GERMANY: February 2024
Rühlermoor, Klasmann-Deilmann
(Gauge: 900mm)
Schöma locos No. 83 and 84 with the large bogie wagons reverse carefully down onto a small harvesting area in the north west of the Rühlermoor oilfields. Taken on the 24th May 2023 by Steve Thomason.
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During recent years the extensive 900mm gauge railway operated by Klasmann-Deilmann around Hesepermoor, Rühlermoor, Dalumermoor, and Provinzialmoor has been slowly cut back as the peat producing areas have been shrinking.
In 2016 the last branches on Hesepermoor and Dalumermoor finally creased, leaving a few areas on Rühlermoor, and Provinzialmoor. It is now reported that the licences for peat extraction will be expiring by the end of this year and in some areas the heaps of drying peat are required to be removed as early as May this year.
Currently the areas still known to be in peat production and using the railway comprise of a small area to the west of the Schöningshdorf works, and the peat fields between the oil wells south of the Rühlermoor road.
At this stage it is difficult to say when the last peat trains will run in Rühlermoor, but unless the Schöningshdorf works and the Heseper Works start to import peat from elsewhere, peat production at both sites will end. However as Klasmann-Deilmann has a number of other sites in Germany still producing peat, there is the possibility that peat might be brought in by road transport for processing there.
Although the harvesting and transport of peat by narrow gauge railway seems to be nearing an end at Rühlermoor, the oil industry will still need to use the 900mm gauge railway for the maintenance of the oil well heads across the moors. This is due to a 5 tonne weight limit for road vehicles on the unstable moors so any heavy machinery must be moved by rail.
(Posted 09.02.2024 Source: Bart Donker)
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Unidentified Schöma locos double heading a loaded train along Nordstrasse, the main east-west road in Rühlermoor on the way to Schöningshdorf Works on Südstrasse. Taken on the 24th May 2023 by Steve Thomason.
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