Herborn – Montabaur railway line
The Herborn – Montabaur railway line , also known as the Westerwaldquerbahn , is a branch line in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate . It originally led from Herborn via Driedorf , Fehl-Ritzhausen and Westerburg to Montabaur . Today only the section between Wallmerod and Montabaur is still in operation for freight traffic .
history
Plans for the Westerwaldquerbahn came up at the end of the 19th century. The motivation, as for all railway projects in the Westerwald, was the better development of the mineral raw material sources in particular (especially clay and various rocks, partly also iron ore), the connection of the processing plants established at these mining sites, and better transport of the numerous migrant workers in the region to the industrial ones Centers and generally the economic upgrading of the poor region. As a relatively late railway project in the region, the Westerwaldquerbahn was supposed to better connect the northeastern part of the Westerwald, which is remote from the older railway lines, to the already more industrialized zones of Siegerland and the Lahn . In 1898 the Prussian state parliament approved the construction of a railway line from Herborn to a confluence point to be determined with the Oberwesterwaldbahn and further west to Montabaur or Siershahn on the Unterwesterwaldbahn . There followed political disputes about the exact route as well as several suggestions for different routes, so that the following route openings did not occur until 1906:
| From | To | Opening date |
|---|---|---|
| Herborn | Driedorf | May 1, 1906 |
| Driedorf | Rennerod | October 1, 1906 |
| Rennerod | Westerburg | July 16, 1907 |
| Westerburg | Montabaur | June 1, 1910 |
Other Westerwaldquerbahn designs around 1900 that were never implemented were the Burbach - Niederroßbach, Erbach - Selters, Montabaur - Vallendar and Montabaur - Lahn routes.
A citizen of Wallmerod, Karl Hutter, donated a large amount of money to this railway, so that the railway line, which had already been planned differently, was diverted in a wide arc to the southeast in the direction of his home village.
In the course of the construction of the Krombach dam from 1946 to 1949, the route between Rennerod and Mademühlen had to be relocated to the north.
Traffic suspensions and closures
| From | To | Setting PV |
Setting GV |
Shutdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Herborn | Schönbach | May 31, 1980 | September 27, 1985 | |
| Schönbach | Steinringsberg | May 31, 1966 | June 1, 1984 | |
| Steinringsberg | Driedorf | May 31, 1959 | June 1, 1984 | |
| Driedorf | Mademühlen | May 31, 1959 | April 1, 1974 | |
| Mademühlen | Rennerod | May 31, 1959 | January 1, 1967 | |
| Rennerod | Westerburg | May 31, 1981 | April 18, 1995 | April 25, 1998 |
| Westerburg | Wallmerod | May 31, 1981 | May 30, 1985 | |
| Wallmerod | Montabaur | May 31, 1981 | in operation |
The line has been dismantled between Herborn and Rennerod and between Westerburg and Wallmerod.
A railway cycle path was opened in 1989 on the section between Westerburg and Wallmerod .
Current operation
Between Wallmerod and Montabaur, the route serves as part of the DB Netz infrastructure for freight traffic to this day. DB Cargo transports clay from the clay pits around Wallmerod (including Villeroy & Boch ) in block trains .
future
The interest group Westerwald-Querbahn (IWQ) e. V. leased the Westerburg – Rennerod line from DB Netz AG in August 2013 and is aiming to repair it in sections as a tourist railway.
Since April 2014, trips with hand-lever trolleys have been taking place on the six-kilometer section between Fehl-Ritzhausen and Rennerod, which is managed by the IG Westerwald-Querbahn eV (IWQ) . A continuation is planned for the coming years.
accident
On August 13, 1973, there was a spectacular accident at Erdbach station : as a result of external intervention in Mademühlen station , 16 freight wagons were uncoupled from a train and began to roll downhill on a downhill gradient. After 15 kilometers and crossing 20 crossings they met on the buffer of switchbacks Station Erdbach, ran over him and beat 50 meters into a house one in which a woman was killed.
Structural features
With the hairpin in Erdbach , the two tunnels at Erdbach and Schönenbach and the two listed building steel girder viaducts of the sleeve Viaduct in Westerburg and the fish-bellied girder bridge at Fehl-Ritzhausen they pointed out some structural features.
literature
- Merzhäuser, Wenzel: Railways in the Westerwald . Eisenbahn-Kurier-Verlag, Freiburg 1996, ISBN 3-88255-579-3 .
- Udo Kandler: Railways in the Westerwald . Eisenbahn-Journal special edition I / 92, Hermann Merker Verlag, Fürstenfeldbruck 1992, ISSN 0720-051X .
- Udo Kandler: High above the Westerwald. Line anniversary 100 years of the Westerwaldquerbahn . In: Eisenbahn-Journal . tape 5/2006 , p. 26-33 .
- Ulrich Schoth, Michael Reeh, Manuel Zimmermann: 100 years of the Westerburg – Rennerod railway line 1907–2007 .
- Konrad Fuchs: The development of the Westerwald by the railroad, in: Nassauische Annalen 72nd Volume, 1961. P. 143–159
Movie
- SWR: Railway Romanticism - Westerwald Visions (episode 786)
Web links
- Herborn – Westerburg on westerwaelder-bahnen.net
- Westerburg – Montabaur on westerwaelder-bahnen.net
- Photo gallery of the railway line
- Pictures of the loading of clay ( Memento from September 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- IG Westerwald-Querbahn e. V.
- Measuring table sheets from the Deutsche Fotothek :
- Measuring table sheet 3104: Herborn, 1907 (Driedorf ↔ Uckersdorf)
- Measuring table sheet 3042: Dillenburg, 1915 (Uckersdorf ↔ Burg)
- Measuring table sheet 3103: Rennerod, 1907 (Fehl-Ritzhausen ↔ Mademühlen)
- Measuring table sheet 3102: Marienberg, 1907
- Measuring table sheet 3102: Marienberg, 1927
- Measuring table sheet 3161: Westerburg, 1935 (Westerburg ↔ Herschbach)
Individual evidence
- ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
- ↑ After HJ Roth: The Westerwald. Cologne, DuMont, 1981, p. 57.
- ↑ Martin Krauss: Development of the Railway Infrastructure 1997/98, in: Bahn-Report 2/1999, p. 4–7, here: p. 7.
- ^ Description of the railway cycle path on Achim Bartoschek's website
- ↑ Hans-Joachim Ritzau, Jürgen Höstel: The catastrophe scenes of the present = railway accidents in Germany, Vol. 2. Pürgen 1983. ISBN 3-921304-50-4 , p. 159.
- ↑ Available in the ARD media library