Garte Valley Railway

The Gartetalbahn or Göttingen small Bahn AG was a narrow gauge railway, which continued from 1897 to 1957 from Göttingen to Rittmarshausen and 1907-1931 to Duderstadt.

Origin and history

The Gartetalbahn AG was founded as a small Göttingen Bahn AG on 16 November 1896. It involved the county and the city of Göttingen, the community Rittmarshausen and railway construction and operating company Lenz & Co GmbH, which also led the operation until 1938. Subsequently, the management lay with the Lower Saxony State Railway Authority in Hanover.

The Company opened on December 19, 1897 a narrow-gauge railway in the narrow gauge of 750 mm, which, upwards of Göttingen in the Valley of the garde, a tributary of the line led by Rittmarshausen where was always the operating center. Ten years later, on July 1, 1907 we extended the railway even to the county seat of neighboring circuit Duderstadt, which was in 1889 connected to the national railway network.

In Göttingen, the passenger trains of the Gartetalbahn ended in front of the reception building of the Göttingen State Railways. When the railway facilities were placed in Göttingen in the 1920s due to the increasing road traffic higher, the passenger station of the Gartetalbahn had to be moved back behind the underpass Groner Landstraße by about 400 m south-southwest after. In Göttingen -south railway station of Gartetalbahn existed until recently a Umlademöglichkeit between the narrow gauge railway and the state railway.

The section Duderstadt - Rittmarshausen of the 36 km route was - shut down after nearly 15 years from April 1922 again - because of too low demand. The resumption of traffic to a limited extent was only temporary; the end came in 1931 irrevocably contrast, the passenger of Göttingen to Rittmarshausen was nearly sixty years until 30 October 1957.; Freight trains - especially for the transport of sugar - even drove up to the March 1, 1959 After the route was canceled..

Following the departure of the AG of Transportation, which had taken the place of Lenz & Co, were after the Second World War, 75 % of the shares in the hands of the state of Lower Saxony, 22% in private hands. The company called itself since 1946 Gartetalbahn AG and from 1957 was a proper operation of the district of Göttingen, who ran a bus service along the former railway line until 1983.

Rolling stock

When starting operation, three two-axle locomotives (Nos. 1-3 ) were available, two four-axle Malletlokomotiven were in the next few years to procure ( Nos. 11 and 12 ). 1940 three-axle locomotive with trailing axle was procured, which replaced the lacking in Lok 3, after the war, two three-axle locomotives came with a Tender for the other two couplers (No. 4 and 5) from the Army Field track stocks and a five-axis Locomotive (No. 12ii ) as a substitute for the mallets.

1954, a four-axle railcar was purchased.

There were never more than nine -axle and three two-axle passenger cars available, as well as two Pack-/Postwagen and up to 24 covered and 53 open wagons.

The route today

In many places traces of the old route of the landscape are still available today. Some examples are:

  • Striking long, narrow land section of the DLR site at Brauweg.
  • Bridge foundations on Leinekanal in the Jahn road
  • Embankments including in Gartetal between Gartemühle and Diemarden between Rittmarshausen and Kerstlingerode
  • Plateau of the former station Kerstlingerode, now the site of Gartetalschule.
  • Foundations of the bridge over the Garte at Wöllmarshausen (the bridge itself was demolished with the closure of the railway in 2006 and re- built as part of the cycle path construction ).
  • The goods shed at the former railway station on the road between small Lengden small Lengden and Diemarden is a replica of about 2006. Almost identical, the original shed that stood in the same place, was demolished in the same year.
  • Station on the road in Rittmarshausen, now used as a residence.
  • Roundhouse in Rittmarshausen is used commercially today.

Today, part of the route is part of the Lower Saxon Radfernwegnetzes, here the Weser-Harz - Heide- cycle path ( nieders. Radfernweg / RFW 5), which leads from the Lüneburg Heath on the resin and the Rhumequelle over Göttingen to the Weser.

Literature and film

  • Karl Burmester: Göttingen small railway A. G. - Chronicle of the Gartetalbahn, 1897-1957: 60 years of local railway history. Verlag Göttingen Tageblatt, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-924781-14-1
  • DVD Gartetalbahn, eds Institute for scientific film ( IMF) gGmbH, Z12900
  • Gerd Wolff: German Small and private railways. Volume 11: Lower 3 - South of the Mittelland Canal. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-670-4.
Klein Lengden Benniehausen Beienrode Weser-Harz-Heide Cycle Route
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