Nahverkehrsmuseum Dortmund

Description

In the Dortmund district of Obernette the Nahverkehrsmuseum Dortmund is located in the former locomotive maintenance workshop Betriebswerk Mooskamp (BwM). The facility is one of the last former Bw still used for operational purposes by the RAG and thus represents an important historical site in the region's transport history.

The museum combines educational-historical interpretation with labour and social-policy measures in cooperation with the Jobcenter and Stadt Dortmund; the spaces of the locomotive hall are also used for private and corporate events. In 2013 the transport museum was included in the Route der Industriekultur; a historic vehicle from the collection is additionally on display in the DASA – Arbeitswelt Ausstellung.

On an approximately nine-kilometre network of former Hoesch and cokeworks tracks the museum operates rides with historic Dortmund trams to the neighbouring Kokerei Hansa and onward to Ellinghauser Straße in the northeast as well as near Rheinische Straße in the south. Because the line is not electrified, the tramcars receive their power via coupled generator cars. The infrastructure includes the depot Obernette with several workshop and storage tracks, connections to Hoesch routes, and bridge and tunnel structures that have been maintained for museum operations.

Powered and trailer cars in the collection date from 1908 to 1978. Preserved types range from early two-axle motor cars through articulated cars and GTW models to N8C types, supplemented by trailers, work trolleys, generator cars as well as service and shunting locomotives and rubber‑tyred operational vehicles. On the operator side, Bahnhof Mooskamp gemeinnützige GmbH organises the railway infrastructure, while the Verkehrshistorische Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Dortmunder Stadtwerke (VhAG DSW) e. V. is responsible for the museum’s operational traffic.

As part of municipal planning, including with a view to the Internationale Gartenausstellung 2027, extensions and accessible stops are planned; in the long term the generator cars are to be converted from diesel to battery propulsion in order to modernise operational services.