Coburg – Ernstthal railway on Rennsteig

Coburg-Ernstthal on the Rennsteig
Route in the Wildenheid district. In the background the buildings of the former Hausser company, which are located next to the Neustadt bei Coburg train station.
Route number (DB) :	5121 (Coburg – Lauscha (Thür)) 6689 (Lauscha (Thür) –Ernstthal am Rennsteig)
Course book section (DB) :	820 564
Route length:	45.032 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Lichtenfels 0.000 Coburg 295.38 m to Bad Rodach 1,270 Coburg North (since 2005) to Eisenach 3.880 Dörfles-Esbach (since 1946) 310.18 m 4,370 Herzogsweg Abzw Connection curve to Esbacher See Abzw 5.1 Itztal Bridge Itz 6.396 Rödental (until 1978 Oeslau ) 8.148 Rödental Mitte (since 2005) 9,090 Mönchröden 317.26 m from Ebersdorf (near Coburg) 15.218 Neustadt (near Coburg) 344.17 m 17.16 State border Bavaria / Thuringia from Eisfeld 19,534 Sonneberg (Thür) central station 386 m 21.4 Awanst Sonneberg (Thür) Ost Gbf 21,821 Sonneberg (Thür) Ost formerly Köppelsdorf - Oberlind 382 m to Stockheim Steinach 23.941 Sonneberg (Thür) Nord formerly Hüttensteinach 400 m 25,563 Hüttengrund 415 m 26.2 Awanst Hüttengrund Steinach 27.853 Tin hammer (door) 438 m Steinach Steinach 32.055 Steinach (Thür) South Steinach 33.240 Steinach (Thür) 491 m 36.80 Unterlauscha until 1920 572 m 38,580 Lauscha (Thür) ( terminus ) 611 m Viaduct in Lauscha (93 m) ~ 39.9 Lauschenstein tunnel (275 m) Nasse-Telle Viaduct (145 m) 43.226 Oberlauscha 735 m to Neuhaus am Rennweg 45.032 Ernstthal on the Rennsteig 769 m from Probstzella

The Coburg – Ernstthal am Rennsteig railway is a single-track line in Bavaria and Thuringia . It runs from Coburg via Neustadt bei Coburg , Sonneberg and Lauscha to Ernstthal am Rennsteig . The line from Coburg to Sonneberg is electrified and classified as a main line .

history

Private railway

In 1841 the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and the Duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as well as Saxe-Meiningen signed a state treaty to build the Werra Railway . This also included the construction of the line from Coburg to Sonneberg, which gave Sonneberg a railway connection with the state capital Meiningen and southwards to the Bavarian Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn .

In 1855 the Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, newly founded for this purpose, was granted the concession to build and operate the lines. The Coburg – Sonneberg railway was inaugurated on November 1, 1858 together with the Werra Railway. 28 years later, on October 1, 1886, an extension was made with a 19.2 km stretch from Sonneberg to Lauscha. With the connection to the railway network ending in Sonneberg, the porcelain manufacturers in Köppelsdorf , Hüttensteinach and Steinach as well as the Steinacher ironworks and the glass industry in Lauscha should be able to improve their product sales. Under pressure from the resident companies, the WEG moved away from the original plans for a narrow-gauge railway and ran the standard-gauge line to Lauscha. The factory owners had been given decisive support in their concerns by Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen , who signed the state contract for the construction and operation of the railway line through the WEG between the duchies of Saxe-Meiningen , Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Saxe-Weimar. Eisenach , which came into force on March 31, 1885. Bavarian and Italian workers were involved in the construction work. On September 29, 1886, the first train arrived at Lauscha station, on September 30, at 5:22 a.m., scheduled rail operations began with the first train from Lauscha to Sonneberg.

On October 1, 1895, with the Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, this section was also incorporated into the Prussian State Railway and until 1945 belonged to the Prussian Railway Directorate, later to the Reich Railway Directorate in Erfurt .

In order to improve the economic and social situation of the Saxon-Meiningian communities Bock and Teich , Piesau , Wallendorf , Ernstthal, Igelshieb and the Bernhardsthal estate and the princely Blackburg towns of Lichte , Geiersthal , Schmalenbuche and Neuhaus, the Prussian approved House of Representatives 1909 for the project "Bock-Wallendorf - Neuhaus-Igelshieb with branch from Ernstthal to Lauscha" 5.8 million marks. The entrepreneurs in the porcelain industry in Lichte and Wallendorf had vehemently called for the gap to be closed, but difficult ownership conditions in the Wallendorf community delayed planning. The project was welcomed without reservation in the glassblowing communities on the mountain ridge. The greatest interventions in the landscape and the property rights of the landowners had to be carried out on the soil of the municipality of Lauscha. On August 2, 1911, the construction of the 13.4 km long section between Bock-Wallendorf via Ernstthal to Lauscha including a 3 km long branch line from Ernstthal to Neuhaus began under the direction of the government builder of the Royal Railway Directorate Erfurt Walter Kasten. Most of the construction work was carried out by migrant workers from Italy and Switzerland. The official opening of the line took place on October 31, 1913 after a construction period of more than two years.

In the timetable of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft , there were 14 passenger trains and one express train in each direction on the Coburg – Sonneberg route with the number 164k in 1939, the latter with a journey time of 20 minutes.

Break after 1945

West German section

Passenger train with steam locomotive 86 at the Coburg level crossing, Kalenderweg in 1958

After the occupation of Thuringia by Soviet troops in July 1945, the company on the Bavarian-Thuringian border between Neustadt and Sonneberg near Wildenheid was separated. From September 1, 1947, with an interruption during the Berlin blockade , freight trains ran again. The occupying powers had approved two daily pairs of freight trains to transport coke from Neustadt to Sonneberg, but the traffic was less and irregular. The last delivery trip took place on September 30, 1951, followed by the dismantling of the tracks on the Thuringian side in spring 1952. In the west, the tracks remained in place and were used - for shunting trips - from the Neustädter Bahnhof to shortly after the bridge crossing Wildenheider Strasse. The remainder of the section up to the border became overgrown as railway wasteland without being dismantled for many years.

Coburg train station

The track had in the course book of the German Federal Railroad to 1970 the number 419b until December 2007, the number 830 (Neustadt-Coburg-Lichtenfels, after the reunification : Sonnenberg-Coburg-Lichtenfels) and then 820. The Coburg-Neustadt section was 1975, after Funding by the Free State of Bavaria , electrified . This meant that there was no need to switch to steam locomotives, such as the 86 series , or diesel locomotives, such as the 280 series , in Coburg and the electric locomotive, such as the 144 series , could drive through from Lichtenfels to Neustadt. In the same year, the remaining line between Neustadt station and the inner-German border was dismantled. In 1979 Oeslau station was renamed Rödental and a new station building was erected here. In 1980 the train service was stopped at the weekend. After a truck rammed the Wildenheider Bridge north of Neustadt train station in 1988 and damaged it considerably, the bridge was expanded and the remaining distance shortened accordingly. The railway to the north of it sold part of the route to the Bavarian forest administration .

East German section

Because of the interruption of the railway connections by the zone border after the Second World War, the traffic flows changed. The railway line from Sonneberg to Ernstthal established a connection to the line from Probstzella and on to Saalfeld. Alongside the Eisfeld – Sonneberg railway line, the line became the second traffic artery for the district town of Sonneberg. Therefore, from 1945 through connections from Sonneberg via Ernstthal to Probstzella via the Probstzella – Neuhaus route were common. In the mid-1970s, the Saalfeld – Sonneberg rail connection was increasingly used for tourism by many holidaymakers in the holiday resorts in the Thuringian Forest, as the section around Sonneberg from 1971 and after a revision of the dimensions of the restricted strip along the confusing border line as a result of the basic agreement of 1973 finally became a major part the route was no longer in the restricted border area. At the end of the 1960s, the Sonneberg Ost station was expanded to include a container station with gantry cranes. Until 1990, the container station was the main long-distance freight connection in the Sonneberg district.

reunion

Sonneberg Central Station

After the fall of the inner-German border, the gap between Neustadt and Sonneberg was immediately tackled. To do this, however, the previously sold section of the route had to be bought back by the Bavarian forest administration. On September 28, 1991, the 3.5-kilometer section to Sonneberg - now electrified - was finally put back into operation.

As of 1990, the Sonneberg – Ernstthal section of the route was sidelined due to the long journey times and increasing motorization, like many branch lines with sharply declining passenger and freight traffic. Freight traffic was stopped on December 31, 1994. Because of the realignment of long-distance freight traffic towards Upper Franconia / Bavaria after the opening of the border crossings and the reunification of Germany, the Sonneberg Ost container station was also closed in 1998. Finally, on January 22, 1997, failure to maintain the line after the track measuring train had been running led to the temporary suspension of all traffic. Only the goods traffic from the hard stone works Hüttengrund was temporarily maintained from the end of March 1997 at a maximum speed of 30 km / h. In the summer of 1998, the section from Sonneberg to Lauscha was repaired within ten weeks for 10 million DM. On September 26, 1998, passenger traffic was resumed on this section, but was suspended again by Deutsche Bahn on October 3, 1999 due to empty trains and cancellation by the state. The main reason for the insufficient capacity utilization was the lack of connection to the former district town of Neuhaus am Rennweg, in which the authorities of the district of Sonneberg have branches that the population can only reach by bus. Special trips to the Lauscher Kugelmarkt were held in 2001.

The Thuringian Railway (ThE) leased the section together with the Ernstthal – Neuhaus section on the Rennweg of the Probstzella line until December 31, 2017 from DB Netz AG. From August 1, 2001, the remainder of the route to Neuhaus am Rennweg was renovated with construction subsidies from the Free State of Thuringia. Among other things, the bridge arches of the Nasse-Telle viaduct were blown up due to insufficient stability and replaced with a reinforced concrete superstructure. In addition, the route was modernized in terms of safety. All traffic between Sonneberg and Neuhaus am Rennweg is now centrally controlled by the electronic interlocking of the Alcatel company in the Sonneberg main station , which was newly created by ThE. On December 14, 2002, the line from Sonneberg to Ernstthal was reopened, together with the Ernstthal – Neuhaus section on Rennweg.

The private siding of the Rödentaler Annawerk at Rödental train station was partially dismantled in 2004.

The Sonneberg-Ost container terminal was equipped with a new loading crane, reopened on May 30, 2006 and taken over on June 19, 2006 by the independent container transport system NeCoSS (Neutral Container Shuttle Systems), which provides the connection via the hub Hauptbahnhof Hof to the container terminals in the seaports . The container transport over the railway line was stopped on August 10, 2012, at 11.17 a.m. the last container train left Sonneberg.

The route is connected to the new Ebensfeld-Erfurt line via the Dörfles-Esbach curve . Since the end of 2017, the ICE connection to the Coburg train station has been via this .

business

Today's operation

Coburg-Sonneberg

Regional Express trains of the Franconia-Thuringia Express have been running on the route between Coburg and Sonneberg since 2013 . Be used Talent-2 railcars. Since December 2017, double-decker cars with Vectron sandwich coverings have also been in use, which are run from Coburg on the new line towards Bamberg.

Scheduled freight train traffic took place again until 2012. If required, a pair of container trains operated by IntEgro Verkehr operated Monday through Friday from Hof ​​to Sonneberg Ost and back.

Sonneberg – Ernstthal

Since December 15, 2002, the Süd-Thüringen-Bahn has been running hourly with railcars of the Regio-Shuttle type with 71 seats and 77 standing places from Sonneberg via Lauscha ( train crossing ) and Ernstthal am Rennsteig to Neuhaus am Rennweg. The travel time at a planned speed of 60 km / h to Ernstthal am Rennsteig is 38 minutes and to Neuhaus am Rennweg 46 minutes. Delays and other disruptions (almost exclusively accidents involving wildlife ) are extremely rare, and there has been no accident through which the route was brought back into operation. The number of passengers is now well above the original forecasts. Like all routes in the "Diesel Network South Thuringia", STB will continue to operate the route at least until the end of 2028.

In the winters, two Meiningen W 855 snow plows from Erfurter Gleisbau GmbH, which are stationed in Neuhaus am Rennweg, are used in particular at high altitudes .

Operation on the eastern part until August 31, 2000

The Prussian T 11 and T 12 tank locomotives were used on the Sonneberg – Ernstthal section . In 1923, the first steam locomotives of the DR class 95 were discontinued in the Probstzella depot . After 1945, it was mainly these machines that could be found on the route from Sonneberg to Saalfeld train station . On March 10, 1950, there was a serious accident in Lauscha train station. Locomotive 95 041 had an accident while shunting. The engine driver and the stoker suffered severe burns, to which the engine driver succumbed five days after the accident.

Apart from this incident, the BR 95 mastered the demanding route very reliably and, despite its comparatively high maintenance effort, remained without an alternative for decades. While the flat lines were converted to diesel traction in the 1960s and electrification was progressing on the long-distance lines, the steam-powered branch lines became a popular photo motif on this mountain line.

From 1980 the DR class 119 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn became the new standard locomotive . Due to initial technical problems on the steep ramps, the available BR 95 machines had to be reactivated for a short time in the snowy winter of 1980/81. With a special run of 95 0027 from Saalfeld to Sonneberg on February 28, 1981, the series was officially withdrawn from scheduled service and finally replaced by diesel locomotives, which, although their biggest problems with the steep stretches were gradually resolved, are always somewhat prone to failure stayed. The locomotives were in the railway depots stationed Saalfeld and Probstzella and on a small scale in the employment place Sonnenberg.

In 1990, the express train journey from Sonneberg to Ernstthal am Rennsteig took 56 minutes. It took 12 minutes to change the direction of travel and move the locomotive at the Lauscha switchback station. The maximum line speed was 50 km / h.

Route description

course

Between Coburg and Sonneberg, the route initially runs largely parallel to the Itz and follows the course of the Röden from Rödental to Neustadt . At Wildenhaid, the route crosses the former inner-German border between Bavaria and Thuringia and continues into the city center of Sonneberg.

From the Sonneberg main station, the route leads south around the city center and the Stadtberg through the urban area and reaches the Steinach valley in a wide left-hand curve . It crosses an important road connection into the Sonneberg Unterland, which made extensive safety measures necessary from the start. The Sonneberg – Stockheim railway line also used this route later . From Köppelsdorf to Lauscha, the railway line follows the Steinach, which it crosses a total of five times in Köppelsdorf, Hüttengrund, Blechhammer and on the way to Steinach. Bank reinforcements, smaller bridges and level crossings were to be built on this section. Only on the last section to the Lauscha train station does the route climb steeply on the eastern slope of the Steinach and Lauscha Bach rivers. Here it had to be secured by retaining walls.

The continuation leaves the station area in Lauscha in a southerly direction and reaches the western slope of the Lauscha Valley via a 93-meter long viaduct made of rammed concrete . The route goes almost completely around the Teufelsholz mountain, gaining around 3.3 kilometers through the Lauschenstein tunnel and over the Nasse Telle viaduct to the Eller , a saddle above the Steinach and Lauscha valleys, which the route takes around 330 Meters as the crow flies, the minimum distance to Lauscha train station is about 85 meters. In the Ernstthal train station is at 769  m above sea level. NHN reached the Rennsteig.

Operating locations (selection)

Coburg railway station (2006)

Coburg

→ Main article : Coburg train station

The Coburg train station is the starting point of the route and was built from 1857 to 1858 by the Werra Railway Company as part of the Eisenach – Lichtenfels railway line . In addition to the route to Ernstthal, it is also the starting point of a branch line to Bad Rodach . Coburg has been a stop for ICE trains on the Berlin – Munich route since December 2017 .

Coburg North

The Coburg Nord stop was built from October 2005 and started operations on December 11, 2005 with the timetable change. The platform on Rodacher Strasse is 140 m long and cost 590,000 euros.

Roedental

Rödental station was called Oeslau until the 1978 summer timetable . The original station building was demolished in November 1977 and replaced by a new building. The operations center has had a second platform since 2011.

Rödental center

Like the Coburg-Nord stop, the Rödental-Mitte station was built as part of the route renovation in 2005. It is located 1.7 kilometers east of the Rödental train station. The construction cost 580,000 euros.

Neustadt (b Coburg)

The train station in Neustadt has had two tracks again since 2005, so that train crossings can take place there. The renovation of the station in 2004-2005 cost over 2.4 million euros. The station used to be the end of the now dismantled Ebersdorf b.Coburg – Neustadt b.Coburg railway .

Sonneberg Central Station, track side (2006)

Sonneberg (Thür) central station

→ Main article : Sonneberg (Thuringia) central station

On November 2, 1858, the first Sonneberg train station was inaugurated as the terminus of the Werra Railway Company. On October 1, 1886, when the line to Lauscha went into operation, it became a through station. With the opening of the Sonneberg – Stockheim railway line in 1901 at the latest , the existing facilities were inadequate for the volume of traffic. Therefore, from 1905 the Reichsbahndirektion Erfurt built a new one southeast of the old station, which was put into operation in October 1907. Under the project name Umweltbahnhof Sonneberg , the station was redesigned from 1997 to 1999. The tracks were dismantled and redesigned between 2001 and 2002.

Unterlauscha

The Unterlauscha stop, which was built on the crown of an embossed retaining wall , was abandoned after 1920 because the locomotives were repeatedly unable to start on this steep section. You can still see the platform, the foundations of a station keeper's house and a path from Untere Bahnweg to Bahnhofstrasse.

Lauscha railway station (2008)

Lauscha (Thür)

→ Main article : Lauscha train station (Thuringia)

The station was built in 1886 as the terminus of the Steinachtal Railway by the Werra Railway Company . The station area in the narrow Lauschatal at the foot of the Tierberg was secured with up to 10 m high quarry stone walls on the slope. The first station building stood lengthways on Bahnhofstrasse. In the course of closing the gap to the Zoptetalbahn , it was converted into a switchback station . The goods area was extensively expanded. For this purpose, the sloping terrain was filled with the material accumulated during the construction of the Lauschenstein tunnel and secured with a retaining wall made of 6000 m³ of rammed concrete. Between 1912 and 1914, today's representative station building was built upside down from the two tracks on the central platform. The old station building was demolished in 1915 and replaced by a new goods handling facility with an office and residential wing. A large part of the formerly extensive track system was shut down in 2001. The two platform tracks, a locomotive transfer track and two short sidings are still in operation.

Engineering structures

Due to the topography, larger engineering structures, two viaducts and a tunnel , the 275-meter-long Lauschenstein tunnel , between Lauscha and Ernstthal were necessary in the upper section .

Viaducts

Name (location)	Illustration	height	length	status
Railway station viaduct in Lauscha ( ⊙ )		14.5 m	93 m	under traffic
Nasse-Telle Viaduct ( ⊙ )		31.0 m	145 m	under traffic, new building 2002

tunnel

Name (location)	Illustration	length	status
Lauschenstein tunnel ( ⊙ )		250 m	under traffic

literature

• Wolfgang Beyer u. a .: From the Coburg region to the Rennsteig. Festschrift for the reopening of the Coburg-Sonneberg line. Eisenbahnjournal special 4/91 (1991), ISBN 3-922404-24-3 .
• Wolfgang Bleiweis, Stefan Goldschmidt, Bernd Schmitt: Railway in the Coburg country. Verlag Eisenbahnfreunde Steinachtalbahn-Coburg, Coburg 1996, ISBN 3-9802748-4-5 .
• Steffen Dietsch, Stefan Goldschmidt, Hans Löhner: The Werra Railway. Eisenbahnfachbuch-Verlag, Coburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-9810681-3-9 .

Web links

• Location and course of the route on the OpenRailwayMap
• Route map of the Rbd Erfurt from 1931
• Route 6689, pictures of the tunnel portals

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the demolition see: Georg Schmidt and Rudolf Heym: Viadukt busted . In: Lok Magazin 3/2002, pp. 84–87
2. ↑ Rail Business 9/13: NeCoss is to be set up neutrally again after Contargo withdraws, February 25, 2013 ( Memento of August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Meininger Tageblatt. Edition April 7, 2016, pp. 1 and 3.
4. ^ "Coburg Nord" stop on the website of the Pro Bahn passenger association . Retrieved April 13, 2020.
5. ^ Rödental station on the website of the Pro Bahn passenger association. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
6. ↑ New stop: Rödental-Mitte on the website of the Pro Bahn passenger association. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
7. ^ "Neustadt bei Coburg" station on the website of the Pro Bahn passenger association. Retrieved April 13, 2020.
8. ↑ City of Lauscha (ed.): Historischer Bilderbogen - A foray through the history of Lauscha and Ernstthal. Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 2008, ISBN 978-3-86595-255-4 , p. 41.