Westphalian tram
On May 15, 1912, the Bochum-Castroper tram was renamed the Westphalian tram . In addition to this renaming, the Märkische tram and the tram of the city of Herne went into the new company. The communities of Annen , Börnig, Castrop , Gerthe , Harpen , Herne , Laer , Langendreer , Lütgendortmund , Sodingen , Werne and Witten were shareholders in this new company . Thus, the area between Bochum, Castrop, Herne and Witten was served by just one company.
The new company covered 54.8 km of route, had 5 depots and served 10 lines. The attempt to take over the Herne-Sodingen-Castrop tram , the only small third-party operator in the Westphalian tram's catchment area , failed. This company still exists today as a pure bus operator.
As early as 1912, the company was on the Gelsenkirchen district tram route between Baukau , Eickel and Höntrop , but only acquired this route on July 21, 1926. This route was in the BOGESTRA area . In the following years, the company started operating on other routes. By entering the city of Herne on May 15, 1912, the city of Herne's tram was merged with the Westphalian tram. In 1917, goods transport, which had previously been carried out on a small scale, began to increase considerably. Previously, coal was mainly transported from the mines to the steel works. In February 1917 8,120 tons were transported and in December 1918 already 9,250 tons of goods. In March 1922 the tram freight transport community was founded on the initiative of the Westphalian tram. In March 1922, the community transported a total of 15,500 tons of goods of all kinds in the area of Bochum , Dortmund , Gelsenkirchen , Herne , Recklinghausen and Witten .
In addition to transporting goods, the Westphalian tram also carried the post between Bochum, Gerthe and Harpen. This was due to a contract that was signed by the Bochum-Castroper tram on September 3, 1909. Mail was then carried until 1921.
In 1921/22 the line from Werne to Lütgendortmund, which was closed during the war, was reopened. As a result of hyperinflation in the 1920s , the lines in Witten were closed in 1922. After the occupation of the Ruhr area by the French in 1923, however, this line was reactivated to take over the interrupted railway connections. Despite the difficulty in the 1920s, numerous new routes were added.
- December 23, 1921 from Eickel to Wanne
- October 11, 1925 from Wattenscheid to Leithe
- October 23, 1927 a route extension in Wattenscheid
- November 15, 1928 a route extension in Gerthe
- October 1, 1929 from Witten via Heven to Herbede
- December 1, 1929 from Herne via Hiltrop to Grümerbaum
- December 18, 1929 a route extension in Höntrop
At the end of 1929 the Westphalian tram had a total length of 75 km.
Since many lines were in the area of the neighboring tram companies, some routes were used with these in common operation. There were four common lines with the BOGESTRA and one common line with the Vestische Kleinbahn . In 1930 the company maintained a total of 12 lines.
In the following years, the income was always below the expenditure, so that the financial situation deteriorated increasingly. In 1931 the company was in debt to the United Electricity Works , a consortium of Dutch banks, the Preussische Hypothekenbank and numerous smaller business people with a total of 9.6 million Reichsmarks . A proposal by the city of Bochum, which has been a co-owner since the municipality of Gerthe was incorporated, to set up a joint venture with BOGESTRA was rejected by the other municipalities. So the city of Bochum files for bankruptcy.
On August 12, 1931, BOGESTRA took over the operation of the Westphalian tram, initially at the expense of the shareholder communities, and after bankruptcy proceedings were opened on December 12, at the expense of the bankruptcy estate. As part of the procedure, the routes from Hiltrop to the Constantin mine , from Leithe to Wattenscheid and from Rölinghausen to Horsthausen were discontinued. After the bankruptcy proceedings were concluded on October 21, 1937, BOGESTRA took over all routes and properties of the Westphalian tram and on January 1, 1938 all lines. As a result, the uneconomical routes from Herne to Höntrop, from Herne to Horsthausen and from Herne to Gerthe were discontinued. The unification of trams in the Bochum area , which Hugo Stinnes had striven for as early as 1914, had thus become a reality with the end of the Westphalian tram .
literature
- Dieter Höltge: Trams and light rail vehicles in Germany, Volume 4: Ruhr area. EK-Verlag, Freiburg i.Br. 1994, ISBN 3-88255-334-0 .