).
After the line reform in 1969, the old construction vehicles were withdrawn from Line 4, it was served by Gotha and LOWA two-axle trains (also in mixed combinations), most recently exclusively from the Mickten depot. Line 15 was operated in the train composition T4D + B4D (predominantly operational stations Waltherstraße and Naußlitz ). If line 4 was served by Tatra trains (also only as T4D + B4D ), these trains ended (also when signposted Pillnitz ) in the Gleisdreieck Calberlastraße, the remaining distance to Pillnitz was then traveled by a bus in the rail replacement service.
The ban on using Tatra wagons on the Calberlastraße – Pillnitz route was justified publicly with the weak and failure-prone power supply. It is currently not possible to prove that on the winding and inclined route, especially in Wachwitz and Niederpoyritz, the clearance profile of the route (envelope curve of the Tatra carriages) was not sufficient.
Planning
In the history of the suburban railway, on the one hand, there were repeated intentions to shut down. Apart from the municipal application of 1917, a change of mode of transport , i.e. the replacement of the tram by omnibuses, was mentioned for the first time in the exhibition Dresden builds on . Later, in a residents' meeting on August 20, 1960, this change of mode of transport was discussed by City Councilor Kochan, whereupon there were violent protests from the population.
On the other hand, it was planned to relocate the route to the banks of the Elbe around 1920 and again after 1960, for which purpose Fidelio-F.-Finke-Strasse was to be extended from Loschwitz. In 1967 there were concrete plans for the demolition of the historic village centers of Loschwitz and Blasewitz and the construction of a new bridge over the Elbe in the direct route Grundstraße / Loschwitz – Kretschmarstraße / Blasewitz and the construction of a high bank road to Wachwitz, for which property owners should refrain from planting in the course of the planned course of the road. The execution should take place from 1976. Nothing of this was realized, only the houses standing on the designated areas degenerated more and more into ruins.
In 2013, the spokesman for Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe AG , Falk Lösch, surprised the public that the company could envision a revitalization of the route. An article in the Dresdner Morgenpost from October 14, 2013 states:
“'It is still unclear whether tracks will be added to the renovation of the Blue Wonder. That is one possibility, the other is a separate bridge for the railway next to the Blue Wonder. ' … Lösch: 'In perspective, an extension to Pillnitz is also possible.' How much all of this would cost is also open. ... But the DVB have a train from Strehlen to Pillnitz on schedule. "
literature
- Ingolf Menzel (in collaboration with Mario Schatz): Memory of the tram to Pillnitz - 30 years ago the line to Pillnitz was closed. In: Tram Museum Dresden (Ed.): The bell - information newspaper of the Association of Tram Museum Dresden e. V. Edition 55 (November 1, 2015), pp. 31–36.
- Hermann Großmann: The municipal significance of the tram system is highlighted in the career of the Dresden trams . Wilhelm Baensch, Dresden 1903, pp. 150–156. (Digitized version) , accessed on September 26, 2016.
Web links
- Sieghart Pietzsch: 100 years ago the first tram went to Pillnitz. In: Elbhangkurier. Issue 7/2003 ( 100 years ago the first tram went to Pillnitz. In www.elbhang-kurier.de ( Memento from June 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive )). Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- Line history of line 18 ( Memento from July 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- Private website with photos and further information. Retrieved September 26, 2016.
- Information on the Pillnitzer Landstrasse on dresdner-stadtteile.de , however, the data on the tram are not all correct there. Retrieved January 20, 2018.
- On the trail of former Dresden tram routes Lower part of page 4 to the Loschwitz – Pillnitz suburban railway, on architektur-forum.de . Photos and information (including line tables, plug-in signs and then-now comparisons ), accessed on February 4, 2018.
- The last tram ride over the Blue Wonder on YouTube . Retrieved October 6, 2016.
Individual evidence
- ↑ approx. Pillnitzer Landstraße 140, named after a nearby restaurant, today Gare de la Lune ( history ), accessed on September 26, 2016.
- ↑ approx. Pillnitzer Landstr. 165
- ↑ a b c d e f g Pietzsch.
- ↑ Menzel, p. 31.
- ↑ Großmann, pp. 150/151.
- ↑ Großmann, pp. 151/152.
- ↑ Großmann, p. 155.
- ↑ Pietzsch. The sum of the percentages is not 100 percent, but is taken from the source.
- ↑ Pietzsch. Both private companies were thus involved in the operation.
- ↑ a b c d e Menzel, p. 33.
- ↑ Menzel, pp. 33/34.
- ↑ a b Schatz, meter-gauge trams ... , p. 22.
- ↑ a b Menzel, p. 34.
- ↑ Menzel, pp. 34/35.
- ↑ a b c d e Menzel, p. 35.
- ↑ Volker Helas: The Blue Wonder - History of the Elbe Bridge between Loschwitz and Blasewitz in Dresden. fly head publisher, Halle 1995, ISBN 3-930195-07-0 , p. 79.
- ↑ a b Menzel, p. 36.
- ↑ Helas, pp. 127, 141.
- ^ Ingolf Menzel (in collaboration with Mario Schatz): The Gothawagen in Dresden (Part I). In: Tram Museum Dresden (Ed.): The bell - information newspaper of the Association of Tram Museum Dresden e. V. Edition 37 (June 3, 2008), pp. 14-29.
- ↑ Helas, p. 81.
- ↑ Helas, p. 82.
- ↑ Blue miracle by train again? In: Dresdner Morgenpost. October 14, 2013. Quoted from DVB-News 2013 (online) . Retrieved September 26, 2016.