Werra Railway Company

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Lines of the Werra Railway Company
Seal mark Werra Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft

The Werra Railway Company was a private railway company that existed from 1855 to 1895 and was then taken over by the Prussian State Railways . The railway company operated several railway lines in southern Thuringia and Upper Franconia . It was based in Meiningen , the capital of the Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen .

history

Starting in 1836, Carl Joseph Meyer established a joint-stock company , making the first efforts to build a railway line through the Werra Valley from Eisenach to Coburg , which initially failed due to the refusal of concessions . In 1841 the basis for the construction of the railway line could be created through a state treaty between the adjacent duchies of Saxony-Meiningen, Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach and Saxony-Coburg and Gotha . Another delay occurred due to the refusal to give consent by the Bavarian state government. In December 1855, the “Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft” was founded as a stock corporation by private individuals in Meiningen to finance, carry out the construction work and later operate the railway line. This brought in eight million thalers for the construction of the railway through the sale of shares and on December 20, 1855 received the concession to build the Werra Railway . Construction work began on February 16, 1856 and was completed with the opening of the Werra Railway to Coburg on November 2, 1858 and to Lichtenfels in January 1859. The vehicle fleet initially consisted of 24 locomotives, 40 passenger cars and 327 baggage and freight cars.

The headquarters building in 2009

In 1856, the Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft signed a contract to transfer the construction, operation and maintenance of the railway lines to the Thuringian Railway Company for ten years , which was then extended until 1874. In order to maintain, maintain and repair the vehicles, the company had a workshop built in the Meiningen train station opposite the reception building in 1863 , which later became the Meiningen railway depot . A representative headquarters building for the Werra Railway Company was built in Meininger Charlottenstraße.

From January 1, 1875, the Werra Railway Company itself took over the management of the company. Head of construction and operations inspector Ludwig Büchner was appointed director. In addition to the main Werrabahn line and the Coburg – Sonneberg branch line , the company took the Sonneberg – Lauscha (1886), Themar – Schleusingen (1888), Immelborn – Liebenstein-Schweina (1889) and Coburg – Rodach (1892) branch lines into operation . In 1894, the vehicle fleet consisted of 55 locomotives, 85 passenger cars and 703 baggage and freight cars. On October 1, 1895, the takeover and nationalization by the Prussian State Railroad took place for 25.4 million marks. The headquarters building became the seat of Prussian railway inspections and, from 1920, the "Reichsbahnamt Meiningen".

Operated railway lines

See also

literature

  • Hermann Pistor : The Thuringian Railways, especially those of the Thuringian Forest , especially in their orographic relationships. Jena 1908; New edition Nabu Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-141-83196-8
  • Meiningen museums: Meiningen under steam , brochure, Meiningen 2008
  • Tino Avemark: Meininger Bahnhof through the ages . Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9809504-3-5
  • Kuratorium Meiningen (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of the city of Meiningen. Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9809504-4-2
  • Steffen Dietsch, Stefan Goldschmidt, Hans Löhner: The Werra Railway. Eisenbahn-Fachbuch-Verlag Resch, Coburg, 2008, ISBN 978-39810681-3-9

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manfred Berger: Historische Eisenbahnbauten , Verlag für Verkehrwesen, Berlin 1986, pp. 244–245.
  2. ↑ a b Georg Thielmann: Die Werrabahn , Wachsenburgverlag 2002, pp. 111–125.
  3. ^ Meiningen Board of Trustees: Lexicon on the history of the city of Meiningen. Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008, p. 237.
  4. ↑ Tino Avemark: The Meininger station through the ages , Bielstein publishing Meiningen 2008, p. 8