3 When the „Bähnchen“ still ran through Valmetal

After years of unsuccessful efforts to connect to the Ruhr Valley railway Hagen-Kassel, which was completed in 1873, the Stolberger Zink AG finally built its own 8 km long works railway with a narrow gauge width of 750 mm from Bestwig to Ramsbeck through the Valmetal in 1896/97, because the transport of the lead and zinc concentrates from the Willibald processing plant, built in 1889, to the smelting plant after loading at the Bremsberg (see info desk 15!) was becoming increasingly expensive. The total costs amounted to 400,000 gold marks (approx. 3.9 million Euros). In Ramsbeck, the otherwise single-track line of the „little train“ from the Eickhoff gallery (now a visitor mine), which opened in 1926, to the workshop on the Werdern was supplemented by a third track. Defective mine locomotives could thus be towed for repair on the newly created track width of about 600 mm. In Heringhausen there were two short, additional sidings for a wagon for special purposes.

In the early days, the locomotive drivers occasionally transmitted prescriptions from the Bestwig family doctor to the Ramsbeck pharmacist Dr. Schütte in order to transport the prescribed medication back to Bestwig on the next trip. In the mid-1930s, the small steam locomotive that had been in use since 1897 was replaced by a more powerful and cheaper diesel locomotive. Although passenger service did not usually take place, the steam locomotive, which was still in working order, carried soldiers or people on their way during wartime, for example.

After the narrow-gauge railway had transported more than 500,000 tonnes of freight between Ramsbeck and Bestwig at a top speed of 19 km/h through the Valmetal in 55 years, it was shut down in spring 1952 for operational reasons; the entire trackage was removed. From then on, the lead and zinc products were transported to Bestwig by large special trucks. Today, the former railway line between Bestwig and Ramsbeck is a popular hiking and cycling trail.