AKN Eisenbahn

AKN Eisenbahn AG operates commuter and freight trains in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. Its headquarters is in Kaltenkirchen. It is a member of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV), which organises public transport in and around Hamburg.

AKN is an abbreviation for Altona - Kaltenkirchen - Neumünster, its first railway line.

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Passengers are carried out over a distance of about 265 km. About 120 km of this network is owned and operated by AKN.

It employed about 295 people in 2010.

AKN is a part of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (Hamburg Transport Association).

History

In 1879, HK Notnagel & Co. of Altona, a lessee of Himmelmoor, located in Quickborn, where peat was mined for heating, called for the construction of a railway for the transport of peat. The municipalities of Quickborn and Kaltenkirchen and the then independent town of Altona supported this project. After the founding of the Altona-Kaltenkirchner Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (Altona-Kaltenkirchen Railway Company, AKE) in 1883 and an expression of support from the Emperor on 27 April 1883, the construction of the new railway had already started in the autumn of 1883. On 8 September 1884, passenger traffic commenced on the line from Gählerplatz in Altona to Kaltenkirchen and on 24 November of the same year the carriage of freight traffic commenced. The shares were subscribed by the town of Altona, the communities of Quickborn, Ulzburg and Kaltenkirchen and the construction company Kintzel & Lauser.