History
In its first two decades it built a total of 108 kilometres of standard gauge railways. They provided rail access for about 50 commercial firms and around one hundred warehouses in the city of Brunswick using a ring railway. The BLE lines also opened up the largely agricultural areas around this Residenz city as far as the foothills of the Harz. In this area the transportation of potash, which was mined there, played an important role for the railways and continued to do so until the 1920s.
The departure point for the Brunswick–Derneburg railway, the first BLE line, built on 18 July 1886, was Braunschweig Nord railway station, where the management and centre of operations was based. From here it ran to Braunschweig West (Wilhelmithor) and southwards to Hoheweg, where on 17 October 1886 a 4 km long branch to Wolfenbüttel turned off. The main line swung westwards and reached Derneburg station on the Hildesheim–Goslar railway via Lichtenberg and Osterlinde in what later became the Salzgitter industrial estate.
In the years that followed the Derneburg–Seesen railway from Derneburg – which again ran southwards – reached Bockenem in the Nette valley on 27 May 1887, Groß Rhüden on 1 October 1887 and finally the railway hub of Seesen on 1 May 1889. Apart from the construction of the northern section there was now a pause of about a decade. During this time the network was expanded with short link lines – some only for goods traffic – on 1 September 1886 from Braunschweig West station to the Hauptbahnhof and by turning the BLE stations into state railway stations on 1 January 1890 at Seesen and on 20 September 1890 at Wolfenbüttel.
On 11 November 1901 the line was opened from Braunschweig Nord via Gliesmarode (West) to Gliesmarode Ost, where the route of the newly built Braunschweig-Schöningen Railway (BSE) began, initially opened for goods traffic but from 15 February 1902 for passenger services as well. At first the BSE's trains started and terminated at the BLE's Nordbahnhof as well.
In Gliesmarode Schuntertalbahn branched off, forming a link to the Lehrter Bahn . It was opened on 31 August 1902 as far as Brunsrode-Flechtorf and on 1 November 1904 to Fallersleben by the BLE. This terminal, like two sections of the line at Derneburg and Bockenem was not in Brunswick territory, but in Prussia. In fact a total of 36 km of line was on Prussian territory – one third of the total track length.
The importance of the railway can be seen from the number of steam locomotives that was constant at around 25, whilst there was only one Benzol railbus. On 1 December 1927 two bus lines supplemented the passenger services.
About 10 years later the independent railway company was taken over. The creation of a large industrial complex in the area of Salzgitter required a fundamental change and expansion of the railway network there. The Reich government wanted to give this task to the state railway. So the BLE was merged into the Deutsche Reichsbahn on 1 January 1938, who rebuilt or closed some of the routes.
Braunschweig or Brunswick is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser. In 2024, it had a population of 272,417. The urban agglomeration of Braunschweig had an estimated population of 551,000 during the year 2024.
Salzgitter is an independent city in southeast Lower Saxony, Germany, located between Hildesheim and Braunschweig. Together with Wolfsburg and Braunschweig, Salzgitter is one of the seven Oberzentren of Lower Saxony. With 101,079 inhabitants and 223.92 square kilometres (86.46 sq mi), its area is the largest in Lower Saxony and one of the largest in Germany. Salzgitter originated as a conglomeration of several small towns and villages, and is today made up of 31 boroughs, which are relatively compact conurbations with wide stretches of open country between them. The main shopping street of the young city is in the borough of Lebenstedt, and the central business district is in the borough of Salzgitter-Bad. The city is connected to the Mittellandkanal and the Elbe Lateral Canal by a distributary. The nearest metropolises are Braunschweig, about 23 kilometres to the northeast, and Hanover, about 51 km to the northwest. The population of the City of Salzgitter has exceeded 100,000 inhabitants since its foundation in 1942, when it was still called Watenstedt-Salzgitter. Beside Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Eisenhüttenstadt, Salzgitter is one of the few cities in Germany founded during the 20th century.
Goslar is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by the districts of Göttingen, Northeim, Hildesheim and Wolfenbüttel, the city of Salzgitter, and by the states of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia (Nordhausen).
The Duchy of Brunswick was a historical German state that ceased to exist in 1918. Its capital was the city of Brunswick. It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the course of the 19th-century history of Germany, the duchy was part of the German Confederation, the North German Confederation and from 1871 the German Empire. It was disestablished after the end of World War I, its territory incorporated into the Weimar Republic as the Free State of Brunswick.
Braunschweig Hauptbahnhof is a railway station in the German city of Braunschweig (Brunswick). It is about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) southeast of the city centre and was opened on 1 October 1960, replacing the old passenger station on the southern edge of the old town. The train services are operated by Deutsche Bahn, Erixx, Metronom and WestfalenBahn.
The Duchy of Brunswick State Railway was the first state railway in Germany. The first section of its Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway line between Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel opened on 1 December 1838.
The Hanover–Braunschweig–Göttingen–Wolfsburg Metropolitan Region is an economic and cultural region in Northern Germany. The metropolitan region comprises approximately one third of the area of Lower Saxony, with almost half the inhabitants of the state. It has about 3.9 million people in 20 districts and counties with a total of 431 municipalities and is defined by the German Ministerkonferenz für Raumordnung (MKRO) as a medium urban area in Germany.
The Brunswick–Uelzen railway line is a largely, single-tracked, non-electrified branch line in the north German state of Lower Saxony. It serves the northern part of Brunswick Land and the eastern region of the Lüneburg Heath. The most important station en route is Gifhorn. The line has also been called the Mühlenbahn for several years due to the many mills along its route.
The Neuekrug-Hahausen–Goslar railway is a double-tracked, non-electrified main line in Lower Saxony in central Germany. The line, which runs along the northern edge of the Harz mountains, begins in Goslar and forms a junction with the Brunswick–Kreiensen railway to Seesen and Kreiensen at Neuekrug-Hahausen. Because the branch-off station is passed through nowadays without stopping, it is often called the Goslar–Seesen railway. It is often described in the local area as the North Harz Line (Nordharzstrecke) but the term may cause confusion. The most important, and now the only, intermediate station is Langelsheim.
Brunswick Land is a historical region in the Southeast of the German state of Lower Saxony, centred around the city of Braunschweig. It refers to the core territory of the historic Duchy of Brunswick and its successor, the Free State of Brunswick, which was disestablished in 1946.
The Hildesheim Diocesan Feud or Great Diocesan Feud, sometimes referred to as a "chapter feud", was a conflict that broke out in 1519 between the Prince-Bishopric of Hildesheim and the principalities of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Calenberg that were ruled by the House of Welf. Originally just a local conflict between the Hildesheim prince-bishop John IV of Saxe-Lauenburg and his own prince-bishopric's nobility (Stiftsadel), it developed into a major dispute between various Lower Saxon territorial princes. The cause was the attempt by Prince-Bishop John to redeem the pledged estates and their tax revenue from the nobles in his temporalities, the prince-bishopric. The diocesan feud ended with the Treaty of Quedlinburg in 1523.
The Brunswick–Magdeburg railway is an 83-kilometre-long (52 mi) German main line railway. It is with the Berlin–Lehrte railway and the Hanover–Berlin high-speed line one of the most important east-west lines between Hanover and Berlin. Important intermediate stations are Königslutter, Helmstedt and Eilsleben.
The Jerxheim–Helmstedt railway is a 22 km-long railway line in the south-east of the German state of Lower Saxony that was opened in 1858. It opened up the area south of the Elm hills. Until 8 December 2007, there were passenger services on the route from Brunswick via Wolfenbüttel, Schöppenstedt, Jerxheim and Schöningen to Helmstedt, which was last marketed as the Südelmbahn. The section from Helmstedt to Alversdorf freight yard has since been operated as a connecting line to a facility of the Energy from Waste (EEW) company, formerly half owned by E.ON.
The Wolfenbüttel–Oschersleben railway runs through the border area of the German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony. It was opened in 1843 and was one of the oldest long-distance railways in Germany. All traffic from Berlin and Central Germany ran over it to Hanover and the Ruhr area until the beginning of the 1870s. Afterwards it lost importance, but remained an important line for East-West traffic.
The Börßum–Kreiensen railway was built by the Duchy of Brunswick State Railway as a link from its Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway to the Hanoverian Southern Railway. It ran through the northwestern Harz Foreland from Börßum via Salzgitter, Ringelheim and Seesen to Kreiensen. It opened on 5 August 1856 and was one of the oldest railways in Germany.
The Hildesheim–Goslar railway is a 53 kilometre long, double-track and non-electrified main line in the northern Harz foothills in the German state of Lower Saxony. It serves mainly to connect with the tourist region in the northern Harz with Hildesheim and Hanover. It is served by the HarzExpress, running between Halle, Halberstadt, Goslar and Hannover Hauptbahnhof. The most important station and junction of the line is Salzgitter-Ringelheim station.
The Brunswick–Derneburg railway was the original line of the Brunswick State Railway Company. In the late 19th century it opened up the then rural area of the area now called Salzgitter in the German state of Lower Saxony.
The Gittelde–Grund railway, also known as Kleinbahn Gittelde-Grund, was a railway line connecting the mining town of Grund at the western edge of the Harz mountains with the station of Gittelde on the Herzberg–Seesen railway. It opened in 1910 and closed in 1971.
Kreiensen station is a Keilbahnhof in Kreiensen in the German state of Lower Saxony and along with Einbeck-Salzderhelden station one of two stations in the town of Einbeck.
Seesen station is the largest station in the town of Seesen in the German state of Lower Saxony. Münchehof (Harz) station also still serves the municipality.
