Bretleben – Sondershausen railway line

Bretleben – Sondershausen
Route number (DB) :	6725
Course book section (DB) :	593
Route length:	30.9 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Top speed:	30 km / h
Legend from Sangerhausen 0.0 Bretleben to Erfurt 4.0 Esperstedt (Kyffh) former train station to Oldisleben 10.5 Bad Frankenhausen (Kyffh) 14.5 Rottleben 17.8 Göllingen (Kyffh) 20.5 Hachelbich 23.8 Berka (Wipper) 26.5 Sondershausen- Jecha 28.4 Sondershausen south from Erfurt 30.9 Sondershausen to Wolkramshausen

The Bretleben – Sondershausen railway line , also known as the Kyffhäuserbahn , is a branch line in Thuringia . It connected the main lines Sangerhausen-Erfurt and Nordhausen-Erfurt between the mountain ranges of the Kyffhäuser and the Hainleite in northern Thuringia . Today there is a cycle path on the western part of the route.

Route description

The railway line is 30.9 kilometers long. It began in the former Prussian Bretleben train station, then led to the Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt , to which the spa town of Bad Frankenhausen also belonged. From Hachelbich it passed through the former Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen to its former state capital.

history

The Kyffhäuserbahn was opened by the Prussian State Railways on July 4, 1894 from Bretleben to Frankenhausen and extended to Sondershausen on October 1, 1898. In Esperstedt , the Bachstein Railway, which was closed in 1994 and named after Herrmann Bachstein , has branched off to Oldisleben since 1907 .

The regional rail transport on the route was canceled by the state of Thuringia for the 2006/07 timetable change . Freight traffic was also discontinued in 2006. Previously, DB Netz had failed several times in court trying to enforce a shutdown. In 2008, Deutsche Regionaleisenbahn GmbH (DRE) signed a lease for the line. On September 29, 2008 the Federal Railway Authority approved the closure between Bretleben and Sondershausen-Jecha and on January 18, 2013 also for the subsequent section to Sondershausen.

Kyffhäuserbahn route between Hachelbich and Göllingen in July 2003

At a regional conference on the future of the line, organized by the Deutsche Bahnkunden-Verband (DBV) on April 28, 2009, it became clear that apart from the city of Bad Frankenhausen, there was hardly any interest in the railway. However, the DBV saw opportunities to win the Free State of Thuringia as a financier in particular. At a further regional conference on September 29, 2009, the DRE announced a route reactivation on the Bretleben – Bad Frankenhausen section for 2010. The high costs of the route rehabilitation are to be met for the most part by freight traffic . Interested parties here are the German Armed Forces in Bad Frankenhausen (tank loading) and a gravel works in Oldisleben at the end of the Esperstedt – Oldisleben railway line , which could move up to 100,000 tons of building material onto the rails every year.

At a citizens' forum on the future of the Kyffhäuserbahn in Sondershausen in September 2011, a possible reactivation of the line was discussed again, although those involved saw a chance of realization only for the Bad Frankenhausen – Bretleben section. In order to reduce costs, the route leaseholder DRE suggested using the Schmiedeberger model of the German Railways Association, which envisages transport adapted to demand with the involvement of regional bus companies.

The section Sondershausen Bad Frankenhausen returned network of the DRE to the owner DB, the end of November 2012, the declassification sought. As a result, the Kyffhäuserkreis bought this section in April 2013 because it would like to use the route for the further construction of the Unstrut-Werra cycle path . In the Bad Frankenhausen train station there is a buffer stop in the direction of Sondershausen shortly before the entrance signals, the main line in the direction of Bretleben is still there. From Sondershausen to Bad Frankenhausen, the route has been completely dismantled and paved as a cycle path between Berka / Wipper and Hachelbich (from Hachelbich to Göllingen the cycle path runs on the old local connecting road parallel to the former track structure) and between Göllingen and Rottleben (as of March 2015).

The Bundeswehr, which has been using the ramps in Sondershausen, 20 kilometers away, to load the tanks of the Bad Frankenhauser Kyffhäuser barracks by rail since 2014 , is granting a grant of 6.8 million euros for the renovation of the route from Bretleben to Bad Frankenhausen, which is planned by 2022 to be able to carry out the tank loading on site again. Construction work is scheduled to begin in 2021.

Vehicle use

In the 1970s, steam locomotives of the series 44 and 86 with steam-heated Reko wagons of the types Baage (two-axle) and Bage and Bagtre (three-axle) were in use on the Kyffhäuserbahn . Later, in the course of the traction change, they were hauled by diesel locomotives of the DR series V 100 . The Ba (a) g wagons were followed by four-axle Bghw passenger cars, again drawn from the 110/112 series and later also from the 118 series six-axle due to the maximum permissible axle load of 19 tons . After the merger of the two German railway companies, only light railcars of the 772 series , so-called piglet taxis or blood bladders, were used in passenger traffic. Most recently they were replaced by class 642 (Desiro) railcars . Occasionally the Desiro was represented by the 641 series .

Railcar of the DB class 642 leaves the Hachelbich stop in the direction of Artern, July 2003

The later dismantled branch to the Robert Uhrig NVA barracks in Bad Frankenhausen was served by the DR series V 60 for the purpose of supplying coal. The DR series 102.1 was also used on the Kyffhäuserbahn. A class Kö II small locomotive was stationed at Sondershausen station, and SKL 24 “Schöneweide” trains were used for rail service purposes .

The armored transport trains of the Bundeswehr consisted of flat cars of the type Samms and one or two compartment cars. They were carried by large class 232 diesel locomotives between Bad Frankenhausen and Bretleben.

See also

• Kyffhäuser Kleinbahn
• Paul Lauerwald: Bretleben - Sondershausen. In: Secondary and narrow-gauge railways in Germany then & now. 111. Supplementary delivery , February 2015, Munich, GeraMond 2015, ISSN  0949-2143 , 16 p. DIN A 4
• Paul Lauerwald: Along the Kyffhauser. The branch line Bretleben - Sondershausen. Quedlinburg-Gernrode, Herdam 2019, ISBN 978-3-933178-44-2

Web links

• Course book 1944
• Press release 2005 from Der Fahrgast (PDF file; 719 kB)
• To the decommissioning discussion in spring 2006
• Cab ride 2004 on VT 641
• Tempo 30 is enough - Passenger Association Pro Bahn

Individual evidence

1. ↑ New hope for Kyffhäuser and Unstrutbahn. (No longer available online.) May 23, 2008, archived from the original on December 12, 2013 ; Retrieved January 7, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ^ Railway line Sondershausen-Jecha - Sondershausen. (PDF) (No longer available online.) January 18, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 22, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ↑ See "Kyffhäuserbahn - Is Frankenhausen alone?", Kyffhäuser Nachrichten, April 30, 2009 . Retrieved January 7, 2011.
4. ↑ See Deutscher Bahnkundenverband, "Regional conference of the DBV shows great interest in the Kyffhäuser region for the railways", April 28, 2009 . Archived from the original on May 27, 2009. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 7, 2011. 
5. ↑ Maybe the train will come after all. Regional conference with the head of the regional railway. Euphoric but questionable prognoses. (No longer available online.) Thüringer Allgemeine, October 1, 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved October 25, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
6. ↑ Hardly any chances of reactivating the Kyffhäuserbahn. Thüringer Allgemeine, September 30, 2011, accessed October 6, 2011 . 
7. ↑ Federal Railway Office, Erfurt branch: Public announcement in accordance with Section 23, Paragraph 2 of the General Railway Act - Exemption from railway operating purposes regarding parcels in Bad Frankenhausen, Rottleben, Bendeleben, Göllingen, Hachelbich and Sondershausen BAnz AT 04.12.2012 B4
8. ↑ Sebastian Tauchnitz: Kreis buys parts of the route of the former Kyffhäuserbahn. Thüringer Allgemeine, October 4, 2013, accessed on July 22, 2013 . 
9. ↑ Kyffhäuserbahn becomes a bike path. Kyffhäuser Nachrichten, May 2, 2013, accessed on July 22, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Ingolf Gläser: Millions invested in Kyffhäuserbahn route: Bundeswehr wants to put tanks on rails. Thüringische Landeszeitung , March 23, 2018, accessed on March 23, 2018 . 
11. ↑ René Braun: Tanks are still rolling until 2022. Kyffhäuser Nachrichten, February 22, 2019, accessed on August 26, 2019 .