Wilstedt – Tostedt railway line

Wilstedt – Tostedt
Wismar rail bus T 1 in Zeven Süd station (2012)
Route number :	9127
Course book section (DB) :	217e (1960-68)
Route length:	63.6 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend 0.0 Wilstedt 3.6 Tarmstedt Ost (1934–1956 connection to the small railway ) 7.6 Hepstedt 10.1 Breddorf 13.0 Rhadereistedt 14.9 Ostereistedt 18.6 Badenstedt (near Rotenburg / Wümme) 22.2 Oldendorf (near Rotenburg / Wümme) B 71 Mehde floodplain Draisinenbahnen Berlin-Brandenburg / EVB from Rotenburg (Wümme) 25.9 Zeven south Zeven (Han) B 71 Mehde floodplain 28.4 to Bremervörde of asphalt mixing plant DEUTAG 29.4 Zeven north B 71 Mehde floodplain 33.5 Heeslingen Oste 36.8 Weertzen 41.4 Cow mills A 1 45.6 Morals 48.8 Tiste 52.8 Herwigshof 56.0 Heidenau (Kr Harburg) (formerly Bf) 58.8 Desert courtyards B 75 60.9 Tostedt West EVB / DB network from Bremen 63.6 Tostedt to Hamburg Swell:

Coordinates: 53 ° 16 ′ 7.1 ″  N , 9 ° 43 ′ 27.6 ″  E

The Wilstedt – Tostedt railway line (Wilstedt-Zeven-Tostedter Railway, WZTE for short) was a private railway opened in 1917 in north-eastern Lower Saxony . Until 1949, it and its operating company were called Kleinbahn Wilstedt-Zeven-Tostedt .

course

The line connected the village of Wilstedt via Tarmstedt , Zeven , Heeslingen , Sittensen and Heidenau with the Bremen – Hamburg line in Tostedt. In Zeven it was crossed by the Bremervörde – Walsrode state railway . The stations Zeven (Han) of the state railway and Zeven Süd of the WZTE were right next to each other and received a connecting switch. This was also the center of operations. In Tarmstedt there was a connection to the narrow-gauge railway to Bremen (popularly known as Jan Reiners ), which was built by the Bremisch-Hannoversche Kleinbahn AG in 1900 . Initially, the stations of the two railways were 300 m apart, until 1934, when the narrow-gauge railway in Tarmstedt Ost was extended, a direct passage for people was made possible. There was no handover in freight transport. A planned extension from Wilstedt to Sagehorn on the Bremen – Hamburg route did not materialize due to lack of funds.

history

Kleinbahn-Zeven-Tostedt GmbH was founded on August 21, 1912, with the Zeven District Administrator Karl von Hammerstein-Gesmold as managing director . Construction work began on April 1, 1913, and a large part of the line was completed in August. The construction work stalled due to the First World War, but it was continued. From March 15, 1915, the first wagonloads could be delivered on the completed sections of the route; on December 22, 1916, the route was approved by the state police. So the line could be put into operation on January 2, 1917 for freight traffic and June 15, 1917 for passenger traffic. The route was simply built, there were no large engineering structures. The tracks had a sand bed.

From 1934 the regional small railway office took over the management. With the use of the railcars from 1933, traffic was also expanded. This was also noticeable in the figures: In the financial year 1932 34,470 people were transported, in the financial year 1938 there were 118,167 people.

Since 1948 the passenger trains drove directly into the state train station in Tostedt, the small train station was given up. The main traffic was the transport of agricultural goods, as well as wood, sand and gravel. In 1928 83,800 t of goods were transported. Passenger traffic was never important.

In 1950 bus traffic was started. Soon only school traffic to Zeven and Sittensen took place by rail.

On September 27, 1964, the passenger traffic, which was last driven with diesel multiple units, was set between Wilstedt and Zeven, and on September 25, 1971 between Zeven and Tostedt. From 1967 there had been four pairs of trains on weekdays, the rest were served by buses. Nevertheless, in 1970, 130,000 people were still transported by rail. Since then, only a few passenger trains have run with the historic railcar. On August 31, 1981 the railway company was merged with the Bremervörde-Osterholzer Eisenbahn to form Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser (evb), which was planning to modernize the connection for container traffic from Bremerhaven to Hamburg . The rest of the freight traffic was officially suspended on December 14, 2003, until mid-2010 only connections in Zeven were served.

today

In the meantime, it was planned to de-dedicate the connection, but this was averted. The Zeven – Tostedt section is still owned by evb and is used for freight traffic. The Wilstedt – Zeven section has been closed since April 10, 2007 and was bought by the Mittenwalder Eisenbahnimmobiliengesellschaft mbH & Co. KG (MEIG) of the entrepreneur Axel Pötsch from Berlin from evb. The section has been used as a trolley train since the end of 2008 . The starting point is Wilstedt train station. The Ostereistedt train station has meanwhile also been bought by MEIG from evb. There are train wagons for overnight guests. In the meantime, the route from the junction from the main Bremen – Hamburg line in Tostedt to Zeven was closed by means of protective stop Sh 2 . The line closure was partially lifted in 2009, so that in late summer some trains with grit for the motorway expansion coming from Tostedt reached Sittensen station. At the same time, the bridge over the motorway at Sittensen was under construction, so that the railway line was interrupted here.

The Zeven – Tostedt section was repaired by the evb in the second quarter of 2010. This means that evb will be able to offer non-stop freight traffic between Bremerhaven and Hamburg from 2010 onwards.

Since 2014, the entire Zeven – Tostedt area has been fundamentally renovated in sections. The Zeven-Nord – Heeslingen and Sittensen – Heidenau sections have largely already been completed, while the area between Heidenau and kilometer 59.2 behind Wüstenhofen will be renewed in autumn 2018 and winter 2018/19. Further sections are to follow.

Anecdotal peculiarity: Because of the previous long interruption, special traffic signs were set up at several level crossings when operations resumed: yellow boards with Z 101 and the text: "The trains are running again."

vehicles

Only a three-axle steam locomotive was available to start operations. Two Belgian locomotives were assigned for reinforcement, but they had to be returned after the end of the war. In 1919 and 1920, two more three-axle steam locomotives were bought used. In 1931 a new ELNA 1 was purchased, the only one of its kind, and used as No. 8, 350 from 1949. It was handed in in 1951, but has been preserved as a museum. Railcars were already in use in the 1930s, and three Wismar rail buses (SK 1–3, from 1949 T 145–147) were purchased from 1933–1935 . They were in use until 1966, the last one in service until 1978. This one has been preserved on the Minden Museum Railway . From 1956 on, freight traffic was also dieselized, and a Henschel DH 360 (V 274) was procured. In 1961 a MaK 450 C (V 277) was newly acquired. Between 1956 and 1960 three used railcars were procured by the Deutsche Bundesbahn, including two VT 70.9s , which were used as T 148 and T 149. The third was a VT 66.9 , which was given the number T 174; it carried the brunt of school traffic until it collided with a milk truck in 1974 and was then scrapped.

literature

• Dieter-Theodor Bohlmann: The railways and transport companies Elbe-Weser . Zeunert, Gifhorn 1984, ISBN 3-924335-51-6
• Gerd Wolff: German small and private railways. Volume 10: Lower Saxony 2 . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Freiburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-88255-669-8 , p. 123-145 .
• Jörg Petzold: Kleinbahn Wilstedt-Zeven-Tostedt . In: The Museum Railway . No. 1 , 2017, ISSN  0936-4609 , p. 19-21 .

Web links

Commons : Wilstedt-Zeven-Tostedter Eisenbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Railways and transport companies Elbe-Weser (EVB)
• More information about EVB and the EVB rail vehicles
• Railways in the Elbe-Weser triangle

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DB Netze - Infrastructure Register
2. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 10th edition. Schweers + Wall, Cologne 2017, ISBN 3-921679-13-3 .
3. ^ Jörg Petzold: Kleinbahn Wilstedt-Zeven-Tostedt . In: The Museum Railway . No. 1 , 2017, ISSN  0936-4609 , p. 19 .
4. ^ Jörg Petzold: Kleinbahn Wilstedt-Zeven-Tostedt . In: The Museum Railway . No. 1 , 2017, ISSN  0936-4609 , p. 20 .
5. ↑ http://www.draisinenbahn.de/index.php?id=126
6. ↑ Route report Zeven - Tostedt . In: Bahn-Report . No. 1/2019 , p. 48 .