Thuringian Forest Railway

Gotha Hbf – Tabarz
Historic Thuringian Forest Railway in Gotha
Route length:	21.7 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	600 volts  =
Top speed:	60 km / h
Dual track :	Hbf – Wagenhalle
Legend 0.0 Gotha main station with a turnout Gotha Bahnhofstrasse Gotha Orangery Gotha Huttenstrasse Lines 2 and 3 towards Gotha Ostbahnhof Gotha Gartenstrasse Gotha Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz Gotha Myconiusplatz Gotha March 18th Street Gotha Ernststrasse 3.7 Gotha Wagenhalle depot 4.1 Gotha Nice view Leina Canal 4.6 Gotha Inselsbergstrasse (formerly Am ha we ge-Markt) 5.0 Bebra hall 5.2 Sundhausen Gotha district hospital 6.4 Evasion 8.1 Boxberg Leina Canal 9.8 A 4 Leina 9.9 Leina 11.0 Evasion Bath water 12.3 Election angle 14.0 Fröttstädt – Georgenthal to Waltershausen train station 14.2 Waltershausen Gleisdreieck from Waltershausen train station 14.9 Waltershausen, Schnepfenthal Bath water 16.7 Reinhardsbrunner ponds 17.5 Reinhardsbrunn station 18.2 Friedrichroda (TWSB) 19.3 Marienglashöhle Bath water 20.5 "Russenbrücke" 21.7 Bad Tabarz with an escape route 22.0 Tabarz Bf coupling terminal (until December 20, 1966)
Waltershausen Gleisdreieck – Waltershausen Bf
Route length:	2.4 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	600 volts  =
Legend 0.0 Waltershausen Gleisdreieck with a turnout 0.4 Waltershausen Ohrdrufer Strasse 0.8 Waltershausen Goethestrasse 1.5 Waltershausen Albrechtstrasse Waltershausen Brühl Waltershausen Claustor Waltershausen Bahnhofstrasse 2.4 Waltershausen train station

The Thuringian Forest Railway is a meter gauge regional tram in Thuringia . It serves the northern edge of the Thuringian Forest from Gotha ; It is operated by the Thüringerwaldbahn und Straßenbahn Gotha GmbH (TWSB) . In a narrower sense, the term Thuringian Forest Railway stands for Line 4.

Route description

The journey with the Thuringian Forest Railway starts at Gotha station , which the tram company calls the main station , and leads to Bad Tabarz, 21.7 kilometers away at the foot of the Großer Inselsberg . The travel time over the entire route is just under an hour, with 22 stops being served. At the intermediate station at Waltershausen Gleisdreieck, a 2.4-kilometer branch line to Waltershausen train station begins , at which there are another four stations. The branch has been referred to as line 6 since August 30, 2007.

The line is double-tracked in the Gotha urban area up to the Wendeschleife Waltershäuser Straße at the level of the car hall, otherwise single-track. On the single-track section, there are alternative options at the stops Inselsbergstraße , Boxberg (there is also a turning loop), Reinhardsbrunn train station and Marienglashöhle as well as between the stops Leina and Wahlwinkel . The stops in the Waltershausen Gleisdreieck are also all double-tracked. There is also an opportunity to overtake in the Wendeschleife in Bad Tabarz.

history

In 1897 the state government of the Duchy of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha and the Gotha tram signed an agreement to build an overland railway . Three years later, Elektrizitäts-AG, formerly W. Lahmeyer & Co. (EAG) in Frankfurt am Main , which also operated the Gotha tram, received the license for this railway. A total of nine routes were planned, which were not initially implemented. On November 21, 1911, a contract was signed between the Duchy and the AEG for the construction of an overland power station and the Thuringian Forest Railway. In 1912, the Thuringian electricity supply company Gotha , or ThELG for short , a subsidiary of AEG, took over EAG. On June 4, 1914, work began. They were interrupted by World War I and inflation and only continued from June 28, 1928. On July 17, 1929, the inauguration day of the line, ten railcars , seven sidecars and one baggage car belonged to the vehicle fleet. A maximum speed of 50 km / h was set. The track was operated with 600  volts direct current.

In the 1930s the train was so popular that it made up to 22 trips a day. It was used briskly for both business and excursion traffic. The Second World War spared the railway for a long time. It was not until the air raids on February 6, 1945 that operations were stopped. After the motorway bridge over the Leina was blown up in April , it was divided into two sections. Operations on the two sections of the line could only be resumed in July 1946. It was not continuously passable until October 30, 1947, after the bridge over the motorway had been rebuilt.

In 1951 the Gotha tram became the VEB (K) Thüringerwaldbahn and Gotha tram. On October 1, 1958, the lines were numbered and the train was given the number 4. On May 15, 1964, the turning loop at the main station in Gotha was put into operation, one and a half years later, on December 20, 1966, the loop in Tabarz followed at the other end of the track. On November 1, 1971, the new route was inaugurated in downtown Waltershausen. Further construction via Fischbach to Winterstein was rejected.

Today's Thüringerwaldbahn und Straßenbahn Gotha GmbH (TWSB Gotha) was founded on January 15, 1991. On March 23, 2002 the branch to the hospital in Sundhausen was put into operation. Some trains of the Waldbahn also run on this new section of Line 1. On the occasion of special events such as swimming pool parties or Boxberg festivals (including Freakstock ), separate reinforcement trains and night services are set up. The pendulum line from Gleisdreieck to Waltershausen has had line number 6 since August 2007.

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  Route network and vehicles as a mural

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  Gothawagen near Waltershausen (1990)

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  Today's Tatra car in Tabarz (2007)

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  Alternative stop at Reinhardsbrunn train station

The Gotha industrial railway

The industrial railway Gotha was part of the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha. The industrial connecting railway extended left and right of the Gotha – Leinefelde railway line between Gotha Hauptbahnhof and Gotha Ost. The locomotives of the series V 10 , V 15 Kaluga TGK 2 and V 22B served the factories and businesses in Gotha Oststadt in the area of ​​Friemarer Straße, Oststraße and along Kindleber Straße. The transfer station to the Deutsche Reichsbahn was Gotha Ost station. After the closure of many factories and businesses or the decline in freight traffic from 1990 onwards at the former Deutsche Reichsbahn, the Gotha industrial line was discontinued.

Locomotives of the Gotha industrial railway

Some vehicles were delivered directly to VEB Thüringerwaldbahn, industrial railway Gotha, other vehicles were delivered to companies on the Gotha industrial railway network. However, the vehicles were used by the industrial railway, from which the respective staff came. The Thüringerwaldbahn und Straßenbahn Gotha GmbH had the last two locomotives scrapped in 1998 due to a lack of interested parties.

Locomotive number	Type	Manufacturer	Construction year	comment
??	V 10 B	LKM Babelsberg	1962/252307	1985 to agrochemical center Mühlhausen
3 I.	V 10 B	LKM Babelsberg	1962/252342	Delivery to VEB Chipplattenwerk Gotha, used by Industrial Railway Gotha
4th	V 18 B / V 22 B	LKM Babelsberg	1963/261266	1983 conversion to V22 B "1"; 1991 to the business assets of the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH; 1996 at Heyl-Mühlen Bad Langensalza; Scrapped in 2010
3	V 10 B	LKM Babelsberg	1965/252433	Delivery for Red Army camps in the Berlin area, later various industrial companies, then wholesale company Lebensmittel Gotha - deployed by Industriebahn Gotha, 1991 to Metallrohstoffe Wöhlsdorf, available there in 1992, whereabouts unknown.
5	V 22 B	LKM Babelsberg	1971/262284	later changed to locomotive 2; 1991 to the business assets of the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH; Scrapped in Gotha Ost in 1998
3 II	V 22 B	LKM Babelsberg	1975/262586	Delivery in 1975 to VEB Förderwagen und Beschlagteile Mühlhausen "2", 1985 to VEB Thüringerwaldbahn, industrial railway division; 1991 to the business assets of the Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH; Scrapped in Gotha Ost in 1998
1 I.	TGK 2-E 1	Kaluga	1979/043	Retired in 1989, replaced by 1 II; Also TGK 2-E 1
1 II	TGK 2-E 1	Kaluga	1989/175	Replacement for Kaluga 043; delivered to VEB Chipplattenwerk Gotha, used by Gothaer Industriebahn; Whereabouts unknown, possibly. scrapped

vehicles

→ Main article : Gotha tram

literature

• Bernd Blickensdorf: The Thuringian Forest Railway . Transpress Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-344-00310-0 .
• Bernd Blickensdorf u. a .: 75 years of the Thuringian Forest Railway, 110 years of the Gotha tram. Festschrift. Gotha 2004.

Web links

Commons : Thüringerwaldbahn  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha GmbH - official homepage
• Course book from 1944
• Thuringian Forest Railway and Tram Gotha - Private Homepage, u. a. with historical recordings

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information on the Gothaer Industriebahn (PDF; 1.4 MiB)