Waldenburger Kreisbahn

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disused tram
Waldenburger Kreisbahn
image
Waldenburger Kreisbahn at Vierhäuser Platz in 1898
Basic information
Country Poland
city Wałbrzych
opening 1898
Shutdown 1966
operator Lower Silesian Electricity and Small Railroad Company
Infrastructure
Gauge 1000 mm ( meter gauge )
business
Lines 4th
Cruising speed 10 km / h
vehicles 1945:
35 motor vehicles and
17 trailers
Network plan
Tram network 1945

The Waldenburger Kreisbahn was the system of electric tram lines that served local traffic in the Lower Silesian town of Waldenburg , now Wałbrzych, and its neighboring towns.

history

The Owl Mountains merge with the Waldenburger Bergland to the northwest . This is named after the town - independent since 1924 - which was the center of Lower Silesian coal mining. Although railway lines with several stations were built in the urban area of ​​Waldenburg and its surroundings between 1853 and 1877, the need for further densification of the transport network grew over the years. The city's industrialists were looking for a way of transporting factory workers from home to work so that they would not lose their strength by long walks before work began. The visitors to Bad Salzbrunn were also among the potential passengers.

As early as 1895 an electric tram line was planned between Waldenburg, Freiburg in Silesia and Schweidnitz . Schweidnitz feared a disadvantage of its location compared to Waldenburg. But Waldenburg did not let himself be deterred from his plans.

Lower Silesian Electricity and Small Railroad Company

The Lower Silesian Elektricitäts- und Kleinbahn-AG, founded on July 6th, 1896, opened the first eleven-kilometer-long, meter-gauge tram line on September 12th, 1898 from the neighboring town of Hermsdorf to the west to the city center and via the Altwasser district to the north to Niedersalzbrunn . Six months later, on March 26, 1899, the line followed south from the city center to Dittersbach station, the city's most important station. In a north-westerly direction, on September 15, 1907, a connection was added from the center to Ober Salzbrunn, which has been called Bad Salzbrunn since 1935 . This line was ten kilometers long. Siemens & Halske from Berlin carried out the construction of the tram . The junction in the city center was the Ring and, further north, the Vierhäuser Platz, near which the depot on Weißsteiner Strasse was located.

The former small town of Waldenburg, which covered the area of ​​today's inner city, began to absorb the surrounding cities through the construction of new tram lines. Soon it was only Breslau , which in Lower Silesia exceeded Waldenburg in terms of size and population.

On October 22, 1913, there was a serious accident. A runaway freight car of the Prussian State Railroad collided with a train on the Waldenburger Kreisbahn at a level crossing . 14 people died.

A final expansion took place when the community of Reussendorf in the east (5 km) was connected to Waldenburg. In 1927 the track up to Hermannstrasse in Neustadt was put into operation, the rest not until 1933. Since several lines ran on one route in some places, the route network (1939) was 24 kilometers long. It was used by 36 railcars with eleven sidecars.

A bus line was opened on April 4, 1927. It was 4.1 km long. There were three vehicles in use.

Elektrizitätswerk Schlesien AG

The main shareholder, the Silesian Electricity Company in Breslau , took over the Lower Silesian Electricity and Small Railway Company in 1931 and continued to operate the railway.

During the Second World War , a decision had to be taken to renew the tram network. The single-track, side-to-side lines were worn out after decades of operation; Last but not least, damage to the mountains had occurred due to the numerous coal mines . There were still 35 motor vehicles and 17 trailers, two thirds of which were unusable. The newest cars were already 22 years old. The lack of maintenance led to accidents caused by runaway cars and brake failure, which was fatal in the city with its many hills.

Conversion to bus operation

At that time, as in many other cities, the decision was made to gradually switch to trolleybus operation , because track maintenance was no longer required and steel was generally diverted to the armaments industry. From October 27, 1944, a four-kilometer trolleybus line ran from Vierhäuser Platz parallel to the tram up to Dittersbach station; then construction began in the direction of the backwater, which was only completed by the Polish administration after 1945.

In the last years of the war the following local transport lines operated:

  • 1 trolleybus: Vierhäuser Platz - Ring - Dittersbach station 4.8 km
  • 2 Tram: Hermsdorf - Ring - Vierhäuser Platz - Altwasser - Nieder Salzbrunn 10.9 km
  • 3 Tram: Bad Salzbrunn - Weißstein - Vierhäuser Platz - Auenstraße - Sonnenplatz - Dittersbach station 9.5 km
  • 4 trams: Ring - Sonnenplatz - Neustadt - Reussendorf 5.2 km
  • 5 Tram: Ring - Altwasser - Sandberg (4.7 km; reinforcement line)
  • 6 Omnibus: Ring - Graf-Hochberg-Schacht / Großhain 4.5 km

Despite the trolleybus line, the tram remained in full operation beyond the end of the war. It was not until the sixties that the tram changes began.

The first (around 1947?) To be discontinued was the line to Dittersbach station, on which the trolleybus line also ran, which now began in Altwasser. In 1960 the line to Nieder Salzbrunn followed and in 1963 the east-west line Reussendorf – city center – Hermsdorf. The line 8 to Bad Salzbrunn in October 1966 concluded.

Shortly before - in the summer of 1966 - the following lines operated:

  • 1 trolleybus: Nieder Salzbrunn - Altwasser - Vierhäuser Platz - Dittersbach station
  • 2 Trolleybus: Nieder Salzbrunn - Altwasser - Vierhäuser Platz - Ring - Hermsdorf
  • 3 Trolleybus: Nieder Salzbrunn - Altwasser - Neustadt - Ring - Vierhäuser Platz - Altwasser - Nieder Salzbrunn
  • 4 Trolleybus: like line 3, but opposite course in the city center
  • 5 Trolleybus: Reußendorf - Neustadt - Sonnenplatz - Dittersbach station
  • 6 Trolleybus: Dittersbach station - Neustadt - Altwasser - Vierhäuser Platz - Dittersbach station
  • 7 Trolleybus: opposite course to line 6
  • 8 Tram: Vierhäuser Platz - Weißstein - Bad Salzbrunn
  • 9 Trolleybus: city center - Hermsdorf
  • 10 Trolleybus: Reußendorf - Ring - Hermsdorf
  • 0? Trolleybus: Reussendorf - city center - Altwasser - Sandberg development area

At that time, the city of Waldenburg, which was enlarged by incorporation, had around 134,000 inhabitants, twice as many as before the Second World War.

The trolleybus grew with the reduction of tram operations to ten lines by 1966 with a total network of 26 kilometers in length. But with that the climax was exceeded and the network gradually shrank again. The complete shutdown of the trolleybus traffic took place on June 30, 1973.

Tram plans in the 1980s

In the 1980s, Wałbrzych planned to build a light rail between the residential areas in the north of the city and the mines and industrial plants in the south of the city. The project was not implemented due to the closure of the mines and other facilities.

literature

  • Siegfried Bufe: Trams in Silesia. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-87943-424-7 .
  • Werner Stock: Trolleybus systems in Germany. The development of the overhead line omnibus operations in the German Reich, in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the German Democratic Republic since 1930. Busch, Bielefeld 1987, ISBN 3-926882-00-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Artur Szałkowski: Komunikacja miejska w Wałbrzychu obchodzi rocznicę 120-lecia (ZDJĘCIA). In: naszemiasto. September 12, 2018 (Polish).;
  2. ↑ Wałbrzyskie tramwaje. In: polska-org.pl. August 13, 2012 .;