Wählitzbahn

Wählitzbahn
Gauge :	900 mm ( narrow gauge )
Power system :	1.2 kV  ~
Legend from and to Leipzig 0.0 Profen from and to Probstzella Recoil Profen Profen Hp. Alternative point Mine railway (1435 mm) Mine railway (1435 mm) Mine railway (1435 mm) Bösau Grunau Street Grunau – Bösau (Otto-Grothewohl-Straße) Great Grimma Mine railway (1435 mm) 10.0 Hohenmölsen Lützener Strasse / Pegauer Strasse Wählitz Mine railway (1435 mm) Webau L 190 Mine railway (1435 mm) from and to Großkorbetha Wählitz recoil Wählitz briquette factory (coal bunker) from and to Deuben

The Wählitzbahn was a 900 mm-gauge factory railway that led from Profen via Hohenmölsen to the Wählitz briquette factory and on which non-public passenger transport was also carried out.

history

When large open-cast mines were built in the Zeitz-Weißenfelser lignite mining area in the 1920s, normal and narrow-gauge (900 mm) industrial railways, mostly electrified with 1.2 kV DC voltage , were built to connect the mining sites and the customers of the coal . In the 1970s, the 900 mm-gauge industrial railways in the area around Hohenmölsen were shut down. The connection between Profen and the Wählitz briquette factory, which opened in 1923, was retained. Since around 1946, this route has not only been used to transport coal, but also to transport people, primarily to bring employees from the district town of Hohenmölsen to the factories and opencast mines in and around Profen. The operator of the railway was since 1953 the VEB brown coal works "Erich Weinert" Deuben .

In the course of the mine expansion, traffic on the Wählitzbahn was stopped at the end of 1987. Passenger traffic ended on December 18, 1987, goods traffic on December 22, 1987. Since then, workers have been transported by bus . As a replacement, a regular-gauge and largely newly routed works railway was built. Since the coal supply to the Wählitz briquette factory could not be interrupted, the narrow-gauge line had to be maintained until the new industrial railway opened. The dismantling of the route, which was completed in 1988, was carried out by rail with the help of a work train driven by the V 10 C.

Route and operational management

North-east of the standard gauge station Profen on the Leipzig – Probstzella line was the station of the works railway with coal reloading, workshop and locomotive shed. Behind the exit there was a hairpin ("recoil") before the stop for passenger traffic and an alternative point were reached. The line then ran parallel to a regular-gauge works railway and touched the former Profen Süd opencast mine . At the Bösau briquette factory there was a passing point with a platform for passenger traffic. The route continued through the breakpoints in the now desolate villages of Grunau and Großgrimma ; it then followed today's L 191 to the Hohenmölsen district of Zetsch . After the regular-gauge replacement line for the Wählitzbahn was built, this section of the route - as well as the following section between Hohenmölsen and Webau - briefly crossed both lines at the same level. The Hohenmölsen stop was on a dam between Salzstrasse and Lützener Strasse. Behind the breakpoint, the Lützener and Pegauer Strasse were crossed on a large steel bridge. This was followed by the Wählitz stop - later abandoned - and the Webau train station , which was the end point of passenger traffic in the beginning before it was withdrawn to Hohenmölsen. After leaving the hairpin of the train station, which was located on a hill before entering the town, the line crossed today's L 190. The line then suffered a recoil parallel to the standard-gauge Groß Korbetha – Deuben railway before it ended at the Wählitz briquette factory . From the end of the line, the coal delivered by the factory railway was transported by conveyor belt over the standard lane to the briquette factory.

The route was equipped with light signals and a route block. Signal boxes were in Profen and Bösau. The remote-controlled switches in the kickbacks were operated by the engine driver. With the exception of Profen, platforms were not paved, but they were illuminated and had waiting rooms.

Freight trains were pulled or pushed by Profen in the direction of Webau and usually consisted of five cars. Occupied passenger trains were not allowed to be pushed as there was no escort on the trains and the Zugspitze was not manned when the trains were pushed. In the 1980s, a passenger train ran Monday to Friday in the morning before the early shift from Hohenmölsen to Profen and in the opposite direction at the end of the shift.

vehicles

Locomotives

Initially, electric locomotives from the manufacturers AEG , Brown, Boveri & Cie. and Siemens-Schuckertwerke in action. In the early 1960s reached more Grubenloks type EL 3 of locomotive electrotechnical works "Hans Beimler" Hennigsdorf by Profen. In 1987 the railway had the locomotives 4-625 (factory number 9008), 4-626 (9009), 4-627 (9010), 4-741 (9024) and Di 191-916-A3 (250328). The 4-627 and 4-741 were preferred for passenger traffic. All machines were scrapped after operations were closed in 1988. A diesel locomotive of the type V 10 C (serial number 250.328) was kept for the shunting service . The locomotive was delivered by the manufacturer in 1963 and was carried under the number 191. It was also scrapped in 1988.

Passenger cars

In the early days, freight wagons converted for passenger transport were used. In 1959 VEB Waggonbau Altenburg delivered ten new four-axle passenger cars, seven of which were still available at the end, one of which had been converted to standard gauge. The cars had a length over buffers of 13.5 meters, were electrically heated, equipped with wooden seats and had a green and white color scheme. Cars running at the ends of the train also had an acoustic signaling device and lighting systems for pushed journeys.

Freight wagons and other vehicles

The coal was transported in self-unloading wagons with a capacity of 56 cubic meters each. There were also numerous other four-axle freight wagons and two SKL 24s for maintaining the infrastructure .

literature

• Holger Neumann: Ten years ago - the gauge change of the Wählitzbahn. In: Werkbahnreport 6 (1997), pp. 6–13.
• Holger Neumann, Henry Burde: The narrow-gauge industrial railway was shut down. In: Modelleisenbahner 6/1988, p. 3.
• Roland Schumann: Coal railways in the Zeitz-Weißenfelser Revier. Barteld Verlag, Berga / Elster, ISBN 978-3-935961-13-4 , passim.

Web links

• Dietmar Franz: The 900 mm mine train in Profen (three parts), bimmelbahn-forum.de, 27./28. January 2020 (accessed February 2, 2020).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dirk Endisch, Ralf Wiedemann: mass goods. In: Edition Fahrzeug-Chronik 10. Verlag Dirk Endisch, Stendal 2013, ISBN 978-3-936893-20-5 , pp. 32, 40.