Iserlohner Kreisbahn
The Westfälische Kleinbahnen AG , from July 27, 1942 Iserlohner Kreisbahn AG , was a local transport company in the Iserlohn district and the then independent city of Iserlohn . Between August 5, 1900 and December 15, 1964, it carried out local passenger and freight transport on a meter-gauge network operated with 700 volts, later 600 volts, as well as bus transport until 1975.
history
The plans for a tram between Iserlohn and Letmathe go back to 1898. Since this year negotiations have been conducted with the local railway construction and operating company Hildemann & Co. When this company was taken over by the Continentalen Eisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebs-Gesellschaft Berlin , negotiations with them continued. On April 20, 1898, the merchant Fricke from Bochum applied for a concession to build and operate the routes from Hagen via Hohenlimburg to Hemer and from Schwerte to Iserlohn.
After he had received this, he founded the Westfälische Kleinbahnen AG on January 25, 1899 together with some industrialists, bankers and a lawyer . Since it was planned to supply both the railway and private and industrial customers with electricity, an electricity plant was built next to the actual tram. The first section was made by the Actiengesellschaft Electrizitätswerke vorm. OL Kummer & Co from Niedersedlitz near Dresden . Since the company had not carried out the expansion in an appropriate manner and also had to file for bankruptcy in 1901 , this section soon became a renovation case for the Westfälische Kleinbahnen AG. These routes were initially licensed as tram-like small railways, the later routes as electric trams.
From 1906 RWE became the main shareholder, then the shares of the railway company were completely transferred to the district and the city of Iserlohn until 1935. The name was changed to Iserlohner Kreisbahn AG only seven years later, on July 28, 1942.
Route network
On August 5, 1900, the line from Hohenlimburg to the west to the city limits of Hagen was opened. On March 4, 1901, the section from Letmathe via Grüne , where the depot and the power station were located, to Iserlohn Ost was inaugurated. On March 10, 1901, this approximately 7.6 kilometers long route was given an approximately 3.2 kilometer branch from Grüne in a southerly direction to Nachrodt . In 1902 the oldest route was connected to the Hagen network by the Hagener Straßenbahn AG , but sold to it in 1911 because continuous operation with the rest of the network was not possible. On December 24, 1902, Iserlohn began operating on an approximately two-kilometer-long city line from Iserlohn Ost station via Kaiserplatz and Unnaer Strasse to Hagener Strasse . Since this route was unprofitable, it was discontinued on October 20, 1915.
Additional sections were opened in the following years:
| Opening date | route | length |
| December 17, 1905 | Hohenlimburg, Lennebrücke - Letmathe | 4.35 km |
| December 28, 1908 | Iserlohn Ost station - Iserlohn, beech woods | 0.54 km |
| March 26, 1909 | Iserlohn beech grove - Westig - Hemer , Amtshaus | 3.64 km |
| August 3, 1911 | Hemer, Office - Niederhemer | 1.83 km |
| May 18, 1912 | Niederhemer - Höcklingsen | 0.95 km |
| July 31, 1912 | Hemer, Office - Sundwig , Post | 1.04 km |
| December 10, 1912 | Nachrodt - Einsal - Helbecke | 3.68 km |
| July 18, 1913 | Westig - Ihmert | 6.71 km |
| November 11, 1913 | Sundwig, Post - Deilinghofen | 2.05 km |
| June 30, 1917 | Ihmert - Tütebelle - Evingsen | 3.9 km |
| November 5, 1918 | Evingsen - Pleuger | 1.5 km |
| 4th December 1919 | Pleuger - Nice, school | 3.5 km |
| June 27, 1920 | Pleuger - Fuleck | 1.25 km |
| December 6, 1921 | Fuleck - Dahle | 1.42 km |
| December 15, 1926 | Nice, school - Markaner (Märkischer Hof) | 0.7 km |
| March 4, 1927 | Markaner - Altena Gbf | 0.7 km |
| July 13, 1927 | Güterbahn Evingsen, Springer Weg - Springen Bf | 0.55 km |
Some of the routes were already being used for traffic before the official opening. In total there were at least 57 sidings, the length of which was 5.842 km in 1922 and 6.605 km in 1946.
In some cases, factories did not have their own loading tracks, the wagons were parked on the street, and there were loops in the curbs where the wagons were attached to the uphill sections.
Small electric train Westig - Ihmert - Altena - Dahle
| Westig – Pleuger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 12.1 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 40 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Dahle-Altena | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 8.0 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 71 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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While the older routes between Hohenlimburg and Hemer and branches were all licensed as trams, construction of the Westig - Ihmert - Altena - Dahle small railway network began in 1913, which formed a special branch of operation and was licensed as a branch line-like, electrically operated small railway.
Further development
Due to the gauge on the small railway line Westig – Ihmert, trolleys were used from November 1914 from the Westig goods transfer station . The trolleys did not have a continuous brake, so there was a brake on about every second trolley. The brakemen sat on the trolley under the standard gauge car. As a rule, only up to four trolleys were allowed to run in one train. Because of the incline, loops were sometimes placed on loading tracks in order to be able to attach the trolleys there. The maximum speed of the freight trains was 10 km / h on the descent and only 6 km / h in curves. The standard gauge wagons were secured with locking blocks on the trolley, these locking blocks had to be tightened occasionally while driving.
On June 17, 1924, a train crashed in the green on the sloping stretch of Düsingstrasse (Iserlohn – Letmathe route). 26 people died, including 24 passengers. As a result, a new route with a lower incline was built along the mountainside, which later served as a bypass for the district of Grüne.
At the end of 1927, the entire network had reached its greatest extent with a length of 48.34 km. But the first major shutdowns followed only a few years later. In 1921 only two short sections from Einsal to Helbeck (0.5 kilometers) and from Niederhemer to Höcklingsen (one kilometer) were discontinued, in 1933 an almost four-kilometer stretch from Evingsen to Ihmert was closed because of its steep, winding sections. The line to Dahle had been connected to the Reichsbahn via Altena since 1927. In 1933 all passenger traffic on the small rail network between Westig, Altena and Dahle was given up; However, due to the war, it had to be served again in 1939/40 - as far as possible. However, the route between Tütebelle and Evingsen had already been dismantled.
Between April 11 and April 16, 1945, traffic was stopped by the Allies . After operations were fully resumed, a total of six lines were maintained. These lines were completely discontinued between May 1952 and December 1959. Freight traffic was maintained for some time. On December 15, 1964, the last train ran between Altena and Pleuger. The data are not always given consistently in the literature.
The Iserlohner Kreisbahn has also had an extensive bus operation since 1924. In 1975 bus traffic was transferred to the Märkische Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG) . At that time, 135 vehicles were in use on a route network of 420 km in length.
Suspension of passenger traffic
| date | section | comment |
|---|---|---|
| October 20, 1915 | * Iserlohn - Iserlohn Town Hall | |
| 1921 | * Einsal - Helbecke and * Niederhemer - Höcklingsen |
|
| 1930 | * Nachrodt - Einsal | |
| September 11, 1935 | * Bag belle - Pleuger | |
| May / June 1952 | * Iserlohn - Iserlohnerheide | |
| May 1, 1955 | * Sundwig - Deilinghofen | |
| November 1, 1955 | * Westig - Tütebelle | also discontinued from 1933–1939 |
| 1956 | * Hemer - Niederhemer | |
| July 1, 1956 | * Altena - Pleuger - Dahle | also discontinued from 1933–1940 |
| May 13, 1959 | * Hohenlimburg - Iserlohn | z. T. discontinued 1936–1940 |
| June 10, 1959 | * Iserlohn - beech grove * Westig - Hemer Amt and * junction to Sundwig |
|
| December 31, 1959 | * Beech groves - Westig and * Grüne --Nachrodt |
Suspension of freight traffic
| date | section |
|---|---|
| 1933 | Tütebelle - Springerweg |
| 1934 | Pleuger - Springerweg - jumping |
| 4th August 1958 | Pleuger - Dahle |
| July 31, 1959 | Greens - Nachrodt |
| April 30, 1959 | Iserlohn - Iserlohnerheide |
| July 15/16. August 1963 | (Westig -) Giese - Tütebelle |
| January 24, 1964 | Westig - Giese |
| December 15, 1964 | Altena - Pleuger |
The Iserlohner Güterbahn GmbH
After the Westphalian Kleinbahnen AG since 1916 in Iserlohn goods rolling stools had carried on tram tracks, the city Iserlohn began in 1924 to build its own rail freight. It should serve the city gas works and other industrial companies. It was extended to Iserlohnerheide in 1927 and was 4.6 km long.
Iserlohner Güterbahn GmbH, founded on March 13, 1925, left the operations management, for which a battery and an electric locomotive and twelve trolleys were available, to the municipal depot. The transport services always remained modest. As early as October 1, 1929, a contract was signed according to which the freight railway was transferred to the Westfälische Kleinbahnen AG. In April of the war year 1940, passenger transport began on the freight railway, which was discontinued in May 1952. Freight traffic ended here on April 30, 1959.
Vehicle fleet
At the start of operations, the railway received four four-axle and 24 two-axle railcars, as well as 15 two-axle trailer cars. They, too, were designed by the company Electrizitätswerke and manufactured by the Busch company in Bautzen. However, the vehicles were not satisfactory. They got the nickname Kummer-Kisten . 22 railcars therefore received new chassis from the Düsseldorfer Waggonfabrik, in front of Weyer, and 17 also new AEG engines. After the first generation railcars had left, 24 new railcars were procured from 1922 that correspond to the RWE unit type. The railcars with the numbers 5–28 remained in use until the end of passenger traffic. There were also a large number of second-hand railcars, including six former Swiss railcars from 1950 (two four-axle railcars of the Wetzikon – Meilen-Bahn and four two-axle railcars of the St. Gallen tram ) that had an air brake instead of magnetic rail brakes and therefore were only of limited use.
In addition to local passenger transport , freight transport played a decisive role in the operation of the Iserlohner Kreisbahn. This was expressed in the fact that the company owned up to 82 trolleys for the transport of standard-gauge freight cars . The number of narrow-gauge electric locomotives was 11, plus five standard-gauge electric locomotives for handover traffic to the Reichsbahn and the Deutsche Bundesbahn in Grüne, Iserlohn, Westig and Altena. The first nine narrow-gauge locomotives came from AEG , the last two from BBC (electrical part) and Jung (mechanical part), with all the locomotives except number 11 being four-axle.
The number of railcars in use fluctuated considerably over time, with a maximum of 56 railcars for 1925.
literature
- Rolf Löttgers and Wolfgang R. Reimann: From Hohenlimburg to Hemer and Altena - The history of the Iserlohner Kreisbahn. Volume 1: Tram traffic. DGEG-Medien, Hövelhof 2015, ISBN 978-3-937189-86-4 .
- Rolf Löttgers and Wolfgang R. Reimann: Kleinbahn Westig-Ihmert-Altena and Iserlohner Güterbahn - The history of the Iserlohner Kreisbahn. Volume 2: Freight traffic. DGEG-Medien, Hövelhof 2015, ISBN 978-3-937189-89-5 .
- Peter Müller and Günter Stalp: Our good old tram. A trip into the past. Iserlohn 1995, ISBN 3-922885-78-0 .
- Götz Bettge: Iserlohn Lexicon. Iserlohn 1987, ISBN 3-922885-37-3 .
- Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 5: North Rhine-Westphalia. Northwestern part. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1998, ISBN 3-88255-662-5 , pp. 100-123
- Christoph Riedel: Iserlohner Kreisbahn. In: Wolf-Dietger Machel (ed.): Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany. Munich 1994
- Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 3 Westphalia (excluding the Ruhr area). EK-Verlag, Freiburg i. Br. 1990, ISBN 3-88255-332-4 .
- Rolf Löttgers: Unknown Iserlohner Kreisbahn. In: The Museum Railway. No. 4, 2014, ISSN 0936-4609 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rolf Löttgers: Unknown Iserlohner circular path. In: Die Museums-Eisenbahn , 4/2014, ISSN 0936-4609 , p. 28.
- ↑ Peter Müller and Günter Stalp: Our good old tram. A trip into the past. Iserlohn 1995, ISBN 3-922885-78-0 , p. 12/13
- ↑ a b Rolf Löttgers: Without brakeman was nothing - Trolley traffic on the Iserlohn circular path. In: The Museum Railway . No. 4 , 2015, ISSN 0936-4609 , p. 7 .
- ↑ Rolf Löttgers: Nothing ran without brakes - trolley traffic on the Iserlohner Kreisbahn. In: The Museum Railway . No. 4 , 2015, ISSN 0936-4609 , p. 10 .