Mindener Kreisbahnen

Mindener Kreisbahnen GmbH
legal form	GmbH
founding	1893
Seat	Minden / Westf. ⊙
management	Johannes Marg (Managing Director)
Number of employees	51
Website	www.mkb.de

The Minden Museum Railway GmbH (MKB) is a railway company that the area now since the late 19th century, the Minden-Lübbecke in the region of East Westphalia-Lippe in North Rhine-Westphalia opens. Initially built as a meter-gauge railway of the third category, it had the task of managing the economic and personnel transport services in the then still independent districts of Minden and Lübbecke and thus also providing some structural support. The train is popularly known as the Mindener Kleinbahn .

history

Mindener Kreisbahnen
Gauge :	1000 mm, 1435 mm
Minden-Uchte
Course book section (DB) :	106, ex 219m
Route length:	30 km
Maximum slope :	25  ‰
Legend -1.2 Minden Bf ⊙ Range from Kleinenbremen ⊙ Weser ⊙ Port Railway ⊙ 0.0 Minden city ⊙ 1.0 Minden Upper Town ⊙ Route to Hille (–Lübbecke) ⊙ Mittelland Canal ⊙ 3.3 Bierpohl ⊙ need stop 4.8 Kutenhausen ⊙ former route to Wegholm ⊙ 6.0 Todtenhausen ⊙ 7.6 Graßhoff ⊙ 9.5 Heisterholz ⊙ 10.5 Morhoff ⊙ need stop 12.2 Petershagen (Weser) ⊙ 13.1 Bad Hopfenberg ⊙ Need stop 13.8 Pottmühle ⊙ demand stop 15.8 Gernheim ⊙ 17.0 Ovenstädt ⊙ State border NRW / Lower Saxony ⊙ 18.1 Glissen 19.4 Harrienstedt 20.8 Cross jug 21.8 Jenhorst 24.1 Höfen near Uchte formerly Steinhuder Meer Railway (1899–1935) Uchte terminus until 1910 to Rahden 28.4 Uchte former route to Nienburg
Kutenhausen – Wegholm (1915–1976)
Course book section (DB) :	ex 219h
Route length:	10 km
Maximum slope :	10  ‰
Legend former route from Minden 4.8 Kutenhausen ⊙ former route to Uchte ⊙ 7.1 Stemmer ⊙ 9.2 Nordholz ⊙ 10.6 Südfelde ⊙ 12.6 Friedewalde ⊙ 15.1 Wegholm ⊙
Minden – Hille (–Lübbecke)
MKB diesel locomotive on the Minden harbor railway
Course book section (DB) :	107, ex 219n
Route length:	27 km
Maximum slope :	14  ‰
Legend Route from Kleinenbremen / Minden train station 1.0 Minden Upper Town ⊙ former route to Kutenhausen – Uchte ⊙ Port Railway (Westhafen) ⊙ 2.1 Minden Hahlerstraße ⊙ 2.8 Minden Königstor ⊙ Mittelland Canal ⊙ 5.9 Hahlen ⊙ 8.8 Hartum ⊙ 11.0 Südhemmern ⊙ 12.1 Bacon ⊙ stop on demand 14.4 Hille ⊙ Mittelland Canal ⊙ 18.3 Eickhorst ⊙ 19.6 Husen ⊙ demand stop 20.5 Nettelstedt ⊙ 21.6 Landwehr ⊙ emergency stop 23.0 Eilhausen ⊙ demand stop 23.8 Gehlenbeck (Kr Lübbecke) ⊙ 26.9 Lübbecke city Ravensberger Bahn to Rahden ⊙ 27.9 Lübbecke (Westf) ⊙ Ravensberger Bahn to Bünde
Minden – Kleinenbremen
Train of the museum railway in Kleinenbremen
Course book section (DB) :	ex 219k
Route length:	14 km
Maximum slope :	28  ‰
Legend from Hille / Uchte 1.0 Minden Upper Town ⊙ 0.0 Minden city ⊙ Port Railway ⊙ Weser ⊙ to Minden train station until 1957 ⊙ 1.6 Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse ⊙ Hanover – Minden railway line ⊙ 3.9 Dankersen ⊙ Bad Eilsener Kleinbahn , 1919–1922 ⊙ Minden tram ⊙ 4.8 Meißen-Notthorn ⊙ 6.0 Meißen ⊙ tram terminus 8.2 Nammen Bad ⊙ 9.5 Nammen village ⊙ 10.9 Nammen Grube ⊙ 11.8 Wülpke ⊙ 13.0 Kleinenbremen stop ⊙ 13.7 Small brakes ⊙ Connection of the Well Safe Pit ⊙ 14.0 Entrance to the visitor mine ⊙ Well-preserved mine / visitor mine ⊙

The establishment of the Mindener Kreisbahnen follows the Prussian Small Railways Act of 1892. This economic and structural promotion law for poorly populated regions of the Prussian provinces regulated in detail the procedures and responsibilities for the approval of the construction and operation of small railways . This third word in addition to main and secondary lines was created for lines that opened up the area.

People in Minden reacted particularly quickly. As early as 1893, a steam tram was built to Porta Westfalica to open up the Kaiser Wilhelm monument that was under construction there (Porta itself only had one station for passenger train traffic).

The further development of the Mindener Land was not carried out by the Minden tram , but by a small train company founded by the district, which opened the first line to Uchte in 1898 . In the following years up to 1921 the routes to Lübbecke , Wegholm and finally to Kleinenbremen (ore railway) followed. From 1902 the small railroad trains went to Uchte, later also to Lübbecke from the district station in the immediate vicinity of the Minden state station.

The administration of the Minden district as the operator of the MKB opened the following routes:

Opening date	length	route
1898	30.2 km	Minden transfer station (Friedrich-Wilhelm-Straße) –Stadtbahnhof– Kutenhausen - Petershagen –Uchte
1902	1.2 km	Minden State Railway – Minden City
1903-1907	26.9 km	Minden – Lübbecke, initially to Eickhorst
1915	10.3 km	Kutenhausen - Friedewalde - Wegholm
1918-1921	12.2 km	Minden transfer station – Kleinenbremen, initially to Nammen

The Friedrich-Wilhelm-Straße passenger station was opened in connection with the start of passenger traffic on the route to Nammen in 1919. Because this route was shared by the standard gauge Bad Eilsener Kleinbahn (1919–1922), the section to Notthorn was already equipped with three rails.

This meant that around 80 km of track had been laid in the old 1000 mm gauge, which promised the cheapest development costs due to a smaller curve radius and thus less land purchase and less complex railway embankment construction. Agriculture primarily benefited from the Kleinbahn, as artificial fertilizers came to the state of Minden at low cost and agricultural products were sold to end consumers. In addition, the Mindener Kreisbahnen had a connection to the most important state railway lines in Minden, Lübbecke and Uchte and could reach other customers via this link. In Uchte there was also a connection to the meter-gauge Steinhuder Meer Railway until 1935 .

In Minden, the direct connection to the state railway at Minden (Westphalia) station was a problem from the start. After the first passenger trains began in Minden-Stadt station on the left bank of the Weser, the Minden Staatsbahn (or Reichsbahn ) station, then known as the “Kleinbahnhof”, was built in 1902 at the height of the building of the former Minden Oberpostdirektion in the immediate vicinity of the Staatsbahn station on Kaiserstraße . Since the route from the city station to the Minden Staatsbahn station was not re-gauged, regular-gauge passenger trains, which had also been on the line to Uchte from 1950, could no longer approach the station on the Staatsbahn and ended in Minden-Stadt, with buses running between the two stations . After the line to Lübbecke had also been re-tracked, the district station at the state station was abandoned in 1956.

From 1914, the Mindener Kreisbahnen tried to achieve a link between rail and ship by purchasing and building several port railways . The local industry joined the MKB with rail connections, thus gaining access to the state railway and thus to nationwide traffic. The Meißen-Notthorn (from December 1929) and Meißen (December 1930) stops were used by the tram until 1956 .

According to the timetable in 1939, travel time from Minden Reichsbahnhof to Lübbecke or Uchte was around 70 to 80 minutes. The trains from Minden Stadt to Kleinenbremen took around 40 minutes.

The meter gauge soon proved to be an obstacle. The transport of the goods lost time due to the reloading into wagons for standard-gauge tracks. Therefore, the MKB network was gradually converted to standard gauge from 1924 to 1957 . To this end, a three-track operation was initially set up on the core routes.

At the same time, however, private transport increased, and the branch lines lost their reputation compared to the intercity buses, which were then considered to be faster, more modern and cheaper . First, individual journeys on the circular path were replaced by buses, then the routes for passenger traffic were discontinued one after the other .

Hiring date	length	route
1957	1.2 km	Minden Bundesbahnhof – Minden Stadt (was not converted to standard gauge)
1959	10.3 km	Kutenhausen – Wegholm
9/30/1962	14.0 km	Minden – Kleinenbremen
1967	29.7 km	Petershagen – Uchte and Hille – Lübbecke
May 26, 1974	25.6 km	Minden – Petershagen
29.9.1974	12.3 km	Minden – Hille

In freight transport, too, sections of the route were no longer served and were subsequently shut down.

Hiring date	length	route
1957	1.2 km	Minden Bundesbahnhof – Minden Stadt (was not converted to standard gauge)
9/30/1973		Petershagen-Uchte
1.12.1980		Kutenhausen – Petershagen
May 31, 1999		Minden – Kutenhausen (official shutdown 2007)

Passenger trains (steam) last operated on the Minden – Uchte route in September 1977 as part of special trips. The tracks have been removed in many places. Parts of the former routes were used for the construction of long- distance cycle paths , for example in the Petershagen area (Minden – Uchte) for the Weser cycle path and the mill route .

In contrast to other small railways, however, the Mindener Kreisbahnen continue to exist, albeit temporarily mainly due to bus traffic.

On the remaining rail network (2002: 48 km) of the MKB freight traffic was still carried out in sections .

Since 1977, historical trains, mostly with steam locomotives, have been running regularly in the summer months of the Minden Museum Railway on the MKB routes. Currently (2017) the routes to Hille and Nammen are being used. The operating center of the museum railway is in Minden Oberstadt station.

Since 1997, the rail reform has made it possible for MKB to carry out nationwide freight traffic on Deutsche Bahn routes.

From December 2007 to July 2017, the Mindener Kreisbahn was able to resume passenger transport by rail by winning the route tender on the "Teutoburg Forest Network" and founding Westfalenbahn GmbH (with three partners). In July 2017 it became known that the company had been taken over completely by Abellio, as otherwise the municipal companies would be obliged to tender for urban traffic.

In 2015, the Mindener Kreisbahnen built a new maintenance hall for the trains of the Westfalenbahn on their site on Karlstrasse. The hall is known as the Minden II depot . The building is an extension and reconstruction of the old locomotive and bus shed in the same place. 15 jobs were created here. The main hall is 173 meters long and consists of an old and a new building. Inside there is a pit track with a roof working platform and another maintenance and measuring track.

Forms of capital

After the Mindener Kreisbahnen was initially an independent company of the Minden district, it was converted into a GmbH in 1978, which also works independently with it. With the establishment of the two subsidiaries, it became a group of companies with around 100 employees and a turnover of around 12 million euros. The railway division accounts for a transport volume of 505,000 tonnes and a transport performance of 89,530,000 tonne-kilometers.

Route network today

The route network of the Mindener Kreisbahnen has been increasingly reduced over the years: the 80 km long small railway network has become a 40 km long network, which essentially consists of the former main routes to Kleinenbremen and Hille . This means there is a branch to the east of the Weser and a branch to the west of the Weser. They are connected to the Kleinbahnbrücke in Minden via the Weser . In addition, the track bed covers the entire port of Minden .

vehicles

Electric locomotive of the Mindener Kreisbahn

In its history, the Mindener Kreisbahn had over 402 rail vehicles: 30 steam locomotives, 10 railcars, 16 diesel locomotives, 52 passenger and baggage cars, 138 narrow-gauge freight cars, 96 roll stands and 60 standard-gauge freight cars.

The standard- gauge T 6 diesel multiple unit was created by converting a passenger car that came from the Heidenau – Altenberg branch line .

Bus transport

MKB-MühlenkreisBus GmbH

Logo MühlenkreisBus GmbH

The omnibus traffic serves as a mainstay of the Mindener Kreisbahn , which in addition to the lines in the course of the old routes also serves other lines. The first line going beyond the railway network was set up in 1948 from Minden to Rinteln. In 2002 the length of the bus routes totaled around 600 km. The bus subsidiary has been called MKB-MühlenkreisBus GmbH since October 2008 . In December 2009 the company took over about 20 bus routes in the Lübbecke area from Busverkehr Ostwestfalen GmbH.

The most important MKB lines in the Minden area are:

• 501/502 Minden ZOB - Petershagen
• 509 (Minden city bus) Minden ZOB - train station - Dankersen
• 510 Minden ZOB - train station - Meißen - Nammen - Kleinenbremen
• 512 Minden ZOB - Eickhorst Dorfstraße - Lübbecke ZOB
• 513 Express bus Minden ZOB - Eickhorst - Lübbecke
• 605 Minden train station - Minden central bus station - Hahlen - Hille - Espelkamp - Rahden train station

WeserBus

The WeserBus is a public transport concept for the city of Petershagen . The system consists of 14 bus lines and 4 TaxiBus lines. The lines are mostly served every hour.

The lines of the WeserBus are:

• 503 Petershagen - Friedewalde
• 504 Petershagen - Buchholz
• 505 Lahde - Schluesselburg
• 506 Lahde - field of souls
• 507/508 combo drive wheels Horst / Seelenfeld - Lahde - Minden (120 minutes)
• 525 Friedewalde local traffic
• 530 Petershagen - Uchte

Taxi buses in the WeserBus:

• Southwest Petershagen - Friedewalde
• Northwest Petershagen - Uchte
• Northeast Lahde - Schluesselburg
• East Lahde - soul field

literature

• Ingrid Schütte, Werner Schütte: The Mindener Kreisbahnen . Uhle & Kleimann, Lübbecke 1990, ISBN 3-922657-77-X .
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 6: North Rhine-Westphalia (northeastern part) . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2000, ISBN 3-88255-664-1 , pp. 9–56.
• Building and Art Monuments of Westphalia, Volume 50: City of Minden , edited by Fred Kaspar and Ulf Dietrich Korn, Part V: Minden outside the city walls , Part Volume 2, pp. 1721–1744, Ed .: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Klartext Verlag, Essen 1998, ISBN 3-88474-635-9 .
• Stefan Högemann, Martin Ketelhake: The Mindener Kreisbahnen . In: Bahn-Report . tape 5/2020 , p. 77-83 .

Web links

Commons : Mindener Kreisbahnen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Mindener Kreisbahnen (MKB)
• DR course book 1944
• Vehicle list MKB
• Old pictures of the circular path in the forum
• History of the Mindener Kreisbahn (private homepage, German)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Building and Art Monuments of Westphalia , Volume 50: City of Minden, Part V Minden outside the city walls , pp. 1726, 1731
2. ↑ Course book summer 1939
3. ^ Stefan Hennigfeld: Abellio takes over Westfalenbahn. Eisenbahnjournal Zughalt.de, July 12, 2017, accessed on July 12, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Mindener Tageblatt: New maintenance hall for the Westfalenbahn almost completed. Edition of May 5, 2015, accessed on May 5, 2015
5. ↑ Neue Westfälische: The Westfalenbahn now runs double-decker Edition of August 8, 2015, accessed on December 12, 2015
6. ↑ Bahn Extra 3/2018: branch lines in the 1960s , p. 7

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap