Zeitz – Altenburg railway line

Zeitz-Altenburg
Excerpt from the route map of Saxony in 1902
Route number :	6814; sä. ZA
Course book section (DB) :	553 (1993)
Route length:	25.13 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	CM4
Maximum slope :	13  ‰
Minimum radius :	300 m
Top speed:	50 km / h
Legend from Probstzella -0.135 Time 157 m to Weißenfels to Leipzig-Leutzsch White Elster flood bridge White magpie from Zeitz Gbf Connection Tröglitz Werkbf 3,680 Tröglitz (ex Techwitz) 158 m 4,411 4,400 Kilometer jump +0.011 km 6.447 Rehmsdorf 185 m 9,092 Wuitz - Mumsdorf 184 m Narrow-gauge railway to Gera-Pforten State border Saxony-Anhalt / Thuringia from Spora Phoenix railway connection 12,196 Meuselwitz 184 m to Markkleeberg-Gaschwitz to Ronneburg 14.8 Connection Kriebitzsch 14,860 Kriebitzsch coal farm 210 m 15.753 Kriebitzsch 200 m 16.106 16.100 Kilometer jump +0.006 km 18,529 Rositz 180 m 19.626 Rositz tar processing plant 180 m 21,082 Molbitz 170 m 21,307 21,300 Kilometer jump +0.007 km 22,350 Altenburg North 170 m 23.765 Altenburg- Rasephas 175 m from Leipzig Bayer Bf 25.220 Altenburg 180 m to Hof Hbf

The Zeitz – Altenburg railway is a branch line in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia , which was built in the 1870s by the private Altenburg-Zeitzer railway company . It runs from Zeitz via Meuselwitz to Altenburg .

history

The line was opened on June 19, 1872, the main purpose of which was to transport lignite from 18 pits in the Meuselwitz-Rositz area. The Royal Saxon State Railways ran the business. The rest of the freight traffic and passenger transport were of minor importance. After the Saxon state nationalized the Altenburg-Zeitzer Railway Company , the line became the property of the Royal Saxons on January 1, 1896. State railways, although the route was not in Saxony, but in the Prussian province of Saxony (Zeitz) and in Saxony-Altenburg .

Due to the steadily increasing freight traffic, the laying of a second track was planned in the 1930s, which could not be completed because of the war. After the end of the war in 1945, the Soviet occupying forces had the sections of the second track that had already been laid dismantled as a reparation payment and the material transported away.

On November 1, 1946, there was a serious railway accident at Tröglitz station . A train with resettlers , accidentally led onto a stump track , ran over the buffer stop and derailed . 30 people died and 23 others were injured.

Between 1920 and 1993, the Deutsche Reichsbahn owned and operated the line. As a result of German reunification , Deutsche Bahn AG became the owner. Because at the same time lignite mining was minimized as much as possible, the railway administration initially gave up continuous freight traffic in the 1990s. Passenger traffic between Zeitz and Meuselwitz has been idle since September 28, 2002, and between Meuselwitz and Altenburg since December 14 of the same year, operations were no longer economical: most recently the route had an average of 126 passengers a day. Five years later, on December 15, 2007, the Altenburg – Meuselwitz section was closed. What remained was the section from Zeitz to Kriebitzsch, which has been used intensively by the Contamex company since 2003 . From Kriebitzsch and including the Rositz and Altenburg Gbf stations, the route is leased to Waggonbau Altenburg GmbH for parking.

At the beginning of 2010, DB Netz put the Zeitz – Meuselwitz line and the Meuselwitz – Kriebitzsch railway station track to tender for takeover by other railway infrastructure companies (EIU). Since no interested party came forward, DB Netz submitted an application to the Federal Railway Authority at the beginning of 2011 , which was withdrawn shortly before the deadline. Another tender followed for the route to be taken over. A comparison of the two tenders shows that most of the investments mentioned in the first tender for 2010 and 2011 have now been removed. Again there was no buyer. The Federal Railway Authority approved the closure of the Tröglitz – Meuselwitz section on December 12, 2012. The coal traffic to the Mumsdorf power plant, which will be shut down in mid-2013, could continue until January 31, 2013. The actual cessation of operations took place on February 1, 2013. DB Netz leased the remaining Zeitz – Tröglitz section to the German Regional Railway (DRE) subsidiary Bayerische Regionalisenbahn (BRE), which took over operations on April 12, 2013. This initially ensured that the Zeitz chemical and industrial park could be operated.

Flood bridge near Tröglitz destroyed by the flood

A new problem arose from the floods in 2013 , which damaged two pillars of the flood bridge over the floodplain of the White Elster on June 5 , so that the Zeitz – Tröglitz stretch can no longer be used. In order to enable the freight traffic of the three companies in the chemical and industrial park Zeitz, the DRE took over the already disused section Tröglitz – Meuselwitz from DB Netz. Thus this section could be put back into operation as a station siding after a repair. On June 28, 2013, the first freight train after the flood reached the Zeitz chemical and industrial park from Altenburg.

In order to be able to repair the damaged flood bridge, the BRE submitted an application for funding from the flood 2013 construction aid program of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. As a result, in November 2014, the company received a notice of approval for a 100 percent grant, which was limited to the end of August 2017. However, the work could not be started immediately because the plan waiver procedure initiated in November 2017, which does not require a time-consuming plan approval procedure , had to be completed and the necessary consent of the landowners concerned for land use had to be given. After this process was completed, the tender for the renewal of the Elsterflutbrücke railway overpass was issued in mid-December 2018. This essentially provides for the first two of a total of eight piers to be rebuilt and the third pillar to be encircled. The steel superstructures between these will be replaced. Completion is scheduled for May 2020.

Route description

course

The line branches off to the northeast at the end of the Zeitz passenger station at the level of the former railway depot and after about two kilometers leads over the flood bridge and the subsequent steel lattice bridge over the White Elster. At the entrance to the station in Tröglitz , the track of the disused freight train line from the Zeitz freight station joins the Zangenberg junction from the north-west, only to lead back to the Tröglitz works station immediately afterwards. From here the route to Altenburg is still in operation. Between Rehmsdorf and Meuselwitz, the forest area around the flooded open pit Zipsendorf is crossed, followed by the state border with Thuringia. On the outskirts of Meuselwitz, the federal road 180 is crossed and then the former siding to the disused Mumsdorf power station branches off to the northwest. At Meuselwitz station, the line meets the site of the Meuselwitz – Haselbach – Regis-Breitingen coal railway, which is operated by a museum . From there it continues east and connects the villages of Kriebitzsch , Rositz and Molbitz with the Altenburg terminus. The extensive track systems of the former Altenburg-Nord freight yard and the Rositz station are almost entirely used for wagon parking.

Operating points

Zeitz ⊙

Zeitz station, reception building

→ Main article : Zeitz train station

The station Zeitz was on 9 February 1859 Zeitz Pbf together with the Weißenfels-Zeitz railway opened. At the same time, the Zeitz – Gera section of the Leipzig – Probstzella line went into operation. With the opening of the northern section of the Leipzig – Probstzella railway line, Zeitz received a railway connection to Leipzig on October 20, 1873.

On June 19, 1872 Zeitz received Sächs with the Zeitz station . Star one more station. It was the starting point of the Zeitz – Altenburg railway and was operated by the Royal Saxon State Railways. On May 31, 1913, this station was closed. One day later, on June 1, 1913, the Zeitz Gbf freight station north of the passenger station was opened under Prussian administration. On December 1, 1913, the Tröglitz – Zeitz line was opened as a connecting line for goods traffic in the direction of Altenburg. It was in operation until September 30, 2009.

The Zeitz – Camburg railway line, opened in 1897, ended in the separate "Camburg station" until 1914 due to the high utilization of the tracks in Zeitz station. This station, also known as the Thuringian train station, was located next to today's reception building. After its completion in 1912, the old station was demolished. In April 1914, the railway facilities in Zeitz were completely redesigned. A common train station was set up.

Passenger traffic on the railway to Camburg was discontinued in 1999. In 2000 the railway line was shut down. Passenger traffic on the Zeitz – Meuselwitz section of the railway line to Altenburg was discontinued on September 28, 2002; the railway line to Tröglitz has been a siding for the Zeitz chemical and industrial park since December 12, 2012.

The listed reception building has belonged to the city of Zeitz since the beginning of January 2016.

Tröglitz ⊙

Tröglitz station with the Zangenberg junction and to the Tröglitz works station

The Tröglitz station was opened on October 1, 1895 as a Techwitz stop and dedicated to the station in 1913. On July 1, 1943, the name was changed to Tröglitz . The station building was built in 1938/39 instead of a previous building. The signal boxes were used between 1940 and 2013. In the station, the track branched off via Tröglitz Werkbf to the Mumsdorf coal-fired power station. The station was also the starting point for the Tröglitz – Zeitz railway between 1913 and 2009 . On September 29, 2002, the station was taken out of service.

Rehmsdorf ⊙

Rehmsdorf station, reception building (2019)

The Rehmsdorf station was opened on 19 June 1872 as stop. In 1905 it was upgraded to a station. The station building has been preserved to this day, as have the signal boxes that were in operation between 1941 and 1996. On September 29, 2002, the station was taken out of service.

Wuitz-Mumsdorf ⊙

The Wuitz-Mumsdorf station was put into operation on July 15, 1872 shortly after the opening of the Zeitz – Altenburg railway line as a stopping point. With the commissioning of the narrow-gauge Gera-Pforten – Wuitz-Mumsdorf railway line , the now gauge changing station was dedicated to the stop in 1901 and the station in 1905. The station building was built in 1901. In 1925 the station received a signal box. The station was between Mumsdorf, which belongs to Sachsen-Altenburg and Thuringia , in the north and the Prussian Wuitz in the south. Only the Wuitz-Mumsdorf station in the Wuitz corridor survived the demolition of the village of Wuitz between 1954 and 1956 caused by the lignite mining of the Zipsendorf-Süd opencast mine . With the closure of the narrow-gauge railway line to Gera-Pforten, the station was downgraded to a stopping point in 1969. On September 29, 2002, the station was taken out of service. All high-rise buildings, such as the massive waiting hall, were demolished.

Meuselwitz ⊙

Meuselwitz train station

→ Main article : Meuselwitz train station

Meuselwitz station was opened on June 19, 1872 together with the Zeitz – Altenburg line. On September 7, 1874 the railway line to Leipzig (Meuselwitz – Gaschwitz) and on October 17, 1887 the Meuselwitz – Ronneburg railway line was opened. Since June 1942, the Meuselwitz – Haselbach – Regis-Breitingen coal railway ran through the northern Meuselwitz-Altenburg lignite district . Meuselwitz station had the following names:

• until 1929: Meuselwitz
• until 1953: Meuselwitz (Thür)
• since 1953: Meuselwitz

Due to the lignite mining, the Meuselwitz – Großröda section of the Meuselwitz – Ronneburg railway was closed in 1965. When the Zwenkau and Groitzscher Dreieck opencast mines opened up, the railway line to Leipzig was interrupted and removed between Lucka and Groitzsch in the 1970s. After that, the line to Lucka was used for freight traffic until May 23, 1993.

At the beginning of 2004 the passenger traffic between Altenburg and Zeitz was stopped. On the Zeitz ( Profen ) –Meuselwitz section, coal trains ran until 2013 to supply the power station in Mumsdorf and a few trains to the Kriebitzsch gravel recycling plant.

The Meuselwitz – Haselbach – Regis-Breitingen coal line is the last railway line in Meuselwitz where rail traffic takes place. It is used in museum operations. Meuselwitz station was expanded to become a cultural station. The stately reception building and a locomotive shed used by the coal railway have been preserved to this day. The part of the yard where the trains on the Gaschwitz – Meuselwitz railway stopped via Groitzsch was re-gauged to a gauge of 900 mm by the coal railway in 2009.

Kriebitzsch Kohlenbf ⊙

Kriebitzsch Kohlenbf was put into operation on October 15, 1880 as a loading point. With the opening of the Kriebitzsch stop on September 10, 1881, the loading point was named Kriebitzsch coal station . In 1905 it was upgraded to a freight yard. In 1911 the name of the station was changed to the name Kriebitzsch Kohlenbf, which was valid until the end . The date of the closure of the freight yard is not known.

Kriebitzsch ⊙

Kriebitzsch stop (2019)

The Kriebitzsch stop was put into operation on September 10, 1881. The station building was built in 1912. On December 14, 2002, the station was shut down. The buildings were demolished after 2004.

Rositz ⊙

Rositz station (2019)

The Rositz station was opened on June 19, 1872. Between 1922 and 1953 it was called Rositz (Thür) . In addition to the station building, the station had a rail overpass, residential buildings for railway employees, two signal boxes and a siding to the Zechau briquette works. After the reception building was damaged by arson in 2000, the building was demolished in 2002. On December 14, 2002, the Rositz station was closed.

Rositz tar processing plant ⊙

The Rositz tar processing plant stop was located north of the lignite refining plant of the Deutsche Erdoel-Actiengesellschaft (DEA) in Rositz, which was founded in 1917 . The opening date of the station is unknown. There were no buildings on the platform. The breakpoint went out of service on December 14, 2002.

Molbitz ⊙

Molbitz stop, waiting hall

The Molbitz stop was opened on October 1, 1899 under the name Obermolbitz . In 1952 it was renamed Molbitz . The station was south of the Molbitz locality and only had a massive waiting hall. On December 14, 2002, the station went out of service.

Altenburg North ⊙

Altenburg Nord stop, signal box and reception building

The Altenburg Nord stop was opened on October 1, 1899 under the name Zschernitzsch . In 1938 it was renamed Altenburg (Thür) Nord and in 1953 Altenburg Nord . In terms of high-rise buildings at the station, there was the reception building built in 1899, residential buildings for railway employees and a signal box, all of which are still available at the location on "Oberzetschaer Straße" in the Altenburg district of Zschernitzsch. On December 14, 2002, the station went out of service.

Altenburg-Rasephas ⊙

The Altenburg-Rasephas stop was opened on July 22, 1940 under the name Hasagwerke (Altenburg) . Later he was called Altenburg-Hasag and since July 1, 1954 the name Altenburg-Rasephas . The station was in the curved track just behind the separation of the railway lines to Zeitz and Leipzig. As the “Altenburg marshalling yard”, it had an extensive track system and a turntable. The station building has been preserved to the present day. On May 30, 1999, the station went out of service.

Altenburg ⊙

Altenburg station

→ Main article : Altenburg train station

Initially, Altenburg was a terminus on the Leipzig – Hof railway line , as it was not possible to continue directly to the south with the technical means available at the time. Instead, the city was originally bypassed to the east in the further course. The Altenburgers had pushed through the junction as close to the city as possible, as later with a direct connecting curve some trains would no longer have stopped in Altenburg. Since the terminus on today's Fabrikstrasse became more and more an obstacle to operations, a change was planned since 1871. Instead of a connecting curve that was initially planned, Altenburg received a new train station, and the ridge to the south of it was crossed with a tunnel. The new station was completed in 1878 after two years of construction. Altenburg station had the following names:

• until 1936: Altenburg
• until 1942: Altenburg (Thür)
• until 1953: Altenburg (Thür) Hbf
• since 1953: Altenburg

The railway lines to Zeitz and Langenleuba-Oberhain , which were closed in 2002 and 1999 respectively , branched off at Altenburg station from 1872 and 1901 respectively.

Vehicle use

The line was used for a long time for the 771/772 series . For the trunk operation between Meuselwitz and Altenburg in the second half of 2002 Desiros were still used, some of which were tied through to Gera via Altenburg.

Until the coal transport to the Mumsdorf coal-fired power plant was discontinued at the end of January 2013, shuttle trains ran from Profen to Meuselwitz two to three times a day . These trains were hauled by class 232 and multiple traction by pushing them up until June 2008 , after which Class 66 from R4C or Vossloh G 2000 BB were used. Since the freight railway via the Zeitz freight yard and the Zangenberg junction is no longer in operation, the coal trains had to be led to the passenger station and partly further to Haynsburg for the necessary change of direction . In Meuselwitz there was another change of direction via the siding to the Phönix power plant. Internal works traffic was handled by remotorized V 100s from MIBRAG . In addition to the coal trains, there was a pair of freight trains running twice a week between Zeitz Gbf and Meuselwitz, hauled by the class 261 or 294 . Until the flood damage to the bridge over the White Elster, a train with chemical products ran from the west via Zeitz Gbf to the Tröglitz chemical and industrial park on weekdays, except Saturdays. Since the end of June, it has been operated by various private railways via Altenburg from the east.

Web links

Commons : Zeitz – Altenburg railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Surrender of railway infrastructure. Line: Zeitz - Meuselwitz and Meuselwitz station track - Anst Kriebitzsch. Call for applications from January 19, 2010 to April 19, 2010. (PDF) (No longer available online.) DB Netze, January 19, 2010, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 15, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
2. ^ Martin Weltner: Railway disasters. Serious train accidents and their causes. Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-7654-7096-7 , p. 15.
3. ↑ Signal to stop for railway line Altenburg-Zeitz. In: Digital South Space Archive. Heimatverein des Bornaer Land e. V., accessed on July 29, 2012 (original text from "Osterländer Volkszeitung" (OVZ) of July 24, 2002). 
4. ↑ Contamex's Kriebitzsch location , accessed on June 6, 2018.
5. ↑ Der Modelleisenbahner , issue 4/2013 p. 7.
6. ↑ DB Netz AG withdraws application for decommissioning. (No longer available online.) Federal Railway Office, March 25, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 28, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
7. ↑ Surrender of railway infrastructure. Line: Zeitz - Meuselwitz and Meuselwitz station track - Anst Kriebitzsch. Call for applications from April 14, 2011 to July 14, 2011. (PDF) (No longer available online.) DB Netze, April 14, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 15, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
8. ↑ Rail section Tröglitz - Meuselwitz. Approval according to § 11 Paragraph 2 General Railway Act (AEG). (PDF; 164 kB) (No longer available online.) Federal Railway Authority, December 12, 2012, archived from the original on November 4, 2016 ; Retrieved March 9, 2013 . 
9. ↑ Information on DRE routes, see: Route 6814 Zeitz - Tröglitz. (No longer available online.) German Regional Railway, February 7, 2013, archived from the original on September 21, 2014 ; Retrieved March 9, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ Regionalbahn takes over the route. The Zeitz-Tröglitz section has a new operator. (No longer available online.) Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, April 15, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 19, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
11. ↑ ^{a b} Torsten Gerbank: The industrial park has a siding again. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, July 2, 2013, accessed on July 22, 2013 . 
12. ↑ Claudia Petasch: Country promotes construction of flood bridge. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, July 28, 2015, accessed on August 14, 2015 . 
13. ↑ Construction work on the repair of the Elsterflutgrabenbrücke near Tröglitz initiated. Burgenlandkreis , November 17, 2017, accessed on January 6, 2019 . 
14. ↑ Torsten Gerbank: Trouble in Alttröglitz, the bridge is still scrap even four years after the flood. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , October 16, 2017, accessed on October 29, 2017 . 
15. ^ Renewal of the railway overpass (EÜ) Elsterflutbrücke. (No longer available online.) Procurement Office of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, December 17, 2018, formerly in the original ; accessed on January 6, 2019 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  
16. ↑ ^{a b} Burkhard Thiel: Zeitz train station. Retrieved January 17, 2016 . 
17. ^ Zeitz Sächs. Star on www.sachsenschiene.net
18. ^ The Zeitz freight yard at www.sachsenschiene.net
19. ↑ Views from Zeitz train station. August 6, 2013, accessed January 17, 2016 . 
20. ^ The city of Zeitz buys the train station. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 19, 2016 ; Retrieved January 19, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
21. ^ The Tröglitz train station on www.sachsenschiene.net
22. ^ The Rehmsdorf train station on www.sachsenschiene.net
23. ^ Place Wuitz and train station Wuitz-Mumsdorf on a measuring table sheet from the 1920s
24. ↑ The Wuitz-Mumsdorf stop on www.sachsenschiene.net
25. ↑ The Mumsdorf power plant at www.ostkohle.de
26. ↑ The Kulturbahnhof Meuselwitz on the Altenburg tourism site ( Memento of the original from September 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
27. ^ The Meuselwitz train station on www.sachsenschiene.net
28. ↑ www.ferkeltaxe.de
29. ↑ The Kriebitzsch stop on www.sachsenschiene.net
30. ^ The Rositz train station on www.sachsenschiene.net
31. ^ The Altenburg-Rasephas stop on www.sachsenschiene.net
32. ^ Manfred Berger: Historic train station buildings I - Saxony, Prussia, Mecklenburg and Thuringia. 2nd, revised edition. transpress Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-344-00066-7 , p. 62.
33. ↑ ^{a b} The coal railway (»Kammerforstbahn«) Meuselwitz – Haselbach – Regis-Breitingen. In: Lokrundschau 238. June 18, 2008, accessed on July 29, 2012 . 
34. ↑ Heinz-Ulrich Löwe: Coal pendulum from the Profen opencast mine to the Mumsdorf power station. In: Bahnbilder Niederwiesa. Retrieved July 29, 2012 . 
35. ↑ Freight train times of KBS 553 Zeitz - Altenburg. In: Freight train course book. Retrieved July 29, 2012 .