Husum–Bad St. Peter-Ording railway

Husum–Bad St. Peter-Ording

Overview

Locale

Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

Line number

1204/1205

Technical

Line length

44 km (27 mi)

Track gauge

1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) standard gauge

Route number

135

Route map

from Westerland

0.0

Husum

to Husum depot, to Kiel

to Erfde

4.6

Hörn junction

Marsh Railway to Hamburg

7.6

Platenhörn

9.9

Büttel

11.8

Witzwort request stop

15.4

Harblek request stop

former ferry to Karolinenkoog

Tönning Hafen

21.2

Tönning

(now a terminal station)

25.6

Kating request stop

28.4

Katharinenheerd

31.5

Garding

33.2

Sandwehle request stop

35.1

36.5

40.9

43.6

Source: German railway atlas

The Husum-Bad Sankt Peter-Ording railway (also known as the Eiderstedt line) is a 44 km-long, single-track non-electrified branch line in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The line connects the North Frisian town of Husum with all the important parts of the Eiderstedt peninsula, including Tönning, Garding and Sankt Peter-Ording. The line opened in 1854 and was one of the oldest railways in Germany.

Passenger trains are operated by the Nord-Ostsee-Bahn (NOB), a subsidiary of Veolia Verkehr, at hourly intervals.

The first section of the line from Husum station follows the Marsh Railway to Horn junction. The line passes through the flat and largely agricultural marsh land of Eiderstedt. The section of the line to Bad St. Peter-Ording branches off to the south just before Tönning station, which is a terminus where trains have to reverse to in order to continue their journey. The station acts as a passing place where trains cross each other each hour.

The only engineering works on the line after Tönning station are some bridges that are built above sluice gates for drainage and a floodgate in a dike that can be closed during storm surges near St. Peter-Ort. The only station between St. Peter-Ort and Tönning with a significant entrance building is at Katharinenheerd station.

Some stations are a significant distance to the villages they serve, including Kating and Witzwort.

The section from Tönning to Husum was opened in 1854 as part of the Tönning–Flensburg line built by the Flensburg–Husum–Tönning Railway Company (Flensburg-Husum-Tönninger Eisenbahngesellschaft). The westerly branch from Tönning was opened to Garding in 1892 and was extended to St. Peter-Ording in 1932.

Tönning is now built as a terminal station, which is rare in such a rural location. Originally, the line continued through the station to a port for loading cattle to the United Kingdom. The line and port were built for this purpose by the British firm of Sir Samuel Morton Peto, along with a similar railway port in Flensburg. Not long afterwards freight loaded at Tönning port to the UK was already limited. In 1878 the possibility was raised of opening a ferry from Tönning to Karolinenkoog over the Eider, which was connected to Heide by the Heide–Karolinenkoog line opened in 1877 and from there to Hamburg. On 1 June 1886 a ferry opened and the combination of rail and ferry briefly became the fastest way to reach Hamburg from Husum, since at that time, the Marsh Railway was not yet finished to Husum, although this extension opened on 1 September 1886.

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Wikipedia