Verden-Walsrode railway
| Verden–Walsrode Nord | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number: | 215h (Verden–Stemmen), 210b (Böhme–Walsrode) |
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| Line number: | 9140 (Verden–Stemmen), 9141 (Böhme–Walsrode) |
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| Line length: | 38.5 km | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Track gauge: | 1,435 mm | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Verden–Walsrode Railway (German: Verden-Walsroder Eisenbahn) or VWE is a transport company with its headquarters in Verden on the River Aller in North Germany.
The Verden-Walsroder Eisenbahn (VWE) was founded as the Kleinbahn Verden-Walsrode with its base in Verden. Almost three quarters of its assets were taken over by the Prussian state and the Province of Hanover; the rest was divided between the districts of Verden and Fallingbostel and a few municipalities. Later the state and province pulled out of the company. Today the main shareholder is the district of Verden with 69% of the capital; others include the town of Verden, the district of Soltau-Fallingbostel and the town of Kirchlinteln.
On 2 March 1911 the line between Verden and Walsrode was opened and, on 17 December 1910, passenger and goods services were running on the section between Verden and Altenboitzen, three days later they ran as far as Vorwalsrode.
As well as opening up the predominantly rural region, the railway played an important role in transporting potash from the area near Groß and Klein Häuslingen until 1924. Attempts were made from 1924 to 1959 to compensate for the loss of this freight commodity - and its associated profits - by transferring ownership of the line to the Hanover State Narrow Gauge Railway Office (Landeskleinbahnamt Hannover). Because this measure was not enough however, a third of the route - namely the section between Stemmen and Böhme – was closed on 2 November 1936 and the tracks lifted.
Not until after the Second World War did the situation for the railway improve, not least through the transportation of oil in the area. Consideration was even given to rebuilding the dismantled section. In 1959 running powers were taken over from the renamed and now defunct Lower Saxon State Railway Office. But passengers opted more and more for road transportation, because the through connexion from Verden to Walsrode had not been re-established. On 2 March 1931 the company took its first bus route into service. As a result of that through passenger services between Verden and Walsrode were able to be reinstated. On 30 May 1964 rail services on the eastern section from Böhme to Walsrode (timetable number 9141) were entirely replaced by buses and on 27 September 1969 the western section from Verden to Stemmen (timetable number 9140) followed suit. In 1970 the Deutsche Bundesbahn took over goods services on the Walsrode–Böhme section, but the infrastructure still belongs to the VWE. Since 1996 locomotives belonging to the Werkbahn Bomlitz have handled goods traffic under contract to the Deutsche Bahn AG, and since 2002 locomotives have been supplied by the OHE. This only runs as far as Altenboitzen however; goods traffic between Altenboitzen and Böhme had been withdrawn in 1990. The VWE also provides shunting services in the DB stations of Verden and Nienburg. The VWE is a member of the Bremen-Lower Saxony Railway Network (Eisenbahnnetzwerk Bremen-Niedersachsen).
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