Industrial Narrow Gauge Railways
Home | News | Railways | DVDs | DVD Services | Equipment | Links | Contact us
 
 
BACK
 
Union Torfwerk
Fermesand
Saterland
 
Gauge : 600mm
Status : Working
(click on photos to enlarge)

 
Union Torfwerk  
In the area of Saterland in north west Germany, Union Torfwerk is one of several firms who use railways to transport peat

 

Date: September 1993

Date: September 1993

Date: March 1995

Several of the peat railways in Germany feature roadside running, sometimes for distances of several kilometers. Union Torfwerk is just one of several peat railways in the area of Saterland, north of the Kusten Kanal in NW Germany. 3 to 4 of these railways run alongside minor roads.There appears to be a fairly relaxed attitude in Germany to the proximity of these railways to road traffic, more so than would be the case in Britain!

In 1993, one of the railway's several Schöma locos slowly hauls a loaded train back to the processing plant, pausing briefly next to the railway works.

With a couple of inches of snow, the demarkation between the railway tracks and the road, is easily lost, as two years later in March 1995, another Schöma is pictured pulling a train of empty wagons out to the peat moors. Several types of peat wagon are employed at this site, and here wooden splaysided wagons are in use.

 

Date: September 1993

Date: September 1993

Date: September 1993

The small workshops for the railway are unusually situated about a third of the way up the line along the roadside. Just a single loco was found inside, with many wagons on and off the rails, scattered about awaiting repair.

At the peat processing plant, the packing sheds are still served by a standard gauge siding. Several other peat works in the area have now dispensed with rail distribution and now rely solely on road transport. The peat processing factory in the background, although disused, sadly burned down in 2011.

Around the other side of the plant, the narrow gauge tracks fan out into several reception sidings where the loaded trains await emptying.

Date: September 1993

Date: September 1993

Date: March 1999

Several types of peat wagon are in use, but the commonest is the typical cage wagon. This is built onto an extended skip type chassis, and opens on both sides with a simple handle at at each end.

The tracks converge onto two sets of unloading hoppers. After the peat is dropped from each wagon, the empty freewheels down the gradient on the other side to form the next train out.

A few years later and one of the trains is picked up in the peat fields during loading operations.

Date: March 1999

Date: March 2003

Date: March 2003

One of the trains stops by the workshops on it's way out for loading.

Moving forward to 20?? and the casual visitor would be excused for thinking the whole system had closed down. This view taken from a similar position to the first photograph shows the disused line in the road disappearing into the verge.

Half a mile further on from the previous photo again the only visible rails were these still embedded in the road. What had actually happened was the (costly to maintain) roadside line had been closed down in preference for a new loading point on the edge of the moors, but the transport of the peat off the moors is still carried out by the railway.

 
BACK
 

© Steve Thomason 2019
Home | News | Railways | DVDs | DVD Services | Equipment | Links | Contact us
Industrial Narrow Gauge Railways