Prussian Eastern Railway
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The Prussian Eastern Railway (German: Preußische Ostbahn) was the railway in the eastern Kingdom of Prussia until 1918. Its main route, approximately 740 kilometers (460 mi) long, connected the capital Berlin with the cities of Danzig (Gdańsk) and Königsberg (Kaliningrad). At Eydtkuhnen (Chernyshevskoye) it reached the German Empire's border with the Russian Empire.
The first part of the line opened in 1851, reaching Eydtkuhnen in 1860. By March 1880 the total route length reached 2,210 kilometers (1,373 mi), with a main parallel route in the south via Bromberg (Bydgoszcz) and Thorn (Toruń) to Insterburg (Chernyakhovsk). The lines were the first part of the later Prussian State Railways (German: Preußische Staatseisenbahnen).
In 1918 the Treaty of Versailles created the Polish Corridor separating the Free City of Danzig and East Prussia from Germany, leaving East Prussia as an exclave. This caused a bottleneck at the bridge over the Vistula to the south of Danzig near Dirschau (Tczew) which was under Polish control. Along with the other German state railways, the Prussian Eastern Railway lines remaining in Germany's Free State of Prussia became part of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1920.
Conflicts over the use of the railway during the interwar period were declared by Nazi Germany as part of the causes of World War II.
Contents |
[edit] Branch and spur railway lines
- Danzig – Neufahrwasser (1867)
- Fredersdorf – Rüdersdorf (1872)
- Neustettin – Wangerin (1877, Pommersche Centralbahn)
- Neustettin – Konitz (1878, Pommersche Centralbahn; now the Chojnice - Runowo Pomorskie line)
- Neustettin – Belgard (1878)
- Neustettin – Zollbrück (Pommern) – Rügenwalde/Stolpmünde (1878)
- Schneidemühl – Posen (1879)
- Schneidemühl – Neustettin (1879)
- Laskowitz – Graudenz – Jablonowo (connecting the railways Bromberg – Königsberg and Thorn – Insterburg, 1879/78)
- Insterburg – Goldap – Lyck (1878/79)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- http://www.bahnstrecken.de/ob.htm (German)
- http://www.ostbahn.eu (German)
[edit] External links
- German and Polish timetables of various section sof the railway, 1867-1998]
