Westprignitzer Kreisringbahn

Route number :

6944

Course book range :

811 (1974) , 120h (1944)

Route length:

48.8 km

Gauge :

1435 mm ( standard gauge )

Legend

	0.0	Perleberg South
		Connection to the route from Wittenberge
	1.5	Perleberg North

	4.1	Quitzow
	7.0	Schönfeld
	9.4	Premslin
	11.0	Stavenow
		from Wittenberge
	14.8	Karstädt
		to Ludwigslust
	16.5	Postlin
	20.2	Dallmin
	21.7	Margaret Valley
	23.5	Karwe
	24.7	Klüß (Prign)
	26.9	Neuhausen
	28.5	Berge (Prign) formerly Klein Berge
		to Putlitz
	31.4	Pirov
	33.9	Vahrnow
	35.1	Deserts Vahrnow
	37.7	Baek
	39.7	Strigleben
	42.0	Gramzow (Prign)
	43.1	Schlatbach
	44.2	Groß Buchholz

The Westprignitzer Kreisringbahn was a railway line in the northwest of the state of Brandenburg . As a special feature, the route actually ran in a ring from Perleberg via Karstädt and Berge (Prignitz) back to Perleberg.

course

Track remains at a level crossing south of Klüß

The line began in Perleberg Süd station opposite Perleberg station on the Wittenberge – Strasburg railway line . There was a connecting track between the two lines. After 1.5 kilometers, the line reached Perleberg Nord station, where it branched into a branch to Karstädt and one to Berge. The route initially led in the vicinity of today's federal highway 5 to the northwest. In Karstädt she reached the Berlin-Hamburg railway . The circular railway had a separate train station opposite the state train station . It continued to the northeast via Dallmin. With Klüß , the route also served a Mecklenburg town. However, the station was still a few meters south of the village in Prussian, now Brandenburg, territory. Berge (Prignitz) (formerly Klein Berge) was next to Karstädt, the most important intermediate station on the route, which reached its northernmost point there. A route to Putlitz , which also belongs to the circular path, branched off here . The ring line continued via Baek to Strigleben, where it reached its easternmost point. It then ran back to Perleberg Nord via Gramzow and Groß Buchholz . The trains ran from there to Perleberg Süd.

history

At the turn of the 20th century, the Prignitz between the Berlin-Hamburg railway and the Neustadt – Meyenburg railway line was gradually opened up by other normal and narrow-gauge railway lines. In addition to the Wittenberge-Perleberger Eisenbahn and the Prignitzer Eisenbahn (see Wittenberge – Strasburg railway ), several normal and narrow-gauge lines were built. The Ringbahn of the Westprignitzer Kreiskleinbahn was one of the last. On December 6th, 1911, the inaugural trip on the Ringbahn and on the branch line from Klein Berge to Putlitz took place after goods traffic on the Westring Perleberg – Karstädt – Klein Berge had already started on October 4th.

The access offer was always moderate. In the years after the line was opened, three pairs of trains, and in the 1930s around five, ran daily on the line, slightly different depending on the route section and day of the week. These included both trains that traveled the entire ring and trains from Perleberg via Karstädt and Klein Berge to Putlitz. Freight traffic was mainly used for agriculture and at times for lignite mining in a mine near Vahrnow.

In 1914/15 117,310 people and 68,085 t of goods were transported on the Ringbahn including the branch to Putlitz.

In 1940 the normal and narrow gauge small railways were combined in one organization, the small railways of the districts of West and Ostprignitz . After the Second World War, the line and the vehicles came to the Deutsche Reichsbahn on April 1, 1949 . Little changed in operations along the way. In 1968 the traffic on the branch line to Putlitz was stopped, on September 28th 1975 the actual ring line followed. Finally, four passenger trains drove clockwise on the ring every day and five, three on Sundays, in the opposite direction.

Most of the route was dismantled in the following years. All that remained was the section from Perleberg to Karstädt, which was kept as a bypassing option for the Wittenberge station, and on to Margaretental, where a freight connection was still served. The line between Quitzow and Margaretental via Karstädt was shut down on December 1, 1992, the Perleberg – Quitzow freight traffic officially ceased on October 1, 1994, and the connection in Quitzow was used as a station track until 2002. The remaining sections were dismantled in the 1990s. Today there is a cycle path on some sections, such as since 2008 between Dallmin and Postlin. There, at kilometer 18.3, a memorial plaque commemorates the “imperial stop”. A special train for Kaiser Wilhelm II , who visited Victor von Podbielski on his Dallmin estate, ran several times in the first years of operation of the line .

literature

Ulrich Hoeppner, Erich Preuß: West and East Prignitzer Kreiskleinbahnen. In: Erich Preuß: Archives of German small and private railways: Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Berlin . transpress, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-344-70906-2 , pp. 98-109 .
Peter Sommerfeld: The Perleberger Ringbahn. The regular gauge small railways Pritzwalk – Putlitz – Suckow, Perleberg – Karstädt – Berge – Perleberg and Berge – Putlitz . Dirk Endisch, Stendal 2012, ISBN 978-3-936893-67-0 .

Web links

Commons : Westprignitzer Kreisringbahn - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ From the circular ring train to the bike path. Local history Postliner and Dallminer on the trail of Kaiser Wilhelm II's saloon car in: Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung, May 5, 2008

[1] From the circular ring train to the bike path. Local history Postliner and Dallminer on the trail of Kaiser Wilhelm II's saloon car in: Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung, May 5, 2008