Eisenach – Lichtenfels railway line
| Eisenach-Lichtenfels | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Route number (DB) : | 6311 |
| Course book section (DB) : | 575 (Eisenach - Meiningen) 569 (Meiningen - Eisfeld) 820 (Sonneberg - Lichtenfels) |
| Route length: | 151 km |
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) |
| Route class : |
Eisenach – Grimmenthal: CM4, Grimmenthal – Eisfeld: CE, Coburg – Lichtenfels: D4 |
| Power system : |
Coburg – Lichtenfels: 15 kV 16.7 Hz ~ |
| Top speed: | 100 km / h |
| Dual track : | Coburg Gbf - Creidlitz formerly: Eisenach - Bad Salzungen Schwallungen - Wasungen Meiningen - Grimmenthal Coburg - Coburg Gbf |
The Eisenach – Lichtenfels railway is a single-track main line in Thuringia and Bavaria , which was originally built and operated by the Werra Railway Company . It leads from Eisenach along the Werra via Meiningen to Eisfeld and earlier on via Coburg to Lichtenfels . Because of the course and the edifying society, it also bears the name Werrabahn .
history
In 1841 the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and the Duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as well as Saxe-Meiningen signed a state treaty to build a railway line from Eisenach to Coburg. In 1845 an agreement was reached with the Kingdom of Bavaria to connect the Werra Railway to the Ludwig-Süd-Nord-Bahn in Lichtenfels , and finally in 1855 the newly founded Werra Railway Company was granted the concession to build and operate the line.
The groundbreaking ceremony followed on February 18, 1856 in Grimmelshausen near Themar . On November 1, 1858, the entire 130.1 km stretch between Eisenach and Coburg was inaugurated. 17 station buildings, 10 locomotive sheds, a workshop, 22 residential buildings for railway officials, 128 stationkeepers' houses, 179 crossings, 63 underpasses and overpasses, 31 bridges and a tunnel near Förtha were built. Up to 8,470 workers (June 1858) were busy building the railway.
Regular train service began on November 2, 1858 with 24 locomotives and 367 wagons. The remainder of the 30 km stretch to Lichtenfels was put into operation in January 1859. All engineering structures were designed for double-track operation from the outset. The double-track expansion was only possible in 1910 on the route through the Thuringian Forest from Eisenach to Bad Salzungen (26.7 km), as well as between Schwallungen and Wasungen (3.5 km), Meiningen and Grimmenthal (7.1 km) and Coburg and Creidlitz (4.6 km).
The railway repair workshop for the Werra Railway, which still exists today as the Meiningen railway depot, was created out of the workshop . On October 1st, 1895, all lines of the Werra Railway Company became state property of Prussia for 25 million marks . Until 1945 the Werrabahn belonged to the Reichsbahndirektion Erfurt , which set up an operations, traffic and machine inspection in Meiningen. In passenger and freight traffic, the branch line was of great importance, especially for Franconia, including the part of what is known as southern Thuringia , which is now in the Free State of Thuringia . In the timetable of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft the route had the number 165.
On April 8, 1945, after bridges were blown up in Eisfeld, rail operations were stopped. Due to the demarcation of the boundary between Eisfeld and the Görsdorf train station, which is already in Bavaria, operations were no longer started. The route was closed due to a dilapidated underpass for the section between Görsdorf and Tiefenlauter on August 30, 1949. Passenger traffic was carried out for the Lautertal with a bus line to Rottenbach. Freight traffic to Tiefenlauter was maintained until July 1, 1976, and the tracks were dismantled until April 6, 1977. The plots were sold before 1989 and built on in sections in Lautertal and Dörfles-Esbach , which is why it is not possible to restore the route on the previous route. (With the sale of the land, the technical planning reservation was also given up.)
On October 5, 1950, electric train operations began on the Coburg – Lichtenfels section. It was one of the first electrification projects after the war. It was intended to demonstrate the solidarity between the Free State of Bavaria and the Coburg Land , which was united with it in 1920 . In 1975 the electrification was extended to Neustadt bei Coburg , and since 1991 the trains have been running with electric locomotives to Sonneberg (see Coburg – Ernstthal am Rennsteig ).
Three arches of the bridge over the Main near Schney were blown up on April 10, 1945. By October 1945, a provisional repair was carried out with a makeshift superstructure that trains could only pass at 20 km / h. It was not until the beginning of 1969 that the construction was replaced by a 130 meter long new building.
The Neustadt – Coburg – Lichtenfels route had the route number 419b in the Deutsche Bundesbahn's timetable until 1970, then the 830 until December and since then the 820, while the Eisenach – Meiningen – Eisfeld route was number 190 on the Deutsche Reichsbahn . In 1968 the route number was changed to 630, from 1990 it was only valid between Eisenach and Meiningen, for the section from Meiningen via Eisfeld to Sonneberg the 633. In today's timetable of Deutsche Bahn AG , the Eisenach – Meiningen route has the number 575 and the route Meiningen – Eisfeld – Sonneberg the number 569. The route numbers are 6311 and 5120 in Bavaria.
The line in the Coburg area was closed from January 9th to 29th, 2017 in order to establish the connection to the new line. A second track and a switch will be built between the Creidlitz level crossing and the new Sandweg overpass at 800 meters. Finally, the Creidlitz electronic signal box is to be put into operation. For a partial renewal of the route as part of the connection to the VDE 8 project, the route was completely closed from June 3 to 18, 2017 in the Coburg area.
At Creidlitz station, an underpass is to be built in place of a level crossing for ten million euros in order to avoid long barrier closing times (as a result of old security technology). A plan approval procedure is to be initiated for this. The plan approval documents are to be submitted at the end of March 2017. A lawsuit is pending against the development plan within the framework of which the underpass is to be built.
A double-track expansion is being considered for the current single-track area south of the Coburg passenger station.
business
In 1858 the passenger trains needed about four hours for the 130 km between Eisenach and Coburg, in 1934 the express train from Eger via Bayreuth and Lichtenfels to Eisenach took two hours and ten minutes. In 1939 an express train , two express trains and five passenger trains ran the route on weekdays .
In the years after the Second World War, with the exception of the Meiningen – Grimmenthal section and the Bad Liebenstein - Leipzig express train, no high-quality passenger traffic remained on the Werrabahn, apart from the section between Eisenach and Förtha, which from 1963 together with the Förtha – Gerstungen line was cross-border Trains in the direction of Bebra were used. On the short section between Meiningen and Grimmenthal, several express trains drove daily with the destinations Erfurt , Berlin , Leipzig, Halle (Saale) , Dresden , Görlitz and Stralsund , which changed from the Werrabahn to the railway line to Erfurt after Grimmenthal. Since 1976, this has also included the well-known “Rennsteig” Meiningen – Berlin city express . In the last years of the GDR there was a daily express train from Bad Salzungen via Eisenach to Zwickau . On the other part of the Werra Railway, the construction workers' express train usually drove shortly after 0:00 on Mondays from Bad Salzungen via Meiningen and Erfurt to Berlin.
Today the Süd-Thüringen-Bahn GmbH runs every hour with multiple units from Eisenach to Eisfeld in two hours, in 1990 this took at least two hours and 45 minutes, whereas in 1934 it only took one hour and 50 minutes, with a distance of 108 km. Between Lichtenfels and Coburg, on to Sonneberg , trains of the "Franken-Thüringen-Express" run by Deutsche Bahn run every two hours . Furthermore, trains of the Agilis transport company run between Lichtenfels and Coburg every hour . Regional trains run from Meiningen to Grimmenthal (also as express connection STx such as the RE44 operated by DB Regio until December 2017) of the Süd-Thüringen-Bahn, which runs from Grimmenthal on the Neudietendorf – Ritschenhausen line towards Erfurt. There are also transfer options in the Meiningen and Grimmenthal stations in the direction of Schweinfurt .
It should also be mentioned that around the turn of the millennium, the Interregio "Rennsteig" (IR 2000) was diverted as planned via the Werra Railway between Eisenach and Meiningen due to construction work.
Connection to the new line and closing the gap
In the early planning of the Ebensfeld – Erfurt high-speed line , a connection between the Werra Railway and the new line between Grümpen and Rauenstein was considered. The expense of at least 150 million euros was classified as too high, so the plans were not pursued any further. According to the planning approval decision of 1995 for the new Ebensfeld – Erfurt line, a connection option for the Werrabahn is considered in the planning and can be implemented at any time after the new line has been completed. However, this was rejected by the municipality of Grümpen in 1993.
To close the gap between Eisfeld and Coburg, Upper Franconian politicians felt encouraged by the Pro Bahn initiative to commission a feasibility study for around 50,000 euros in autumn 2008. The then railway boss Mehdorn was also positive about the idea of such a gap closure, but referred to the responsibility of the federal states. The route of the route dismantled in 1977 is built over in Dörfles-Esbach . According to Pro Bahn Coburg / South Thuringia, this area can be bypassed relatively easily with the help of the new connecting curve for looping the ICE to Coburg. In Lautertal , the route is built over in two places with a total of five houses. These houses could be bypassed by slightly pivoting the route to the east. While experts on the Thuringian side still assumed at the end of 2008 that around 60 million euros would be sufficient to reactivate the 17 km long section, an expert report at the beginning of 2009 put the costs at 103.4 million euros. However, the Free State of Bavaria regards these costs as too low, mainly because of the lack of electrification. Together with the forecasted demand potential that was too low, which does not reach the threshold of 1000 travelers per day, this led in May 2009 to a negative attitude in the two countries concerned with regard to the reactivation of routes. In the coalition agreement concluded between the CDU and the SPD after the Thuringian state elections in 2009, the two parties agreed to work with the Bavarian state government to encourage the federal government to close the gap between Eisfeld and Coburg, provided that an expert opinion confirms demand and economic viability.
In March 2012, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Coburg and Suhl commissioned a study to examine the economic viability of a new connection between the ice field and the future Coburg ICE stop. The study published in October 2012 shows that closing the gap is worthwhile and that this route should be included in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 as soon as possible . The Thuringian state government followed this request and announced the gap between the Werra Railway and the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030. The Prime Ministers of Bavaria and Thuringia, Horst Seehofer and Bodo Ramelow , are in favor of reactivation. Closing the railway gap between Hildburghausen and Bad Rodach is being discussed as an alternative to reactivating the Eisfeld - Coburg line.
The third expert draft of the Deutschland-Takt , submitted in June 2020, contains a reactivation subject to "the reactivation criteria customary in Bavaria". Two-hour traffic with ten-minute transitions in Coburg to regional traffic to Nuremberg is planned.
Structural features
The exit in Eisenach is followed by a ramp that is up to 1:50, in sections even 22.5 per thousand, into the Thuringian Forest, which ends with the 549 m long Förtha tunnel (formerly known as the Epichnellen tunnel) after a height difference of around 100 m. The route then slowly falls into the Werra Valley and follows the Werra from Bad Salzungen to Eisfeld.
Behind ice field, at an altitude of 437 m above sea level. NN , the route crosses the Long Mountains before Coburg is reached at an altitude of 295 m, this section with a length of 22 km is no longer in operation due to the division of Germany .
Between Oberrohn and Bad Salzungen at kilometer 21.8 there is a so-called “mud hole”. The railway line, like the neighboring district road K 98 , crosses a swampy subsidence area. This has been problematic for several decades due to subsurface subsidence. 2006–2013 there was an approximately 200-meter-long speed limit stop with a top speed of initially 30 and later 20 km / h. From September 2nd to Christmas 2013, the line was extensively and fundamentally renovated, with a replacement rail service being set up. After the renovation, the driving speed was increased from 50 to 70 km / h.
In the summer of 2014, a new speed limit at 30 km / h was set up due to renewed bagging, which was reduced to 10 km / h from November 28th. The route was completely closed for a subsoil investigation from January 5, 2015 for the period up to February 8. In April 2015, the condition of the line in the subsidence area (kilometers 21.1 to 21.9) deteriorated so much that the affected section had to be closed again on April 17, 2015. The substructure of the tracks sinks at a speed of one millimeter per day. The aim of the following work is to restore the drivability for at least 10 km / h from May 10, 2015. The closure was initially extended to May 31, then to June 7, 2015. From November 16 to December 6, 2015, the route was closed again due to construction work at the subsidence point, and also on October 14, 2017.
literature
- Wolfgang Bleiweis, Stefan Goldschmidt and Bernd Schmitt: Railway in the Coburg region . Verlag Eisenbahnfreunde Steinachtalbahn-Coburg, Coburg 1996, ISBN 3-9802748-4-5 .
- Steffen Dietsch, Stefan Goldschmidt, Hans Löhner: The Werra Railway . Verlag Eisenbahnfreunde Steinachtalbahn-Coburg, Coburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-9810681-3-9 .
- Hans-Joachim Fricke, Hans-Joachim Ritzau: The inner-German border and rail traffic . Pürgen 2004, ISBN 3-921304-45-8 .
- Georg Thielmann: The Werra Railway . Wachsenburg-Verlag, Arnstadt 2002, ISBN 3-935795-01-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Railway Atlas Germany 2007/2008 . 6th edition. Schweers + Wall, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9 .
- ^ German Bundestag (ed.): Written questions with the answers received from the federal government in the week of May 21, 2012 . tape 17 , no. 09796 , May 25, 2012, ISSN 0722-8333 , p. 42 ( BT-Drs. 17/09796 ).
- ↑ Construction work to connect the main line Nuremberg-Berlin (VDE8) with Coburg. In: deutschebahn.com. Deutsche Bahn, January 20, 2017, accessed on January 21, 2017 .
- ^ Renewal of the superstructure for the access route to Coburg from the Nuremberg-Berlin project (VDE8). In: deutschebahn.com. Deutsche Bahn, May 30, 2017, accessed May 30, 2017 .
- ↑ Simone Bastian: “An abundance of mistakes” . In: Coburger Tageblatt . January 28, 2016, p. 9 .
- ↑ Simone Bastian: The gatekeeper stays . In: Coburger Tageblatt . January 20, 2017, p. 9 .
- ↑ Stefanie Karl: Interior Minister criticizes rail . In: New Press . tape 72 , no. 121 , May 29, 2017, p. 17 ( online ).
- ↑ a b c For now, no connection on this rail . In: Free Word , October 4, 2008
- ↑ New hope for closing the gap between the Werra Railway and Coburg . In: Free Word , local edition Schmalkalden, July 18, 2008
- ↑ The Werra-Bahn makes sense ( page no longer available , search in web archives ). In: Free Word , Sonneberg local edition, July 19, 2008
- ↑ Per lane: Map with a new connection curve
- ↑ ICE from Thuringia to Coburg costs 100 million ( page no longer available , search in web archives ). In: Nürnberger Nachrichten (online edition), April 2, 2009
- ↑ See "Bavaria / Thuringia: No reactivation of the Werra Railway". (No longer available online.) In: Eurailpress.de. May 22, 2009, formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 23, 2009 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Coalition Agreement Thuringia 2009 ( Memento from September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 352 kB) Coalition Agreement between CDU and SPD Strong Thuringia - innovative, sustainable, social and cosmopolitan , p. 54
- ↑ Free word - land is now for the Werra Railway (October 29, 2009)
- ↑ Jolf Schneider: New lining for closing the gap. www.insuedthueringen.de, March 16, 2012
- ↑ Free Word / Südthüringer Zeitung: Study: Closing the gap in the Werra Railway is worthwhile on the website www.insuedthueringen.de from October 31, 2012
- ↑ Thuringia: Five rail projects registered for the 2015 Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan (eurailpress.de)
- ↑ Wolfgang Braunschmidt: Regiomed should not be damaged . In: New Press . October 19, 2016, p. 9 (similar article online ).
- ↑ Free word: New attempt to close the Werrabahn gap on the website www.insuedthueringen.de from November 6, 2017
- ↑ Destination timetable Germany-Takt. (PDF) Third expert draft Bavaria. SMA und Partner AG, June 30, 2020, accessed on July 22, 2020 .
- ↑ Shuttle News 1/2013 "of the Erfurt Railway, p. 7 ; [1]
- ↑ STB 41 Eisenach - Meiningen (- Sonneberg). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 29, 2015 ; accessed on December 22, 2014 .
- ↑ The floor on the tracks sinks by one millimeter every day ( Memento from May 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The Oberrohn – Bad Salzungen section must be closed for a short time from April 17th due to investigations into damage in the Oberrohn subsidence area ( Memento from May 29th, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Closure of the Bad Salzungen - Oberrohn section. (No longer available online.) Süd-Thüringen-Bahn, archived from the original on May 29, 2015 ; accessed on May 29, 2015 .
