Gerstungen – Vacha railway line

Gerstungen – Vacha
Route number (DB) :	6707
Route length:	24.2 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Halle (Saale) Hbf from Förtha 0.0 Barley according to Bebra Consecration bridge Untersuhl 0.7 Gerstungen tunnel (50 m), Thuringian Railway 2.7 Berka / Werra to the Dippach and Abteroda potash works (Alexandershall) 6.7 Dankmarshausen (until about 1993) State border Thuringia / Hesse 8.8 Widdershausen 11.6 Heringen (Werra) with Wintershall potash plant Herfagrund potash plant 14.7 Lengers 18.3 Heimboldshausen to Bad Hersfeld Infrastructure border DB Netz - K + S 20.4 Hattorf plant to Unterbreizbach 21.1 Ulster 21.6 Philippsthal 22.4 State border Hesse / Thuringia from Wenigentaft-Mansbach from Unterbreizbach 24.2 Vacha to Bad Salzungen

The Gerstungen – Vacha railway line , also known as the Werra Valley Railway , is a branch line in Thuringia and Hesse . It branches off the Halle – Bebra railway line in Gerstungen and runs through the Werra valley via Dankmarshausen and Heringen to the Hattorf loading station near Philippsthal and originally on to Vacha station . Today it serves exclusively for the goods traffic of the potash mining in the area Heringen and Unterbreizbach .

history

Former Dankmarshausen station (2008)

The opening of the railway followed in several stages: the rail traffic between Gerstungen and Berka / Werra ceased on October 1, 1903, between Berka and Dankmarshausen on December 1, 1903, between Dankmarshausen and Heringen on March 30, 1905, and between Heringen and Vacha on March 1, 1903 Recorded October 1905. The subsequent line of the former Feldabahn , which was opened on August 10, 1879 (to Dorndorf ) or July 22, 1879 (to Bad Salzungen ), could be used with standard gauge from July 7, 1906 and December 1, 1906, respectively . This opened up a wide range of options for transporting the potash salt extracted . In the 1930s, a new railway construction office was set up in Vacha, which began with the planning and preparatory work for the double-track expansion of the line. During the Second World War , however, this work was canceled and not resumed afterwards.

After the Second World War, the route was largely in the border area between the GDR and the FRG and passed twice the zonal and later inner-German border between Dankmarshausen and Widdershausen and between Vacha and Philippsthal . It was correspondingly difficult to transport the potash salt, which is important for both countries, from the region. The cross-border potash transports from Unterbreizbach via Vacha towards Gerstungen for the GDR and from Hattorf via Gerstungen towards Bebra could only be maintained through negotiations initially between the occupying powers and later between the two German states and were temporarily interrupted.

Even in 1945, the cross-border movement of persons between Philippsthal and Vacha was set after the freight was followed by the National Railroad of the GDR in Leimbach a connecting curve to Werrabahn had made towards Eisenach and put into operation.

During the interruption of the potash transports from Hattorf via Gerstungen, the potash mined on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany was transported on the Hersfeld Kreisbahn branching off from the route in Heimboldshausen . After the agreement on the payment of a lump sum, the cross-border route to Gerstungen was put back into operation on September 27, 1969.

The Deutsche Reichsbahn stopped passenger traffic between Gerstungen and Dankmarshausen on October 5, 1952, the Federal Railroad between Widdershausen and Heringen on October 3, 1953, and between Heringen and Heimboldshausen on May 29, 1960. All traffic between the Hattorf plant and Philippsthal ended on May 29, 1981. Until December 31, 1993, passenger traffic to Bad Hersfeld via the Hersfeld circular railway remained on the remainder of the Hattorf – Heimboldshausen plant .

In January 1975 the line was structurally interrupted when the tracks were dismantled on the Hessian side between Philippsthal and the border at that time (km 22.43). Today the tracks end at Werk Hattorf station.

Vacha lost its railway connection on the Bad Salzungen – Vacha railway line on June 10, 2001 , after a mine connection railway to the Unterbreizbach shaft was built from the Hattorf plant, went into operation on January 31, 2000 and the regional rail transport was canceled by the Free State of Thuringia .

There is extensive freight traffic on the remaining Gerstungen – Hattorf plant, which is only idle on the weekends. For a few years there was passenger traffic in Advent , when trains hauled by steam locomotives left Heimboldshausen in the direction of Gerstungen and mostly headed for the Erfurt Christmas market .

The K + S Verbundwerk Werra is planning to cover the Hattorf and Wintershall heaps, which, after a few attempts, should run in full by 2021. Every day around 1,400 tons of processed slag have to be delivered to the conveyor belts by rail at each location.

Reactivation plans for local rail transport

With the detour via Unterbreizbach and the two changes of the infrastructure operator ( DB Netz , K + S and RbT Regiobahn Thuringia ), there is a structural continuous connection from Gerstungen via Heringen, Phillippsthal and Vacha to Bad Salzungen. The plans of the potash concern to make the line from Unterbreizbach to Vacha usable again, nourished the hope of resumption of passenger traffic between Gerstungen and Vacha. The working group of the responsible authorities and the state of Hesse on the potential for passenger traffic of disused railway lines also sees the possibility of reactivation between Gerstungen and Vacha. The Association of German Transport Companies and the Pro-Rail Alliance have also included the route in their list of proposals for reactivating disused railway lines. In these plans, however, the rebuilding of the old line via Philippsthal is assumed.

literature

• Peter Bock: Interzonal Trains . GeraMond Verlag, S. 127-133 .

Web links

• Description of the route on forget-bahnen.de
• Chronicle of the route on widdershausen.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Railway Atlas Germany . 9th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89494-145-1 .
2. ↑ Information and pictures about the tunnels on route 6707 on eisenbahn-tunnelportale.de by Lothar Brill
3. ↑ Stefanie Harth: Covering with a slag-ash mixture: K + S presents the Mammut project. In: osthessen-news.de. February 8, 2018, accessed March 29, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Are regional trains going through the Werra Valley again soon? , osthessen-news, accessed on August 2, 2020
5. ↑ Inventory of the railway lines , State of Hesse, accessed on August 2, 2020
6. ^ "For reactivation of the Werra Valley Railway"; Südthüringer Zeitung / Free Word from August 1, 2020