Arnstadt – Saalfeld railway line

Arnstadt Hbf – Saalfeld (Saale)
Route number :	6299
Course book section (DB) :	561
Route length:	47.850 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	100 km / h
Legend from Neudietendorf 0.000 Arnstadt Hbf to Ichtershausen to Ritschenhausen Gera 4.700 New Ebensfeld – Erfurt line 4.800 Federal motorway 71 5.610 Marlishausen 10.900 Niederwillingen (until 1928 Roda-Niederwillingen) Wipfra 12,200 Niederwillingen Bundesstrasse 87 Ilm Valley Viaduct 15,860 Stadtilm Bundesstrasse 90 20,939 Singing (door) 25.833 Paulinzella from Katzhütte 31,098 Rottenbach Bundesstrasse 88 34.300 Quittelsdorf (until 2011, until 1954 Leutnitz ) Schwarza 39.140 Bad Blankenburg (Thuringia) to Rudolstadt Bundesstrasse 85 42.800 Wöhlsdorf (until 1954) Saale Bundesstrasse 85, Bundesstrasse 281 from Großheringen and from Leipzig-Leutzsch Bundesstrasse 85 47,850 Saalfeld (Saale) according to Probstzella

The Arnstadt – Saalfeld line is a single-track main line in Thuringia . it branches off the Neudietendorf – Ritschenhausen railway line in Arnstadt and leads via Stadtilm and Bad Blankenburg to Saalfeld . It is managed by Deutsche Bahn as route book route 561, is 48 kilometers long and is served by regional express and regional trains alternately every hour.

Route

Arnstadt Hbf

Ilm Valley Viaduct in Stadtilm

The railway line branches in the Hauptbahnhof Arnstadt from neudietendorf-ritschenhausen railway from. It then leads in an easterly direction from the Geratal past the village of Dornheim to Marlishausen . The next stop is there. In Marlishausen it bends south into the Wipfratal , in which it runs until the next stop in Niederwillingen . From here it leads over a ridge to the Ilm Valley , which is crossed in Stadtilm with a mighty viaduct , which is listed as a historical monument . The town's train station is also located on the slope above the valley near the Oberilm district . Further south, the route leads through the hilly landscapes of the Saale-Ilm-Platte , where the Singen train station is also located, before winding down into the Rottenbachtal . There the railway line turns again in an easterly direction and reaches Paulinzella station . Then it leads down into the valley of the Rinne with the next railway station Rottenbach . Here the Schwarzatalbahn branches off to the south to Katzhütte . The Quittelsdorf train station follows in an easterly direction before reaching the town of Bad Blankenburg . Until 2000 a line branched off here to Rudolstadt , which has since been shut down and dismantled. From Schwarza the route follows the Saale valley to the Saalfeld train station . There it meets the Saalbahn and the Gera – Saalfeld – Probstzella line . Until 2017 there was a connection to the ICE trains on the Berlin - Munich route .

history

The railway line was opened on June 18, 1894 on the Arnstadt – Stadtilm section and on December 2, 1895 on the Stadtilm – Saalfeld section. At that time it led through three German states: between Arnstadt and Niederwillingen through Schwarzburg-Sondershausen , between Niederwillingen and Bad Blankenburg through Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and between Bad Blankenburg and Saalfeld through Sachsen-Meiningen . In the beginning, care was taken to leave space for a second track during construction. However, there was only one track. The route represented the shortest connection between Erfurt and Saalfeld, so that traffic there developed well.

Train operation

Before the Second World War , two pairs of express trains ran on the route. These took through cars to Berlin and Munich . Such a train came from Saalfeld coming from the other direction and switched to an express train to Erfurt in Neudietendorf .

Since June 2012, passenger traffic on the route has been operated by the Erfurt Railway under the Elster Saale Bahn brand. The hourly regional trains Erfurt – Arnstadt – Saalfeld have been running to Arnstadt since December 2017, combined with the regional trains Erfurt – Arnstadt – Ilmenau of the South Thuringia Railway , eliminating the two-hour change in the direction of Erfurt. With the exception of Paulinzella, all stops are served hourly, the Marlishausen, Niederwillingen, Singen and Paulinzella stops are on-demand stops. Individual express trains run in peripheral locations. Vehicles of the Regio-Shuttle type are used throughout .

On the morning of June 13, 1981, the fault of a heavily drunk dispatcher between Saalefeld and Bad Blankenburg resulted in a serious head-on collision between two freight trains. Two train drivers killed and considerable property damage were the result.

Web links

Commons : Arnstadt – Saalfeld railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• From Arnstadt to Saalfeld Saale (route book 621/563 of the DR). Retrieved July 3, 2016 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henry Trefz: Requirement stop Paulinzella: Who knew when about the thinning? In: Ostthüringer Zeitung. December 9, 2017, accessed December 7, 2018 . 
2. ^ Described in detail by Erich Preuss, Eisenbahnununken in Europa , pp. 136 ff.