Bad Salzungen – Unterbreizbach railway line

Bad Salzungen – Vacha (–Unterbreizbach)
Stellwerk Co in Dorndorf.
Route number (DB) :	6703
Course book section (DB) :	576 (2001)
Route length:	22.2 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	Bad Salzungen – Vacha: 11 ‰ Vacha – Unterbreizbach: 40  ‰
Top speed:	until 2003: 60 km / h since 2011: 20 km / h
Legend from Meiningen 0.00 bad Salzungen 242  m to Eisenach / Kali-Werkbahn 2.00 Infrastructure border DB Netz - RbT 2.25 Leimbach - Kaiseroda to the potash railway 2.73 Junction Leimbach handover Connection curve from Oberrohn 3.30 Leimbach curve junction L 1120 5.34 Depth location 8.04 Marker 8.29 B 62 11.21 Dorndorf (Rhoen) 234  m to Kaltennordheim 11.81 Post Chemical Factory East 11.82 L 1022 ( ex B 285 ) Conn. Woodwork (old) 12.06 Felda 12.10 Awanst. Krenzer woodworks Flood bridge 12.70 Awanst. Krenzer woodworks Potash works railway 12.75 Chemische Fabrik West Conn. Depot Vacha / Waggonwerk Brühl 16.30 Vacha 239  m 16.52 B 84 after Gerstungen according to Geisa 17.06 Ox 19.48 Sünna 283  m 20.40 Vertex 290  m "Brandenburger Tor" dirt road 22.09 Infrastructure border RbT - K + S by Geisa 22.19 Unterbreizbach 235  m after Gerstungen
Potash works railway
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	25 km / h
Legend 0.0 bad Salzungen to Vacha 1.6 0.0 Infrastructure border DB Netz - LEG Leimbach-Kaiseroda from the state railway 1.1 Junction Leimbach handover 1.5 B 62 1.6 various connections 3.8 L 1120 5.6 Merkers Werkbahnhof (ex Kali) 6.6 Connection K + S Dorndorf Werkbahnhof (Kali) Feldabahn L 1022 ( ex B 285 ) from Bad Salzungen Chemische Fabrik West

The Bad Salzungen – Vacha (–Unterbreizbach) railway was a branch line in Thuringia .

The line was opened as part of the Bad Salzungen – Vacha section of the narrow-gauge Feldabahn in 1879 and converted to standard gauge in 1906 . From this point on, the name Werratalbahn was established, but it is also used for other routes (see Werratalbahn ). The extension to Unterbreizbach only took place after the GDR was founded.

history

Due to the increased traffic due to the development of potash deposits, the Feldabahn was transferred to the Prussian State Railroad in 1904 , which switched the line to regular gauge until 1906, whereby the route was also straightened. Many high-rise buildings were also renewed.

Long trains during the times of the Reichsbahn, here a passenger train in Merkers (1991)

Between Bad Salzungen, Vacha and Unterbreizbach on the Ulstertal Railway , there was heavy freight traffic through the last operating Thuringian potash plant in Unterbreizbach until 1999. The construction of a connecting line (on the former Ulstertal railway line and a connecting curve that was started in the 1930s but never completed) from the Hattorf plant made the steep section between Unterbreizbach and Vacha superfluous, so that it was closed on August 31, 2000. The Unterbreizbach train station became the property of Kali + Salz .

The state of Thuringia canceled passenger traffic between Bad Salzungen and Vacha on June 10, 2001. The reason for this was the parallel bus service, which was financed by the Wartburg district . In the period from January 1st to June 10th 2001 the Süd-Thüringen-Bahn still handled the traffic on behalf of the Deutsche Bahn AG. When the timber loading at Dorndorf (Rhön) station was stopped at the end of 2001, all traffic ended. The last inspection of the line took place on December 30, 2002 by an SKL of DB AG, before a provisional line was drawn with the closure on December 31, 2003.

The newly founded association of interests in traffic history in the middle Werratal e. V. did not want to come to terms with this and initiated a restart of the Vacha – Bad Salzungen line from 2007 in cooperation with the RbT Regiobahn Thuringia . For this purpose, the route was leased from Deutsche Bahn AG through RbT. In the area of ​​the Vacha train station, clearing work was carried out and construction vehicles were made accessible. The line was cut free and measured, the culverts sighted and cleaned, level crossings renovated, some old switches, signals and tracks removed and three auxiliary bridges dismantled after the closure was reinstalled. In the period from June 4 to 6, 2008, a railway vehicle, the pethoplan measuring vehicle, traveled the entire railway line from Vacha to Bad Salzungen for the first time since the shutdown . An SKL 24 ("Schöneweide type") has been available at Vacha station since June 2008 to drive the route. A short time later, an SKL 25 was also technically approved and is available for work. It is exactly the vehicle that was last used on the railway line in 2002.

With a letter of approval from the State Plenipotentiary for Railway Supervision (LfB) of the Free State of Thuringia on March 25, 2011, the Bad Salzungen – Merkers section was put back into operation on April 16, 2011 as a connecting railway for non-public transport. The expansion of the company to a wood processing company in Dorndorf up to route kilometers 13.19 has meanwhile been reported to the LfB and approved there. In August 2013, work began on laying a siding at the Krenzer woodworks, so that with the 2013/14 timetable change, unloading on the open line could be abandoned. The connection of the city of Vacha to the German railway network has been delayed for a long time, contrary to the 2011 plan. With the letter of approval dated October 14, 2015, this has now also been done.

Since the actual freight traffic to the connected woodworks only takes place sporadically, freight wagons of the VTG are often parked at all stations . After a branch of the Brühl wagon factory opened in Vacha at the beginning of 2018, Vacha again became a freight transport point in the Germany-wide cargo network in November.

• 

  Testing of the Blue Tiger 1997

• 

  Merkers 2012

• 

  Leimbach-Kaiseroda station (2009)

Border bypass route to Unterbreizbach

Since mutual reprisals often occurred on the inner-German border, which led to disruptions in rail traffic between Vacha and Unterbreizbach on the Ulstertal Railway and finally to the final interruption of rail traffic via Philippsthal in the summer of 1952, the management of the GDR decided to connect the potash works in Unterbreizbach bypassing the West German area. In only 90 days, the “1. Socialist Railway Construction ”completed and celebrated accordingly by the propaganda. In the years 1954 to 1956 there was also passenger traffic on the 5.2 km long and topographically unfavorable route with an intermediate stop in Sünna.

After that, only freight trains ran which were very short due to the steep gradient (you only just missed the steep section , the maximum gradient is even more than 40 ‰). For a 1200-tonne potash train from Vacha, four deliveries were required. So there was a lot of traffic on this short stretch. In addition to the potash plant, companies located in Unterbreizbach were also served, although the main load direction was reversed. A project started in 1984 to create a siding for basalt mining on the Öchsenberg near Sünna was stopped in 1986.

With the end of the GDR of Kalitransportes searched for more efficient ways of old plans from the 1930s brought a solution: Begun under construction but never completed connecting curve between Heimboldshausen and Unterbreizbach could partly be used to an autumn 1999 railway siding finish. The new line was opened to traffic on January 31, 2000. The last time the route via Sünna was operated on August 19 with a special trip and three LVTs and then shut down on August 31, 2000. There have been repeated efforts to keep the connection as a reserve line. In 2010, however, birch trees as thick as an arm grew on it and the St. Andrew's crosses were also removed.

In the weeks from March 28, 2011, clearing work took place between Vacha and Unterbreizbach, and for the first time in more than ten years, rail vehicles again drove over what is now known as the construction track. The RbT Regiobahn Thuringia is now responsible for the route. However, the last meters of track in front of Unterbreizbach remain closed to all rail traffic after the landslide in the severe thaw in winter 2010/11. In the following years the weeds were again fought on the route so that further use is possible.

In December 2019 it was announced that K + S had signed a contract to recommission the railway line. It is planned that the first vehicles will be able to drive in the fourth quarter of 2020.

• 

  On the way to Vacha (1999)

• 

  After 10 years there is again a rail vehicle on the Sünna slope (2011)

• 

  Exit Dorndorf: left on the slope: Werkbahn (dismantled), middle: Feldabahn, right: to Vacha

• 

  Entrance to the Unterbreizbach train station (August 2020)

Auxiliary systems

Vacha depot

Vacha: View of the engine shed 2009

The Vacha depot existed at Vacha station from the beginning of the standard gauge time until the early 1970s . Until the end of the 1990s, it was an operational site of the Eisenach railway depot . As early as the 1970s, a DR steel construction company was set up in part of the locomotive shed, which later took over the entire building.

Kalianschlussbahn

The connecting line of the Werra potash works branched off at Leimbach-Kaiseroda station. Today the connecting line begins with track changes in Bad Salzungen train station, Leimbach-Kaiseroda is only passed through. The signal box in the station building was still occupied until November 2011 due to a call barrier at the station. In addition to the connection to the Merkers potash plant (now an industrial park), which still exists and is in use, the Dorndorf potash plant, the Hermannsroda mine, the Dorndorf chemical factories, the Leimbach concrete plant and the Leimbach land trade had sidings. The connecting railway and the Reichsbahn track ran between Merkers and Dorndorf at a distance of only a few meters. In this area, most of the track is built over with a cycle path.

In Dorndorf, the track first ran through the potash factory's works station, then over a dam and a bridge over the Feldabahn to the chemical factories, which were then connected to the Reichsbahn track. The dam, bridge and chemical factory have been torn down for some time, only the Dorndorfer signal box Co (Chemische Fabrik Ost) at the point where the Felda and Werra Valley Railway separates bears witness to their existence. Today there is a wood processing company on the site of the chemical factories.

In the 1950s there was factory passenger traffic on this route from Bad Salzungen. In the 1980s, the Merkers factory station was equipped with a modern relay interlocking.

Worth mentioning

In 2000, the film " Heinrich the Säger " was shot on the railway line - and partly on the neighboring Feldabahn and other lines . It was about a profit-oriented railway company "Kommerzbahn", which shut down railway lines with the help of some politicians. A railroad worker wanted to prevent this. The main actors were Rolf Becker and his daughter Meret , director Klaus Gietinger . The story of the film soon became a bitter reality when passenger traffic ceased in 2001. On April 19, 2008, Klaus Gietinger and Rolf Becker stayed in Vacha on the topic: "Heinrich on site - the sawmaker returns" to advertise the reopening of the line.

literature

• Ulf Haußen, Waldemar Haußen: The Feldabahn - the first meter-gauge railway in Germany . Bufe-Fachverlag, Egglham 1993, ISBN 3-922138-49-7
• Karl H. Mühlhans: The connecting line of the VEB Kaliwerk in Dorndorf / Rhön . Rockstuhl Verlag, Bad Langensalza 2005, ISBN 3-937135-86-3
• The Feldabahn as a narrow-gauge secondary railway in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar 1882 . Rockstuhl Verlag, Bad Langensalza, Reprint 1882/2002, ISBN 3-936030-67-7
• German Reichsbahn, The development of the German railways 1835–1935 . Berlin 1935.
• Michael Knauf: History of the railway line Vacha - Unterbreizbach 1952–2000. First socialist railway construction in Germany, September 1 - November 30, 1952. Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2008, ISBN 978-3-86777-038-5 .

Web links

• The Mad Ones on the Vacha Railroad, Free Word Article, May 25, 2011
• IVmW e. V. on the current status and pictures of the Bad Salzungen – Vacha route inspection
• Course book 1944
• Forgotten Orbits I
• Rhön Lexicon

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Südthüringer Zeitung of April 20, 2011, page 15
2. ↑ Michael Knauf, Markus Schmidt: The history of the Ulstertalbahn 1981-1996 Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2018, ISBN 978-395-966-295-6 , page 100ff.
3. ↑ Michael Knauf, Markus Schmidt: The history of the Ulstertalbahn 1981-1996 Verlag Rockstuhl, Bad Langensalza 2018, ISBN 978-395-966-295-6 , page 148ff.
4. ↑ Hersfelder Zeitung: K + S wants to reactivate the railway line from Unterbreizbach to Vacha from December 20, 2019
5. ↑ Hersfelder Zeitung: Closing the gap is getting closer from August 8, 2020