Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Railway Company

Vorwohle-Emmerthal Railway

Route number (DB) :

9180

Course book section (DB) :

261 (1975) , 212c (1962)

Route length:

32.5 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Route class :

A (Bodenwerder-Linse to Kieswerk)
D4 (Kieswerk to Emmerthal)

Maximum slope :

16.9 ‰

Top speed:

40 km / h

Dual track :

No

Legend

	from Kreiensen
0.0	Preference	228 m
	to Altenbeken
	Wickensen Viaduct
2.6	Lenne	200 m
	Lenne loading platform
4.6	Wickensen	178 m
6.5	Eschershausen	160 m
8.4	Scharfoldendorf since 1926	146 m
9.7	Lüerdissen oil kills since 1926
11.0	Dielmissen since 1902	126 m
13.5	Kirchbrak	104 m
	Lenne
15.7	Westerbrak since 1924	94 m
16.3	Buchhagen
18.0	Bodenwerder lens "Kulturbahnhof"	78 m
	to the ports of Kemnade, Mittelweser
	Weser
18.8	Bodenwerder -Kemnade	78 m
20.1	Gravel works depot	71 m
21.8	Hehlen (formerly the train station)
22.1	Hehlen, at the ferry
23.0	Hehlen lime works (formerly connection)
25.5	B83 since 4/2019 with light signals / half barriers	78 m
25.7	Hajen (formerly the train station)
28.0	L429
28.2	Grohnde depot	85 m
29.8	to the Grohnde nuclear power plant	79 m
31.9	Connection limit DB Netz
	from Altenbeken
32.5	Emmerthal	71 m
	to Hameln
→ Route blocked
→ Draisinenbahn and leisure path
→ Reconstructed section, leisure path

The Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft AG (VEE) operated a standard-gauge branch line in the Weser Uplands , which established a cross connection between the state railway lines Hameln – Paderborn and Kreiensen – Holzminden .

history

Share in the Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft from 1898

According to the state treaty of June 9, 1897 between the Kingdom of Prussia and the Duchy of Braunschweig on railway construction, the Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft AG (VEE), based in Eschershausen, received from the Duchy of Braunschweig on June 21, 1898 and from the Kingdom of Prussia on August 6 the same year the concession for the construction and operation of their railway line.

The VEE was founded on May 25, 1898 by the Allgemeine Deutsche Kleinbahn-Gesellschaft , the Mitteldeutsche Creditbank , the railway construction company Vering & Waechter and the Holzminden district in the legal form of a stock corporation . Vering & Waechter built the railway and, after it opened on October 9, 1900, initially ran it. Traffic developed well in the first few years and dividends could be paid to shareholders.

From April 1, 1917, operations were taken over by a subsidiary of Vering & Waechter, the Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebsgesellschaft AG (DEBG) in Berlin, which was involved in VEE at an early stage and finally owned around 97 percent of the VEE shares in 1937. The company's headquarters were moved to Berlin in 1936 and to Bodenwerder at the end of 1948; from May 29, 1951 he was in Hameln .

In the 1960s, DEBG began to part with all railway activities. In 1963, the southern German railways were transferred to the Südwestdeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft , whereupon the previously profitable VEE became deficit because it had to pay for the administration that was now too large. Accordingly, in 1965 and 1966, the VEE applied for the cessation of all operations. This was only approved for passenger traffic on September 25, 1966.

Because the residents feared economic disadvantages for their location and an unreasonable load on the narrow streets from increased truck traffic, they and local politicians objected to the suspension of freight traffic. This had to be maintained - initially in the form of a private connecting railway - until a new company was found in the VEV (see below) that took over the railway facilities and the concession.

The general meeting of the VEE in 1967 decided to dissolve the company.

The VEV as the rescue company of the VEE

VEV logo

Because of the withdrawal of DEBG, the district of Holzminden, the neighboring communities and local industry founded a rescue company on May 18, 1967 under the name Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Verkehrsbetriebe GmbH (VEV) .

The newly established VEV resumed passenger traffic on December 2, 1968, initially on the section Emmerthal – Bodenwerder-Linse. From June 2, 1969, the railcars drove again to Kirchbrak and from May 1974 even on the entire route, but not with resounding success. On April 1, 1975, he was hired again between Kirchbrak and Vorwohle, and finally on the Emmerthal – Kirchbrak section on September 25, 1982.

Freight traffic between Kirchbrak and Vorwohle was discontinued on September 1, 1982 with the exception of a remnant at Vorwohle, the remaining traffic was served by the Deutsche Bundesbahn and Deutsche Bahn with a small locomotive from the beginning of 1986 until the year 2000 , because the freight volume was getting smaller and smaller . With the termination of the service contract in 2000, freight traffic was practically suspended except for the occasional service at the Grohnde nuclear power plant .

From 1999 the Waldhof railway company acted as operator. In 2002 VEV took over the management itself again. After the cessation of freight traffic, the Kaminski company in Hameln used the Grohnde station and other sidings to park tank cars there . At the end of 2002 the Bodenwerder – Eschershausen section was closed, and the Vorwohle – Dielmissen section was dismantled a few years later. A draisine operation has been offered between Dielmissen and Buchhagen since 2005 .

The Emmerthal – Bodenwerder-Linse section was never closed or closed, but due to the run-down, renovation-needing and overgrown superstructure, it was used less and less from the mid-2000s and practically not at all for a few years. A special train to Bodenwerder last operated in 2003, since then practically only the section to Grohnde has been used to operate the nuclear power plant and to park tank cars. The only time that a train ran again on the route was in July 2011, when various wagons of the former Mecklenburg adventure train were brought to Dielmissen for the planned hotel train project . They were pulled by a road- rail excavator . In 2013 the Emmerthal – Bodenwerder infrastructure was put out to tender.

In March 2014, the VEV railway line between Vorwohle and Emmerthal was completely privatized . The municipal majority shares were taken over by the Kultur-Bahnhof Bodenwerder GmbH owned by the partner Oliver Victor. So far, the company has operated handcar transport on the route between Buchhagen and Dielmissen and is planning a hotel train on the Weser bridge near Bodenwerder .

VEV was dissolved in August 2014, and the liquidator has been offering the land for sale ever since .

In 2015, the section between Bodenwerder Kemnade and Bodenwerder-Linse was closed.

Rehabilitation of the Emmerthal – Bodenwerder section by the Lammert & Reese gravel works

225 101 and 218 450 of the LWC with ballast train between Hehlen and Grohnde

At the beginning of 2015, the gravel works in the Hehlen and Bodenwerder area expressed their interest in repairing the railway line.

In March 2015, the Lammert & Reese gravel works bought the Emmerthal – Bodenwerder section. In November 2015, the new owner had it cut free of the extensive vegetation, also in order to determine how much effort it would take to restart freight transport. At the beginning of December 2015, after a 15-year break, the first freight train with gravel drove.

Based on the findings, an application was made in February 2016 for federal funding for a renovation, which was finally approved in October 2016. The construction work was also put out to tender in October.

After the renovation, all three tracks in Grohnde station can be used again.

The renovation of the section from the junction of the Grohnde nuclear power plant to the gravel works in Bodenwerder began on January 2, 2017 and was completed on December 15, 2017. In Grohnde station, all three tracks have been preserved or restored. The Grohnde train station was operationally combined with the junction to the Grohnde nuclear power plant. The connection to the Hehlen lime works and the Hajen and Hehlen train stations were dismantled except for the continuous main track. In the gravel plant, a bypass track and the loading facility were built.

On March 7, 2018, the route was navigable enough that the first commercial train could run, storm wood was loaded in Grohnde and transported to Austria. Until spring 2019, an average of one block train per month then left Grohnde - not only to Austria, but also to Sweden.

The first gravel train reached the gravel works on March 12, 2019. The loading system and the newly acquired Vollert maneuvering robot were put into operation. Scheduled traffic started in June 2019.

The technical security of the level crossing over the B 83 , which still existed from VEV times, was no longer functional and was therefore dismantled. From March 25 to April 30, 2019, technical security with light signals and half barriers was installed according to current standards. Until it was put into operation on April 30, the level crossing was only used with post security.

route

The standard-gauge single-track line from Emmerthal via Bodenwerder and Eschershausen to Vorwohle reached a length of 31.8 km, of which 9 km in Prussia and 23 km in Braunschweig. After the Second World War, the catchment area of the railway came to the Lower Saxony districts of Hameln-Pyrmont and Holzminden.

Railbus of a DGEG special trip on October 3, 2009 in front of the Emmerthal entry signal

Draisines on the draisine route at Buchhagen stop, February 29, 2008

The first part of the route follows the Weser from Emmerthal up to Bodenwerder-Kemnade and crossed the river on a mighty bridge to the center of operations in Bodenwerder-Linse; there was the Linse Bahnbetriebswerk, which was responsible for the VEE as well as for the VDD and carried out work for DEBG railways in southern Germany, as well as sheds and larger track systems.

From Bodenwerder-Linse the route climbed in the Lennetal between the mountain ranges of Ith , Hils and Vogler to Vorwohle; behind Wickensen there were gradients of 1:50.

Of the numerous connections, apart from a branch line from the Lenne station to the Lenne freight loading point (0.7 km), there were also branch lines from the Bodenwerder-Linse station to the Weserhafen (0.5 km) and an industrial trunk line that led to other industrial companies in the south of Bodenwerder, including the Arminius shipyard and the plasterwork , led, of importance.

At the end of the Second World War, the VEE suffered severe damage when the Weser Bridge in Bodenwerder was blown up when the German Wehrmacht withdrew on April 5, 1945. The partially rebuilt bridge was badly damaged during floods in 1947. Train traffic was interrupted here for over four years. It was not until the 1949 summer timetable, which came into force on May 15, that the route could be used continuously again on a replacement bridge.

Between Buchhagen and Vorwohle the Lenne-Freizeitweg runs parallel or on the track bed. The tracks between Dielmissen and Vorwohle station were dismantled around 2006. A bike path now largely runs along the former route. Only remnants of the siding of the former Dasag site on the B 64 in Eschershausen still exist. The VEV tracks in Vorwohler Bahnhof were also completely dismantled, although there was no direct connection to the DB network for several years.

traffic

The traffic was heavy from the start. In some cases over 250,000 passengers and 400,000 t were carried; in the VEV era at the beginning of the 1970s it was almost 200,000 t. In addition to passenger transport, the railway was primarily used for the transport of agricultural products, and for a long time also for the transport of coal for the local industry and the removal of wood and stones. The delivery of sugar beets, which are grown in the Weser Valley, to the sugar factory in Emmerthal was also important.

passenger traffic

Bodenwerder-Kemnade train station

Bodenwerder-Linse train station

There were three to four continuous pairs of trains every day, plus additional trains Emmerthal - Bodenwerder-Linse and Vorwohle - Bodenwerder-Kemnade. The excursion traffic in Ith and Hils played a major role, especially to the Buchhagen stop, near which there is a large excursion restaurant. As early as 1924 attempts were made to introduce railcar traffic, and additional stops were set up. The railcar was not able to cope with the gradients. A suitable vehicle was only available in 1935.

Hamster journeys brought top performances in 1947 and 1948: 927 151 and 895 224 travelers were carried. The supply of trains remained high in the post-war period , in addition to three to four continuous pairs of trains, there were four to six pairs of trains from Bodenwerder to the terminus. Some trains ran beyond Emmerthal to Hameln. In 1957, 676,362 passengers were carried. In 1963 there were only 340,652 passengers left. There were also around 200,000 bus passengers. After further timetable reductions in rail traffic, the last VEE passenger train ran from Emmerthal to Bodenwerder-Linse on September 27, 1966.

The newly founded VEV resumed passenger traffic on the Emmerthal - Bodenwerder-Linse section on December 1, 1968, with all journeys beginning and ending in Hameln . Right from the start, this passenger traffic suffered considerably from competition from the parallel postal buses , because DEBG had sold its bus operation to the Deutsche Bundespost in 1967 .

Nevertheless, from June 2, 1969, passenger traffic was extended to the Bodenwerder-Linse - Kirchbrak section and an "express railcar" was also used. From May 1974 to April 1, 1975, the entire route to Vorwohle was again served by passenger traffic, with a Deutsche Bundesbahn railcar traveling the entire route from Hameln to Bodenfelde on Sundays in the summer.

But despite combined journeys by train and ship from Hameln to Holzminden or Karlshafen as the "Münchhausen Express" and a joint ticket for the train and city bus in Hameln, passenger transport could not be made economical. Around 30,000 passengers were carried every year. Passenger traffic between Kirchbrak and Vorwohle was discontinued on April 1, 1975, and on the Emmerthal - Kirchbrak section on September 25, 1982.

In the following years, however, the route was frequently used by museum and special trains: The numerous special trains from major cities in northern Germany to a eatery in Buchhagen near Bodenwerder-Linse, where passengers could stop and the train was parked "in front of the inn", were very popular the platform of the Buchhagen stop was extended to accommodate long trains. Special trains also drove to the festival of lights in Bodenwerder. The Weser Uplands Steam Railway (DEW), the Hildesheim Steam Train Operating Association (DBG) and the rail buses from the Eisenbahnbus Seelze eV interest group have always been on the route for special and museum trips . In 2003 a special train went to Bodenwerder for the last time; On October 3, 2009, a rail bus set from the Eisenbahnbus Seelze eV interest group drove back to Grohnde as part of a special trip organized by the DGEG . Since then, there have been no more journeys due to the increasing impassability of the unkempt, rehabilitated and gradually growing route.

Freight transport

On May 4, 2018, HLG Bebra brought a block train with logs from Grohnde station via Bebra to Austria

HVLE-Tiger V330.6 with a half-train consisting of 23 bulk goods wagons loaded with sand Faccns am Ruhberg on the way to Grohnde

The mineral resources of Ith and Hils, lime, stones and asphalt products provided plenty of cargo. Important customers were Rigips in Bodenwerder, the lime works in Hehlen and the DASAG asphalt works in Eschershausen. In addition, the transport of agricultural products and of wood and wood products played a role. The construction expectations were exceeded in the first few years: 200,000 t to 300,000 t were transported in normal years; The peak value was 411,000 t in 1928. The handling in the port of Bodenwerder was around 100,000 t per year, it declined in the 1950s, only to become insignificant in the end. Inland traffic accounted for around a third of the volume of goods, around two thirds of the rest was handed over to Emmerthal and one third to Vorwohle. When the VEE stopped operating in 1966, 180,000 t were still carried. In the 1960s, two locomotives were used in freight traffic, a third drove on behalf of DB in the Hamelin area.

Freight traffic under the new owner started well, in 1968 and 1969 around 175,000 t were transported. The discontinuation of stone traffic led to a significant decline, and sugar beet traffic was also discontinued in 1982. In 1981 50 598 t were still transported, in 1996 it was only 4298 t.

With the construction of the Grohnde nuclear power plant from 1976 to 1984, a livelihood securing goods customer was added, at least for the Emmerthal – Grohnde section. This ensures the connection of the remaining VEE line to the Hanover – Altenbeken line to this day.

From 1986 the freight traffic was carried out by the Deutsche Bundesbahn.

In 1998 the freight traffic between Eschershausen and Vorwohle was stopped. With the termination of the service contract by DB in 2000, public freight traffic on the remaining section ended. All that remained was the occasional operation of the nuclear power plant and the storage of tank cars for the Kaminski company in Hameln.

After the rehabilitation of the Emmerthal – Bodenwerder section by the new line owner Lammert & Reese, extensive timber transports were handled from the Grohnde train station before the gravel transports from the gravel works in Bodenwerder began. From March 2018 onwards, the company Gebrüder Helmecke had Sturmholz transported from the region to sawmills in Austria by Holzlogistik und Güterbahn (HLG) Bebra. In 2018 alone, ten block trains with an average of 24 wagons were driven.

Scheduled traffic with gravel and sand trains began in June 2019 and has been carried out once or twice a week since then. The wagons of the block train are brought from the gravel plant to Grohnde in two halves, where they are put together to form a block train. Due to the large quantities that can now be transported from Bodenwerder, the conveying capacities in the gravel works will soon be increased. For this purpose, a modern conveyor system from a plant in Croatia is being dismantled and transported to Bodenwerder.

Bus transport

In order to supplement the rail traffic, a railroad's own bus operation was opened on May 15, 1939, which mainly maintained a line parallel to the rail between Hameln and Vorwohle. After restrictions in the Second World War, three buses were used again in 1960. The bus traffic ran parallel to the trains and also after the cessation of passenger traffic on the rails. On October 1, 1967, the bus service including the vehicles was sold to the Deutsche Bundespost.

vehicles

Rail bus of a DGEG special trip on the siding of the Grohnde nuclear power plant, October 3, 2009

The locomotive shed in Bodenwerder-Linse as it is today, once it was the DEBG repair shop

A total of 25 steam locomotives have been running at VEE during its 67th anniversary . Many of these machines were swapped in the DEBG group, especially with the neighboring Voldagsen – Duingen – Delligsen railway . The last ones were retired in 1966/67. In 1924, the railway received two railcars with suction gas engines , they were designated as T 201 and 202 . In the long run they did not prove their worth, so that in 1930 they were retired. In 1935 the first two-axle diesel multiple unit was procured, and it was given the designation T 1 . In 1942 a four-axle railcar was added as the T 101 .

The statistics for 1939 contain eight steam locomotives, one railcar, nine passenger cars, three pack wagons and 92 freight cars; In 1961 there were four steam and three diesel locomotives, two railcars, seven passenger cars, two pack cars and 27 freight cars.

VEV began its operation with three diesel locomotives, one of which was newly acquired by MaK . The initially only railcar could be purchased from an old goods dealer to whom DEBG had sold it. In 1970 a rail bus came from the Tecklenburger Nordbahn , a prototype of the Uerdingen rail bus . It was replaced in 1972 by two railcars of the Bayer-Bahn Leverkusen, one of which was soon sold, the other in 1979 was exchanged for a Uerdingen rail bus of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn . This was sold after the passenger traffic had ceased in 1982. VEV has owned a DR class VT 171 multiple unit since 2006 .

The locomotives were sold in the early 1990s when the freight traffic had been transferred to the DB.

There is still a Köf .

literature

Hans Wolfgang Rogl: Vorwohle-Emmerthal - history of an unusual railway . 1st edition. Seelze 1980.
Vorwohle-Emmerthal - picture of a railway in the Weserbergland . 1st edition. Hoffmann and Kaune, Hanover 1972.
Meinhard Döpner: The Deutsche Eisenbahn-Betriebs-Gesellschaft AG . 1st edition. Lokrundschau-Verlag, Gülzow 2002, ISBN 3-931647-13-7 .
Hans Wolfgang Rogl: Archive of German Small and Private Railways. Lower Saxony . 1st edition. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71022-2 .
Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 11: Lower Saxony 3 - South of the Mittelland Canal . 1st edition. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-670-4 .

Web links

Commons : Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Eisenbahn - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Gerd Wolff: Deutsche Klein- und Privatbahnen , p. 114

↑ History of the web on kirchbrak.de

^ Franz Leyser: Liquidation opening balance as of May 1, 2014. In: Federal Gazette . Federal Ministry of Justice , April 8, 2016, accessed on July 13, 2018 : “Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Verkehrsbetriebe GmbH will be liquidated from May 1, 2014 in accordance with the shareholders' resolution of March 19, 2014. The entry in the commercial register took place on August 28, 2014. Mr. Franz Leyser, a lawyer from Dresden, has been appointed liquidator. "

↑ Hildesheim District Court file number: HRB 110419. Changes on August 28, 2014 . Ministry of Justice of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia on behalf of the federal and state governments, August 28, 2014, accessed on July 13, 2018 : "The company is dissolved."

^ Hans W. Rogl: End station in the Weser valley . In: railway magazine . No. 4 , 2015, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 33 .

↑ Franz-Jacob Leyser: Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Verkehrsbetriebe limited liability company in the railroad of public transport. Retrieved on July 13, 2018 : “As part of the liquidation of Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Verkehrsbetriebe VEV GmbH i. L. the following plots are offered for sale: Part of the property with the parcel designation 316/17 located at the Eschershausen train station / Homburgstrasse. Part of the property with the parcel designation 85 located in Wickensen. "

↑ Hans W. Rogl: VEV: gravel works want to take over . In: railway magazine . No. 5 , 2015, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 27 .

^ First transport of gravel over old tracks, in: DEWEZET of December 9, 2015

↑ Funding for railway construction approved, in: DEWEZET of October 21, 2016

↑ Kieswerk relies on trains instead of truck journeys, in: DEWEZET from July 26, 2018

↑ First commercial train after renovation . In: railway magazine . No. 5 , 2018, ISSN 0342-1902 , p. 33 .

↑ A reactivated railway line is considered a stroke of luck, in: DEWEZET from December 19, 2018

↑ Kieswerk relies on the rails, in: DEWEZET from February 15, 2019

↑ 14,800 fewer truck trips, in: DEWEZET of February 17, 2019

↑ Regular gravel transports expected from April, in: DEWEZET of March 13, 2019

↑ It's now the turn of the gravel, in: DEWEZET from July 12, 2019

[1] Gerd Wolff: Deutsche Klein- und Privatbahnen , p. 114

[2] History of the web on kirchbrak.de

[3] Franz Leyser: Liquidation opening balance as of May 1, 2014. In: Federal Gazette . Federal Ministry of Justice , April 8, 2016, accessed on July 13, 2018 : “Vorwohle-Emmerthaler Verkehrsbetriebe GmbH will be liquidated from May 1, 2014 in accordance with the shareholders' resolution of March 19, 2014. The entry in the commercial register took place on August 28, 2014. Mr. Franz Leyser, a lawyer from Dresden, has been appointed liquidator. "