Liberec – Zittau railway line

	from Pardubice hl. n. (formerly SNDVB )
	from (Harrachov–) Kořenov (formerly RGTE )
	from Řetenice (formerly ATE )
0.132	Liberec formerly Reichenberg	374 m
	to Zawidów (formerly SNDVB )
5.249	Machnín Bridge (39 m)
5,872	Machnín formerly Machendorf	340 m
6.269	Neisse Valley Viaduct (225 m)
6.810	Machnín hrad
6,945	Neisse Bridge (133 m)
8.610	Chrastava-Andělská Hora formerly Engelsberg near Kratzau
10.153	Neisse Bridge (51 m)
10,549	Chrastava formerly Kratzau	290 m
11,027	Neisse Bridge (58 m)
13,390	Bílý Kostel nad Nisou formerly Weißkirchen (Neisse)	280 m
13,921	Bílý Kostel Bridge (77 m)
17,527	Chotyně earlier chains	270 m
20.203	Hrádek nad Nisou formerly Grottau
21.769	State border Czech Republic - Poland / infrastructure border SŽDC / PLK
22.300	Oberullersdorf until 1945	255 m
	Porajów (planned)
	Conn. Tremors
24,348	Infrastructure boundary PLK / DB Netz
	Neißetalviadukt (741 m) (state border Poland - Germany km 24.528)
	Zittau – health resort Oybin / health resort Jonsdorf
25,573	Bundesstrasse 99 (44 m)
26.256	Bundesstrasse 178 (18 m)

	Narrow-gauge railways Zittau – Kurort Oybin / Kurort Jonsdorf and Zittau – Hermsdorf

	to Hagenwerder
26.745	Zittau	262 m
	to Löbau (Sachs)

The Liberec – Zittau line is a single-track main line in the Czech Republic , Poland and Germany , which was originally built by the Zittau-Reichenberger Railway Company . It runs in the valley of the Lusatian Neisse from Liberec ( Reichenberg ) via Chrastava ( Kratzau ) and Hrádek nad Nisou ( Grottau ) to Zittau in Saxony .

history

Prehistory and construction

The first considerations for building a railway between Zittau and Reichenberg originated in the early 1840s. At that time, a route for the later Saxon-Bohemian State Railway through Upper Lusatia in the direction of Bohemia was discussed.

When the Löbau-Zittau railway was built in 1848, it was planned to extend it to Bohemia, which was initially rejected by the citizens of Zittau. In Prussia, however, the Märkisch-Schlesische Eisenbahn-Compagnie was particularly interested in a continuation of its route to Reichenberg. Now the Zittau-Reichenberg line was also requested by the citizens of Zittau, because they rightly feared that such a line would be bypassed.

Austria initially rejected both projects. It was not until 1853 that a contract between Saxony and Austria decided to build the railway between Zittau and Reichenberg. Since Austria did not want to tolerate any Saxon state railways on its own territory, the construction and operation of the new railway line were transferred to the private Zittau-Reichenberger railway company.

The route, which was laid out as the main line, required the construction of several deep cuts and the construction of several larger viaducts. The 741 meter long and 18 meter high Neisse Valley Viaduct, which was built near Zittau at the time, is still one of the largest and longest railway bridges in Saxony.

The opening of the line was scheduled for November 7, 1859, due to some delays in construction, the first trains then ran on December 1, 1859. Operation was carried out by the Royal Directorate of the Eastern State Railways for the company's account with their operating resources.

In operation of the Saxon State Railways

In the years that followed, traffic fell short of expectations, so that the state interest guarantee always had to be used. The Reichenberg – Pardubitz line of the south-north German connecting railway , which was built in continuation of the line, was also limited in its performance due to its difficult route, so that there were hardly any continuous trains beyond Reichenberg. After the construction of the Prussian connection Görlitz – Seidenberg –Reichenberg in 1875, part of the traffic was routed past Saxony. A two-track expansion that had already been prepared was therefore not implemented.

In 1905 the Zittau-Reichenberger Railway was nationalized as the last large private railway company in Saxony. The infrastructure was now owned by the Royal Saxon State Railways . This had no effect on the operation of the line.

In operation by the Deutsche Reichsbahn

In 1920 the Kgl. Saxon State Railways in the newly founded Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Zittau – Reichenberg line now belonged to the Dresden Reichsbahndirektion . In the years that followed, the route did not gain any major importance, as the former Prussian route via Seidenberg was also given preference in the north-south traffic directed by the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

On July 25, 1931, the German Reich and Czechoslovakia signed a contract (ratified on February 16, 1937), which provided for a later sale of the line to Czechoslovakia.

After the Sudetenland was annexed to Germany in autumn 1938, the operation of the line changed little. In the 1939 summer timetable, a total of eleven pairs of passenger trains ran daily between Reichenberg and Zittau, supplemented by five other high-speed trains on the Reichenberg – Dresden and Reichenberg – Görlitz routes. An accelerated Dresden – Reichenberg passenger train ran for day trippers on Sundays and only stopped at selected stations. Passenger trains took 45 to 50 minutes for the Reichenberg – Zittau route, while express and express trains took 27 to 32 minutes without a stop. Later, a pair of express trains also ran from Berlin via Görlitz, Zittau, Reichenberg, Nymburk and Iglau to Vienna on the route. Because of the low travel speed caused by frequent changes of direction, the connection was soon abandoned.

After the Second World War

After 1945 the section of the route in Czechoslovakia was transferred to the Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD) without compensation . The German section east of the Neisse remained in Poland and became the property of the Polish State Railways (PKP). The ČSD resumed passenger traffic with initially six pairs of trains, four of which ran via Grottau (from 1945: Hrádek nad Nisou) out to Zittau. A stop is also recorded at the Oberullersdorf stop, which is now on Polish territory (in the timetable: Horní Oldřichov (u Žitavy) ). After the cross-border traffic in Zittau was stopped on December 29, 1945 by order of the Soviet occupying power, ČSD passenger trains only ran between Reichenberg (from 1945: Liberec) and Hrádek nad Nisou .

Zittau train station

Level crossing with the Zittau narrow-gauge railway

Class 810 railcars on the Neisse Valley Viaduct

From 1948, the ČSD tried to set up a privileged through traffic between Varnsdorf ( Warnsdorf ) and Hrádek nad Nisou via Zittau. The DR, for its part, was interested in continuous train traffic between Seifhennersdorf and Großschönau via Varnsdorf. On December 30, 1950, after lengthy negotiations, a contract was signed which regulated the establishment of privileged through traffic on the above-mentioned routes. On May 12, 1951, three continuous pairs of trains from Liberec to Varnsdorf resumed train traffic on the entire route. These trains did not stop at German train stations.

In the 1950s, the Polish PKP wanted trains to run in privileged through traffic from Turów via Zittau to Porajów ( Großporitsch ). On July 10, 1955, a special trip with representatives of all three railway administrations involved took place from Zittau to Porajów. A scheduled train service to the newly established Porajów stop was not started, although the necessary routes were already set in the timetable. Instead, bus traffic was organized.

On April 6, 1977 cross-border passenger train traffic was resumed. From then on, two pairs of trains between Zittau and Liberec mainly served small border traffic . From May 23, 1982, the ČSD trains operating in privileged through traffic were also given a stop in Zittau. With the express train D 480/481 “Kriváň” Dresden– Košice , a high-quality long-distance train connection was also conducted over the route in the 1980s.

After 1990

After the political change in 1989, the importance of the route for cross-border traffic decreased. At the beginning of the 1990s there were 14 pairs of trains running over the entire route, but by 1999 this number had halved. In the mid-1990s, through express trains ran between Dresden and Liberec, which were mainly used for weekend excursions.

In 2000, the Czech side presented a study that envisaged the long-term inclusion of the route in the Regiotram Nisa project . The plan was to electrify the route and use light rail vehicles , which can also be transferred to the tram tracks in Liberec. For financial reasons, however, it was not realized.

Only after the Czech Republic joined the EU on May 1, 2004, continuous, regular train traffic between Dresden and Liberec was set up again, roughly as it had been until 1945. Since then, regional express trains operated by DB Regio Südost and České dráhy have operated four times a day from Dresden to Liberec, of which two were extended to Tanvald at the foot of the Giant Mountains on weekends . In addition, four pairs of trains of the Saxon-Bohemian Railway Company operated on weekdays under the name Mandaubahn with their own tariff from Zittau to Liberec.

At the end of 2008, extensive construction work took place on the Czech section between Chrastava and Liberec with the aim of increasing the line speed from 70 to 100 km / h. Since the completion of the work in December 2008, the journey time on the regional express between Dresden Hbf and Liberec has only been 129 minutes.

Since December 12, 2010, the Vogtlandbahn (now Die Länderbahn ) has been providing local rail passenger transport on the L7 Liberec – Zittau (–Varnsdorf – Rybniště / Seifhennersdorf) line under the “ Trilex ” brand . The transport contract runs for ten years, with trains running every hour. Bilingual train attendants are used. Vogtlandbahn won the first joint German-Czech regional rail transport tender from three public transport authorities in February 2009. Since the timetable change in December 2014, the regional express trains on the Dresden – Zittau – Liberec line have also been operated by the Länderbahn. The connections to Tanvald have not existed since then.

The German and Czech sides have been trying for a long time to lease the Polish section of the route in order to be able to renovate it. In 2011 it could only be driven at 30 km / h. Final resolutions on this should be made by 2018 - the plans were based on realization from 2020 at the earliest.

Due to the renovation of the Zittau train station and the construction of an electronic signal box , the line between Hrádek nad Nisou and Zittau was closed between August 13, 2017 and February 9, 2018, and replacement rail services existed for the canceled passenger trains. After the completion of the modernization work, a so-called zero cycle node with connections every full hour was set up in Zittau from the 2020 timetable .

On the occasion of the celebrations for the 160th anniversary of the route on November 2nd and 3rd, 2019, representatives of the local governments of the three states in the triangle and other organizations signed a joint declaration. The Polish government is called upon to initiate the immediate rehabilitation of the section of the line located on Polish territory, which has been in an extremely desolate state for decades. A new stop in Porajów is also required .

Vehicle use

Uerdinger rail bus of the SBE near Liberec (2009)

Until its nationalization, the Zittau-Reichenberger Eisenbahn handled the operation with double-coupled tender locomotives, as they were also used by the State Railways as Class II and Class IIIb .

The Dresden – Reichenberg passenger trains were transported in the 1920s and 1930s with the powerful Saxon XII H2 (DR series 38.2–3).

After the Second World War, the ČSD took over the train transport on the entire route. In the passenger train traffic, multiple types of motor coaches were mainly used. Some of the trains - such as the Plzeň – Liberec express train, which has been running until recently - also ran locomotive-hauled with diesel locomotives of the ČSD series T 478.3 . Up until the end of steam traction at ČSD, the powerful ČSD series 556.0 could also be seen in front of freight trains .

The class 612 tilting railcars used on regional express trains operated by Deutsche Bahn to Liberec were replaced by class 642 railcars from the 2011 timetable change . ČD almost exclusively used the tried and tested two-axle railcars of the 810 series in their passenger trains . On the part of the Mandaubahn, Uerdingen rail buses of the 798 and 796 series with control cars were mostly used.

The Vogtlandbahn has been using Siemens Desiro Classic vehicles as planned since December 2010, supplemented by RegioSprinter if necessary . Today the Länderbahn is using Siemens Desiro Classic multiple units for the Trilex trains on the L7 line and increasingly using Stadler Regio-Shuttle RS1 . The services of the regional express 2 between Liberec and beyond Zittau to Dresden are provided exclusively by Siemens Desiro Classic railcars .

literature

Reiner Preuss: Saxon State Railways . transpress Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-344-70700-0 .
Wilfried Rettig: Railway in the three-country corner, part 1 . EK-Verlag Freiburg, 2010, ISBN 978-3-88255-732-9 .

Web links

Commons : Liberec – Zittau railway line - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Data on the route at www.sachsenschiene.de

↑ Reich Course Book 1939

↑ ČSD winter timetable 1945/46

↑ ČSD winter timetable 1951/52

↑ ČSD timetable 1988/89

↑ Mandaubahn timetable - valid from June 15, 2008 ( 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. (PDF file; 270 kB)@1@ 2

↑ Preview of the 2009 timetable

↑ see Zweckverband Verkehrsverbund Oberlausitz-Lower Silesia, “Dreiländerbahn Liberec - Zittau - Varnsdorf - Rybniště / Seifhennersdorf secured in the long term. Vogtlandbahn GmbH receives a 10-year contract ”, press release. (pdf; 100 kB) February 17, 2009, accessed on February 21, 2009 .

↑ Wykaz maksymalnych prędkości - autobusy szynowe i EZT. (pdf) List of the maximum permissible speeds for diesel and electric multiple units. PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe , March 12, 2017, accessed April 15, 2017 (Polish).

↑ See discussion based on radio reports from Radio Lausitz on Drehscheibe-Online. November 20, 2011, accessed November 20, 2011 .

↑ Adam Pluhař, hrozí zastavení vlaku do německá. Poláci se nemají k opravě trati , iDNES, May 15, 2015, (Czech)

↑ Faster train journey in 2020 at the earliest? In: sächsische.de . February 17, 2017 ( sächsische.de [accessed November 29, 2018]).

↑ 40 km / h nechceme. Politici z česko-polsko-německého trojzemí chtějí lepší trať. November 3, 2019, accessed April 19, 2020 (Czech).

[1] Data on the route at www.sachsenschiene.de

[2] Reich Course Book 1939

[3] ČSD winter timetable 1945/46

[4] ČSD winter timetable 1951/52

[5] ČSD timetable 1988/89