Coburg–Sonneberg railway

Coburg–Sonneberg
Overview
Locale	Bavaria, Germany
Line number	5121
Technical
Line length	19.5 km (12.1 mi)
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	15 kV/16.7 Hz AC overhead catenary
Route number	820
Route map
	Legend
	Source: German railway atlas [1]

Last updated March 20, 2019

The Coburg–Sonneberg railway is a single-track, electrified, 20 kilometre-long main line railway from Coburg in the German state of Bavaria via Neustadt to Sonneberg in Thuringia. It was opened in 1858 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.

Coburg is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was one of the capitals of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Through successful dynastic policies, the ruling princely family married into several of the royal families of Europe, most notably in the person of Prince Albert, who married Queen Victoria in 1840. As a result of these close links with the royal houses of Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Coburg was frequently visited by the crowned heads of Europe and their families.

Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a landlocked federal state of Germany, occupying its southeastern corner. With an area of 70,550.19 square kilometres, Bavaria is the largest German state by land area comprising roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany. With 13 million inhabitants, it is Germany's second-most-populous state after North Rhine-Westphalia. Bavaria's main cities are Munich and Nuremberg.

Neustadt bei Coburg Place in Bavaria, Germany

Neustadt bei Coburg is a town in the district of Coburg in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 15 km northeast of Coburg, as its name indicates.

History

In 1841 the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and the duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Saxe-Meiningen signed a treaty to establish a railway from Eisenach to Coburg. This also covered the construction of a line from Coburg to Sonneberg, connecting Sonneberg with the city of Meiningen and south to Bavaria.

Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was created as a duchy in 1809 by the merger of the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, which had been in personal union since 1741. It was raised to a Grand duchy in 1815 by resolution of the Vienna Congress. In 1903, it officially changed its name to the Grand Duchy of Saxony, but this name was rarely used. The Grand Duchy came to an end in the German Revolution of 1918–19 with the other monarchies of the German Empire. It was succeeded by the Free State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, which was merged into the new state of Thuringia two years later.

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was an Ernestine duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-day states of Bavaria and Thuringia in Germany. It lasted from 1826 to 1918. In November 1918, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was forced to abdicate. Saxe (Gotha) was subsequently merged into Thuringia whereas Coburg merged into Bavaria.

Saxe-Meiningen was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin dynasty, located in the southwest of the present-day German state of Thuringia.

in 1855 the newly formed Werra Railway Company (Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) received a concession to build and operate the line and on 1 November 1858 the Werra Railway was opened. 28 years later, on 1 October 1886, a 19.2 km long extension was opened from Sonneberg to Lauscha.

Lauscha is a town in the district of Sonneberg, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 13 km north of Sonneberg, and 24 km southwest of Saalfeld. Lauscha is known for its glassblowing, especially for Christmas tree decorations like baubles.

On 1 October 1895, the Werra-Railway Company, including this line, was acquired by the Prussian government and it was administered by the railway administration of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Erfurt until 1945. The timetable of the German State Railway (Deutsche Reichsbahn) in 1939 included 14 daily passenger trains and an express train in each direction with a running time on the line of 20 minutes for the expresses.

Prussia was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525 with a duchy centred on the region of Prussia on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.

In Germany and Austria, the running of railway services for a railway administration or the regional network of a large railway company was devolved to railway divisions, variously known as Eisenbahndirektionen (ED), Bundesbahndirektionen (BD) or Reichsbahndirektionen (RBD/Rbd). Their organisation was determined by the railway company concerned or by the state railway and, in the German-speaking lands at least, they formed the intermediate authorities and regional management organisations within the state railway administration's hierarchy. On the formation of the Deutsche Bahn AG in 1994 the system of railway divisions (Eisenbahndirektionen) in Germany was discontinued and their tasks were transferred to new "business areas".

The Deutsche Reichsbahn, also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the name of the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regional railways of the individual states of the German Empire. The Deutsche Reichsbahn has been described as "the largest enterprise in the capitalist world in the years between 1920 and 1932", nevertheless its importance "arises primarily from the fact that the Reichsbahn was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in German history."

After the occupation by Thuringia by Soviet troops in July 1945, operations between Sonneberg and Neustadt were interrupted. On 1 September 1947, freight services resumed over the Inner German Border, with a break during the Berlin Blockade. Two pairs of freight trains each day had been approved by the occupying powers for the transport of coke from Neustadt to Sonneberg, but traffic was small and irregular. On 30 September 1951 the last run took place, which was followed by the dismantling of the tracks in the spring of 1952.

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, frequently shortened to Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Beginning in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in December 1991.

The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche Mark from West Berlin.

Coburg station Coburg-Bahnhof1.jpg — Coburg station

The Coburg–Neustadt section was electrified in 1975 with a financial subsidy from the State of Bavaria. This allowed the avoiding of a locomotive change to a class 86 steam locomotive or a class 280 diesel locomotive in Coburg. Instead the class 144 electric locomotives continued to Neustadt. In 1979, Oeslau station was renamed Rödental station and a new station building was opened. A year later rail operation on weekends were abandoned.

The DRG Class 86 was a standard goods train tank locomotive with the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft. It was intended for duties on branch lines and was delivered by almost all the locomotive building firms working for the Reichsbahn. From 1942 it was built in a simplified version as a 'transitional war locomotive'. The most obvious changes were the omission of the second side windows in the cab and the solid disc carrying wheels.

Rödental is a town in the district of Coburg, in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 7 km northeast of Coburg.

After the fall of the Inner German Border the line through the gap between Neustadt and Sonneberg was immediately reinstated. Some of the land had to be bought back as only a few years earlier part of the line had been sold to the Bavarian forest service. On 28 September 1991 the 3.5 km long, former cross-border section from Neustadt to Sonneberg was returned to service, it was electrified from the first day.

From 2004 to 2006, DB Station&Service rehabilitated platforms along the line (at Neustadt, Mönchröden and Rödental stations) and adapted them for disabled people. In addition, the new halts of Coburg Nord and Rödental Mitte were built and put into operation on 11 December 2005.

Operations

Sonneberg Hauptbahnhof Sonneberg-Hbf1.jpg — Sonneberg Hauptbahnhof

Deutsche Bahn Regional-Express trains run on the line every hour (route number 820). They run to Bamberg and on to Nuremberg, alternating via Lichtenfels and via Nuremberg–Erfurt high-speed railway. Trains are usually requiring 22 minutes for the route, stopping at all stations. The regional express are operated by Bombardier Talent 2 (class 442) sets and Vectron locomotives with double-deck carriages.

Scheduled freight traffic has been re-established. When required, IntEgro Verkehr GmbH operates container trains from Monday to Fridays from Hof to Sonneberg Ost and return.

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References

↑ Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland[German railway atlas]. Schweers + Wall. 2009. p. 80. ISBN 978-3-89494-139-0.

Bleiweis, Wolfgang; Goldschmidt, Stefan; Schmitt, Bernd (1996). Eisenbahn im Coburger Land (in German). Coburg: Verlag Eisenbahnfreunde Steinachtalbahn-Coburg. ISBN 3-9802748-4-5.
Dietsch, Steffen; Goldschmidt, Stefan; Löhner, Hans (2008). Die Werrabahn (in German). Coburg: Verlag Eisenbahnfreunde Steinachtalbahn-Coburg. ISBN 978-3-9810681-3-9.
Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland[German railway atlas] (in German) (2007/2008 ed.). Schweers + Wall. 2007. ISBN 978-3-89494-136-9.

External links

"Coburg - Sonneberg (Thür.) Hbf - Lauscha - Ernstthal am Rennsteig" (in German). klauserbeck.de. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
"Bahnstrecke Lichtenfels-Sonneberg" (in German). bahnstrecken.de. Retrieved 2 January 2010.

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[Eisenbahnatlas-1] Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland[German railway atlas]. Schweers + Wall. 2009. p. 80. ISBN 978-3-89494-139-0.