Wiesenburg – Roßlau railway line

Wiesenburg – Roßlau (Elbe)
Medewitz (Mark) station, 2012
Route number :	6414 Wiesenburg – Roßlau Ra 6416 Roßlau Abzw Ai-Roßlau Gbf
Course book section (DB) :	207
Route length:	28.7 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Legend from Berlin 0.0 Wiesenburg (Mark) after Güsten L8411 Wiesenburg – Roßlau 5.6 Medewitz (Mark) State border Brandenburg / Saxony-Anhalt L120 Wiesenburg – Roßlau 14.7 Jeber-Bergfrieden (formerly Bf) L121 Coswig-Zerbst 19.2 Thießen (until 2012) Rossel L120 Wiesenburg – Roßlau 25.0 Roßlau (Elbe) Abzw Ai from Falkenberg / Elster 26.9 Meinsdorf / Roßlau Ra junction L120 Wiesenburg – Roßlau Meinsdorf Rossel 26.1 Roßlau (Elbe) Gbf from / to Magdeburg Bundesstrasse 184 Rosslau (Elbe) to Dessau

The Wiesenburg – Roßlau railway is a double-track main line and connects Wiesenburg / Mark in Brandenburg with Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt . The connection from Berlin to Dessau and further towards Halle / Leipzig runs over it.

history

The Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company connected Berlin with Dessau in Anhalt with its main line as early as 1841, albeit with a detour via Wittenberg . In 1879, the Berlin – Blankenheim railway line, as part of the Kanonenbahn project, created a connection from the Berlin light rail via Belzig, Wiesenburg to Güsten and further on towards West Germany. Because of its primarily military orientation, this route ran mostly far from all larger towns. Plans to close the gap between the two main lines had already existed before the First World War . Timetables from 1914 describe the Wiesenburg – Roßlau route as “under construction”. In Meinsdorf the existing route from Wittenberg was to be connected, an intermediate stop in dog air was planned at that time .

It was not until the 1920s, very late for a main line, that the gap between the two lines was closed with the construction of the connection from Wiesenburg to Roßlau and the connection from Berlin to Dessau was significantly shortened. On April 1, 1921, the section from Jeber-Bergfrieden was opened to connect to the Roßlau – Falkenberg / Elster near Meinsdorf railway, followed by the section from Wiesenburg (Mark) station to Jeber-Bergfrieden on June 1, 1923 .

The new line quickly took over a large part of the traffic from the Berlin – Blankenheim railway line. In 1934 a Berlin – Wiesbaden express train and a Berlin – Frankfurt (Main) express train ran on the route. Most of the passenger trains also ran through to Berlin.

After the division of Germany, and even more so after the construction of the Wall , the route for direct long-distance traffic from the greater Halle / Leipzig area to Berlin was unattractive compared to the route via Wittenberg, as the eastern part of Berlin could only be reached by detours via the Berlin outer ring . However, it was important for freight traffic, as it was the shortest connection between the Central German industrial area and the important Seddin freight station (near Potsdam). In the 1970s and 1980s, a D-Zug Rostock – Potsdam – Karl-Marx-Stadt and several express trains Berlin – Belzig – Dessau – Aschersleben ran among other things. Also Transit trains from West Berlin to West Germany used the route. There were also various passenger trains , most of which continued to Drewitz station in Potsdam and connected to East Berlin in Bergholz .

After German reunification , the route gained in importance because it was the fastest connection from southern and western Germany to the western part of Berlin. Electrical operation began on May 31, 1992. A large number of express trains and, in the second half of the 1990s, the Interregio line Berlin-Frankfurt (Main) used the route. This changed little by little with the expansion of the Berlin – Halle line via Lutherstadt Wittenberg and the opening of the Berlin north-south long-distance line through the Tiergarten tunnel in 2006. Since then, almost all long-distance traffic has used the faster connection via Lutherstadt Wittenberg, the last Intercity train via Dessau was discontinued in 2007. The route is only used by long-distance trains in night train traffic. In regional transport, the RE 7 regional express line connects Berlin and Dessau every hour (every two hours on weekends).

Since 2009 there has been a comprehensive renovation including a fundamental renovation of the track and overhead line systems of the Roßlau / Dessau railway traffic junction. As part of this project, modernization work between Medewitz and Roßlau has also been taking place since mid-2012. The Jeber-Bergfrieden train station was converted into a halt. The security technology in this section of the route will then be renewed, for which an electronic signal box will be built in Medewitz . The Thießen stop was abandoned when the timetable changed in December 2012. In 2014 the Roßlau (Elbe) train station was completely rebuilt. A renovation of the train stations in Wiesenburg and Medewitz is also planned for the future.

Web links

Commons : Wiesenburg – Roßlau railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Wiesenburg – Jeber Bergfrieden on bahnstrecken.de
• Information and pictures about the reconstruction of the route on bastellen-doku.info

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hendschels Telegraph. Reichs-Kursbuch 1914 , reprinted by Ritzau Verlag Zeit und Eisenbahn , 2005, ISBN 3-921-30409-1 , route 400a, p. 106.
2. ↑ Second stage of the modernization of the Roßlau / Dessau railway junction begins. Deutsche Bahn AG, April 27, 2012, archived from the original on February 24, 2013 ; Retrieved December 3, 2012 .