Scheuerfeld – Emmerzhausen railway line

This article deals with the Scheuerfeld – Nauroth – Emmerzhausen railway, for the company of the same name see Westerwaldbahn GmbH .

Scheuerfeld – Nauroth / Emmerzhausen
Route number (DB) :	9278 (Scheuerfeld – Emmerzhausen) 9279 (Bindweide – Nauroth new station)
Course book section (DB) :	194j (1949)
Route length:	20.2 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	25  ‰
Legend of victories Scheuerfeld (victory) 175  m to Cologne 0.0 Scheuerfeld WEBA 177.45  m Scheuerfelder Tunnel (302 m) Elbbach 5.6 Elves 297.32  m 7.3 Gebhardshain - Steinebach 334.75  m 10.6 Bindweide 410.32  m 1.8 00.0 Rosenheim (Westerwald) / Rosenheim Bk 427.08  m 3.8 00.0 Luckenbach 391.04  m 4.4 00.0 Nauroth (new Bf) 11.7 Dickendorf 12.0 Beech head ( Abzw ) (original route) 13.7 Elkenroth 16.8 Nauroth (old Bf) 409  m 14.0 Elkenroth (new Hp) 457.08  m 14.9 Elkenroth Gbf 15.8 End of private siding in 1926 16.7 Weitefeld 473.1  m 18.2 Oberdreisbach 487  m 20.3 Friedewald 495.95  m 22.5 Those 24.0 Mauden 26.4 Emmerzhausen 597.2  m State border Rhineland-Palatinate / North Rhine-Westphalia 33.0 Siegerland Airport Swell:

The Scheuerfeld – Emmerzhausen (Westerwaldbahn) railway is a railway line in the northernmost part of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate . Already in the last decades of the 19th century were here pit lanes for the transport of ores created and other natural resources, but only after the turn of the century was standard gauge railway for public transport built.

history

Gebhardshain-Steinebach station (2010)

Since the establishment of a corporation failed at that time to the Prussian tried Rhine province belonging district Altenkirchen to realize the project on their own responsibility. The Berlin “AG für Bahnen und Tiefbauten Ph. Balke” was commissioned to build and operate the small railway “Scheuerfeld – Nauroth”. On January 10, 1913, the 17-kilometer route was put into operation. The starting point was the small train station Scheuerfeld in the Siegtal , through which the main line Cologne – Siegen runs, then the line climbed to the plateau of Gebhardshainer Land to today's operational center of Steinebach / Bindweide and ended at Nauroth station . The district took over management from October 1, 1914. In the first year of operation, five pairs of trains ran daily.

In 1926 a private railway connection was opened from Bindweide in the direction of Weitefeld to develop new basalt quarries , and two years later the line led to Friedewald . In 1930 it was extended to Emmerzhausen . In the Second World War, a track was finally laid to the Lippe military airfield. On May 25, 1939, the connecting line to Emmerzhausen was converted into a small railway similar to a branch line.

Closing basalt quarries and ore mines made the stretch from Bindweide to Nauroth uneconomical. It was shut down on September 15, 1931 and rebuilt further to the west with the existing superstructure material, because it made it easier to reach pits that were to be put into operation. This line was put into operation on March 21, 1934. The railway operated in 1941 as "Westerwaldbahn Scheuerfeld - Nauroth - Emmerzhausen". It was not until April 1, 1999 that the municipal company was converted into a GmbH.

For decades, passenger transport only played a subordinate role. In 1948 there were six pairs of trains Scheuerfeld – Weitefeld, five pairs of trains Bindweide – Nauroth, with a connection in Bindweide. Apart from numerous special trips, it was also discontinued on October 30, 1960 on the last Scheuerfeld – Elkenroth section, as a bus network that had been built up since 1949 provided sufficient supplies for the communities in the catchment area.

The line between Friedewald and Emmerzhausen was closed in 1970 and between Oberdreisbach and Friedewald on March 7, 1977. The Bindweide – Nauroth line had not been operated since 1971 and was shut down in April 1974.

Current situation (2017)

The Westerwaldbahn GmbH still operated regular freight traffic between Scheuerfeld and Weitefeld . Around 70,000 t were transported each year (as of 2013). In June 2017, the Altenkirchen district council decided to discontinue freight transport by the district's own Westerwaldbahn. Traffic on the main line was stopped on July 29, 2017 because the general inspection of the last operational locomotive would no longer have been worthwhile given the low volume of goods. The Bindweide – Weitefeld line was closed and the decommissioning process was initiated. The remaining distance is still used to reach the depot in Bindweide.

From May to October 2018, due to construction work on the L 288 ( Steinerother Straße ) in Betzdorf, school bus traffic between Gebhardshain-Steinebach and Scheuerfeld was shifted to rail.

literature

• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 1: Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1989, ISBN 3-88255-651-X , pp. 264-284.

Web links

• Freight traffic finally stopped after more than 100 years. In: AK-Kurier. MVV Medienverlag Westerwald-Sieg, July 28, 2017, accessed on October 9, 2017 . 
• Pictures of the bus replacement service on lok-report.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
3. ↑ Decided to stop freight traffic . In: railway magazine . No. 9 , 2017, ISSN  0342-1902 , p. 31 .
4. ↑ Volkhard Stern: Westerwaldbahn ends rail freight traffic on its main line . In: The Museum Railway . No. 4 , 2017, ISSN  0936-4609 , p. 9 .
5. ↑ Bridge construction site in Betzdorf: School traffic switches to rail. In: AK-Kurier. May 8, 2018, accessed November 9, 2018 .