Wilhelmshaven suburban railway
Wilhelmshaven suburban railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Route number : | 1550 Sande – Wilhelmshaven Süd 1551 Wilhelmshaven West – Marine Arsenal |
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Course book section (DB) : | 1957: 221m Voslapp – Sande – Whv Fr.-Wilh. Pl. 1950: 221k Whv Gökerstraße – Voslapp 221m Sande – Wilhelmshaven Fr.-Wilh. Pl. 221n Sande – Voslapp |
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Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Western route | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Eastern route | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Southern route | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The suburban railway Wilhelmshaven was a small railway in Wilhelmshaven , which carried out passenger and goods traffic in Wilhelmshaven and the surrounding area from 1941 to 1964.
history
The naval shipyard in Wilhelmshaven had had its own rail operations since 1870, with a track network of around 200 km in length. In 1941 the naval railway received approval for passenger traffic to Sande and the northern districts of Wilhelmshaven ( Altengroden , Fedderwardergroden , Voslapp ). Five locomotives and a total of 37 passenger wagons were procured with which up to 30,000 people were transported to their workplaces on the shipyard site every day.
The naval railway was spun off from the rest of the shipyard organization early on and was thus spared dismantling after the Second World War. At that time, about 600 people were employed by the naval railway. At first it was operated after the end of the war on the orders of the Allied military authorities and finally placed under the trust of the administrative office for imperial and state assets in Hanover.
Since regular operation of the Wilhelmshaven-Rüstringer tram had become impossible due to the severe war damage , the naval railway remained the only means of public transport - apart from a few bus lines. In November 1949, the previous naval railway, which was now looked after by the Deutsche Reichsbahn , was renamed the Wilhelmshaven suburban railway and received the status of a small railway .
The expansion of the transport network through the city of Wilhelmshaven made it increasingly difficult for the suburban railway and in 1961 passenger traffic was finally discontinued after 510,025 people had been carried in the previous year. Freight traffic continued, but on December 31, 1964 the Wilhelmshaven suburban railway was finally closed and the fleet was sold. The track systems were partially shut down or continued to be used by the Deutsche Bundesbahn .
Museum railway operation
Since 2011, a few days a year the southern route of the suburban railway has been used by a Hümmlinger Kreisbahn rail bus , which is identical to the vehicle used on the suburban railway until 1962, from Sande station to Emsstraße in Wilhelmshaven (near the pumping station ).
Route network
The suburban railway used 35.83 km of routes from the network of the naval railway. Passenger traffic mainly took place on the following lines:
- Gökerstraße (Flensburger Straße) - Jachmannstraße - Mühlenweg - Neuengroden - Maadebrücke - Hochschuldorf - Hörn (Fedderwardergroden) - Voslapp
- Sande - Sande-Nord - Ems-Jade Canal - Middelsfähr - Schaardeich - Schaar - Altengroden camp - Maadebrücke - Hochschuldorf - Hörn - Voslapp
- Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz (later opposite the main train station) - Westwerft - Mariensiel - Sande-Nord - Sande
Freight was also transported, for example up to 1000 tons of gravel and other building material per day to rebuild the fourth port entrance.
Vehicle fleet
During the war, five locomotives from the Arnold Jung Lokomotivfabrik as well as 20 four-axle passenger cars and 17 auxiliary passenger cars were part of the vehicle fleet for passenger transport. After the end of the war, 20 more locomotives came from the possession of the Navy (five of them diesel locomotives) as well as 176 freight cars of various types and 2,100 tank cars, which were initially loaned to the VTG and finally handed over to it when the suburban railway was closed.
Three of the four-axle passenger cars have been in service with the Hespertalbahn since 1976 after being sold to the WLE .
In April 1952, a rail bus was also purchased from the Uerdingen wagon factory , which was handed over to the Hümmlinger Kreisbahn in 1962 . Until 2013 the decommissioned rail bus was exhibited in Boffzen in front of an industrial area, now it is in Ottbergen (Höxter) .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hümmlinger Kreisbahn museum railway: trips in and around Wilhelmshaven
- ↑ Roter-brummer.de: Wilhelmshavener Vorortbahn VT 30
literature
- Werner Brune (Ed.): Wilhelmshavener Heimatlexikon. 3 volumes. Brune Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Wilhelmshaven 1986, vol. 3, p. 404ff.
- Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways: Volume 9: Lower Saxony 1. Between the Weser and Ems . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2005, ISBN 3-88255-668-4 , pp. 146-160
Web links
- Ulrich Räcker-Wellnitz: Through the city on rails . (PDF, 2 MB) Supplement to the Wilhelmshavener Zeitung of October 27, 2007