Merseburg – Leipzig-Leutzsch railway line

Merseburg Pbf-Leipzig-Leutzsch
Route number :	6810
Course book section (DB) :	584 (1998)
Route length:	27.73 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Maximum slope :	5  ‰
Minimum radius :	300 m
Legend from Halle (Saale) Hbf Merseburg central station 99 m Merseburg Gbf 100 m -0.017 to Weißenfels Abzw Leuna Connection to the Leuna factory railway 4.31 Leuna 100 m 5.0 Saale bridge (165 m) 5.2 Leuna Bridge only 1945/47 100 m 6.5 Ldst Trebnitz 8.3 Lw junction (to Halle-Ammendorf via Lochau landfill) 9.59 Wallendorf (b Merseburg) 95 m 12.41 Zöschen (last Hp) 95 m 16.62 Kötschlitz 94 m State border Saxony-Anhalt / Saxony Federal motorway 9 19.58 Dölzig 96 m 23.61 Böhlitz-Ehrenberg 108 m 27.685 from Weißenfels from Gera Leipzig-Leutzsch 110 m to Leipzig Hbf

The Merseburg – Leipzig-Leutzsch railway was a branch line in Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony . It began in Merseburg and led via Leuna and Böhlitz-Ehrenberg to Leipzig-Leutzsch . In Leipzig it is also called the “Merseburg Railway”, popularly it was also called “Auenschreck” until it was shut down.

history

The first ideas for this route existed as early as 1896, but they were not implemented for the time being. From 1906 the Leutzsch – Merseburg line was planned, but in 1910 only the Prussian section Merseburg– Zöschen was approved. Construction of this section began in 1915, but was discontinued in 1917 due to the war. Since 1919 there has been passenger and since 1928 freight traffic between Merseburg and Leuna . At the end of the 1920s, after negotiations with Saxony, it was decided to continue building and so in 1928 first the Merseburg – Zöschen line and then on July 1, 1931 the entire Leutzsch – Merseburg line was opened to traffic.

The ghost train station in Leuna 2009

Böhlitz-Ehrenberg stop

Bridge at Friedensdorf

In the early 1990s, the through trains between Leipzig Hbf and Merseburg were discontinued. Since then, a change had to be made in Leipzig-Leutzsch. After the state of Saxony canceled the operation of its section of the route between Leutzsch and Dölzig in 1998, passenger traffic was also discontinued on May 23, 1998, as the section of the route in Saxony-Anhalt alone was not profitable. The cessation of freight traffic in the Luppenau – Leutzsch section followed on January 1, 1999.

In 2012 the railway sold the route between Friedensdorf and Böhlitz-Ehrenberg to the Saxon Institute for Regional Development and Economy (Sire) AG, which wants to build a cycle path on the route. The rails have already been removed for this purpose, but sleepers and ballast are still there. There is already a cycle path on federal highway 181 between Wallendorf and Merseburg . The construction of a cycle path on the former railway line was not implemented until 2019. In the meantime, this is no longer possible on the entire route, as this has been sold to various successor owners. The demolition of the embankment began between the former Wallendorf (Luppe) station and Gebrüder-von-Wedel-Straße, as the owner is planning to sell it on to build single-family houses.

The Leipzig – Merseburg route is served by the PlusBus line 131. Since December 13, 2015, it has also been part of the Saxony-Anhalt state network . It runs every half hour on weekdays and every two hours on Sundays and public holidays.

Route description

Railway bridge at Leuna over the Saale

Shortly before Leuna, the Merseburg – Leipzig railway separates from the main line Halle (Saale) –Weißenfels – Erfurt , runs past the Leuna city train station and, after crossing the Saale , swings several kilometers into the valley of the Luppe , which it nears Wallendorf reached. From there it runs in the valley of the Luppe and from Göhren parallel to the Elster-Saale Canal until it reaches the city of Leipzig near Burghausen. Between Böhlitz-Ehrenberg and Leutzsch it swings parallel to the course of the main line Leipzig-Weißenfels and ended in Leipzig-Leutzsch in a stump track until 2010, whereby in the run-up to the Leipzig-Leutzsch station there was the possibility of changing to the main line towards Leipzig Hauptbahnhof .

The railway bridge over the Saale near Leuna can also be used by pedestrians to cross the river.

Luppenau – Halle-Ammendorf route

At coordinate 51 ° 21 '17 ″  N , 12 ° 3 ′ 9.6 ″  E , south of the town of Luppenau , there is the former branch with branches to the northwest towards Halle-Ammendorf and east towards Leipzig. Today (2010) the line from Leipzig ends here blind, because the switch has been removed. In the further course of the route to Ammendorf, the federal highway 181 and the Luppe near Luppenau are crossed, followed by the villages of Löpitz am Wallendorfer See , Lössen , Burgliebenau , the canalized White Elster , the local border Lochau / Döllnitz , the multi-track marshalling yard Grube Lochau with siding, the crossing under the Saale-Elster valley bridge , the multi-track stop in Halle- Osendorf and the confluence with the Halle-Bebra railway at Halle-Ammendorf station .

Freight traffic has been increasing again since 2008 between Merseburg marshalling yard and the Lochau pit (landfill of the Mitteldeutsche Umwelt- und Entsorgung GmbH). However, this usually only drives to the Lochau gravel works and back again.

There is still a scrap recycling company on the same route in Osendorf, which, however, has it transported to Halle-Ammendorf. On parts of the route, site trailers occasionally ran in preparation for the construction of the new high-speed Erfurt – Leipzig / Halle line with the Saale-Elster valley bridge .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Documents in the Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage
2. ^ LVZ of March 20, 2013
3. ↑ The PlusBus network
4. ↑ New regional express lines in the Saale-Thuringia-Südharz network. In: starker-nahverkehr.de. Nahverkehrsservice Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH, December 7, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2018 . 

Web links

Commons : Merseburg – Leipzig railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Leipzig Lexicon: Merseburg Railway