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The St. Andreasberg rack railway ((ドイツ語:St. Andreasberger Kleinbahn)) operated a now-closed, standard gauge, rack railway in the Upper Harz in central Germany. To begin with its shareholders were the state of Prussia, the Province of Hanover und the town of Sankt Andreasberg. After 1924 it was operated by the Hanover State Light Railway Office. == History == The Oder Valley Railway opened in 1884, before the rack railway was built. This line connected Sankt Andreasberg via Bad Lauterberg to the South Harz Railway (Northeim–Nordhausen) in Scharzfeld. The terminus of the Oder Valley Railway was the (ドイツ語:Staatsbahnhof) ("state railway station"), of ''St. Andreasberg West''. The station was located at the foot of the Glockenberg hill. The location of the Oder Valley Railway station, remote from the village centre in a deep valley, was rather inconvenient for the townsfolk of St. Andreasberg. So as early as 23 June 1903, the local council had sent proposals to the railway administration in Kassel explaining three options for extending the railway to the town centre. Extending the adhesion-based Oder Valley Railway did not seem feasible due to the high cost. The railway had to climb 70 metres in height, which would have been only possible by artificially extending the line to achieve an acceptable grade for an adhesion railway. As a result, a rack railway based on the Abt system was proposed. Three different options for the route were evaluated: * following the road through the Sperrlutter valley with a maximum gradient of 1 in 12 * following the Wäschegrund with a comparable incline * climbing out of the Sperrlutter Valley and cutting through the Grüner Hirsch with a maximum gradient of 1 in 6 After further negotiations it was decided in 1906 to build the third option with a slightly altered loop and a maximum gradient of 1 in 8.2. Construction started on 1 April 1911. During the winter of 1912/13, work had to be halted for several months, which meant that laying the track and the rack rail only started in April 1913. The route was 1,636.15 metres long and required 1,543.61 metres of double-bar, rack rail. The concession to operate the railway was received on 5 June 1911. It was granted by the district president of Hanover and permitted the operation of a steam railway for the next 100 years. The rack railway was officially opened on 19 June 1913, but goods operations had already started 3 days earlier so that employees could familiarise themselves with the operation. The railway had two, triple-axle, rack railway, steam engines and two, twin-axle, passenger coaches. The railway become unprofitable in the 1950s and should have been modernized. In addition, safety had become a concern after an accident on the Drachenfels Railway. This led to the closure of the railway on 17 August 1959. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「St. Andreasberg rack railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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