As a densely populated country in a central location in Europe and with a developed economy, Germany has a dense transport infrastructure.
The Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway is a double-track, electrified high-speed railway between Hanover and Würzburg in Germany, 327 km (203 mi) in length. The line, built between 1973 and 1991, was the longest contiguous new project constructed by Deutsche Bundesbahn. The total costs were almost DM 11.9 billion.
Würzburg Hauptbahnhof is a railway station for the city of Würzburg in the German state of Bavaria. It was opened in 1864 to the north of the inner city as a replacement for the former Ludwigsbahnhof in the city centre, the capacity of which had been exhausted by the dramatic increase of rail traffic. Even today, Würzburg station is one of the major stations in Bavaria, since it lies at the intersection of several heavily used rail corridors. In particular, the routes in the north–south direction from Hamburg and Bremen to Munich as well as in west–east direction from the Rhine-Ruhr and Rhine-Main to Nuremberg and Vienna. Apart from Aschaffenburg Hauptbahnhof, Würzburg is the only station in Lower Franconia to be served by Intercity-Express services. With its combination of rail, tram and bus services, the station is the main hub for public transport in the city and the district of Würzburg.
The Nuremberg S-Bahn is an S-Bahn network covering the region of Nuremberg, Fürth and Erlangen which started operations in 1987 and is now integrated into the Greater Nuremberg Transport Association. The full length of the five current lines is about 277.6 kilometres.
Construction of the first high-speed rail in Germany began shortly after that of the French LGVs. However, legal battles caused significant delays, so that the German Intercity-Express (ICE) trains were deployed ten years after the TGV network was established. Germany has around 1,658 kilometers of high speed lines.
The Mannheim–Stuttgart high-speed railway is a 99 km (62 mi) long railway line in Germany, connecting the cities of Mannheim and Stuttgart. The line was officially opened on 9 May 1991, and Intercity-Express service began on 2 June. The Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway also opened at the same time. The line cost about DM 4.5 billion to build and has 15 tunnels and more than 90 bridges.
The Dill Railway is a 73 km-long double-track electrified railway line, which runs from Giessen in Hesse to Siegen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Until 2002 InterRegio trains operated the connection to Düsseldorf, Norddeich, and Münster. Nowadays the line is only worked by regional trains, including diesel multiples of the DreiLänderBahn, but there is one exception. The EuroCity Line 112/113 from Siegen to Klagenfurt via Frankfurt, Stuttgart, München and Salzburg with a destination coach to Zagreb. This train starts every day from Siegen in the morning at 6:17 pm, the train from Klagenfurt arrives at 9:57 am at Siegen. The southern section between Haiger and Gießen was built by the Cologne-Minden Railway Company in 1862 as part of its line from Deutz and is one of the oldest railways in Germany. The section from Haiger to Siegen was opened in 1915 by the Prussian state railways.
The Neckar Valley Railway, or Neckar Valley Main Line is a railway line from Heidelberg via Eberbach and Mosbach to Bad Friedrichshall-Jagstfeld in southwestern Germany. Today it is administered by the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Neckar and is partly worked by the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn.
The Odenwald Railway is a mainly single-tracked main line from Darmstadt and Hanau to Eberbach on the River Neckar, which crosses the Odenwald mountains in the German states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg. Since 1882 the route has been operated throughout as a standard gauge line and since 2005 has been worked by diesel multiples owned by the VIAS private railway company.
The Franconia Railway is a 180-kilometre-long (110 mi) railway line in the north of the German state of Baden-Württemberg and the Bavarian province of Lower Franconia that links Stuttgart and Würzburg. Its name comes from the fact that the majority of the line runs through Franconia. The first section of the line was opened in 1848 and is one of the oldest lines in Germany. The main line is now electrified and has been almost entirely upgraded to double-tracks.
The Frankfurt–Göttingen railway is a continuously double track and electrified main line in Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, Germany. The line was initially built from Bebra towards Fulda by the Kurhessen State Railway. After the Prussian annexation of the Electorate of Hesse as a result of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, it was completed to Frankfurt as the Frankfurt-Bebra Railway. The line was later extended from Bebra to Göttingen.
The Nahe Valley Railway is a two-track, partially electrified main line railway in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, which runs for almost 100 kilometres along the Nahe. It was built by the Rhine-Nahe Railway Company and connects Bingen am Rhein on the Left Rhine line with Saarbrücken. It was opened between 1858 and 1860 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany. The section south of Bad Kreuznach is part of the regionally important transport corridor between the two major cities of Mainz and Saarbrücken.
The Neckarelz–Osterburken railway is a 30.9 km long railway line in the north of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, which connects the Neckar and the Bauland along the edge of the Odenwald. It was opened in 1866 as part of the Odenwald Railway (Baden) (Odenwaldbahn) between Heidelberg and Würzburg. It has been upgraded to form an entirely double-track and electrified main line railway. It was an east–west axis for German long-distance transport until 1945. Since 2003 passenger services on it have been operated by the Rhine-Neckar S-Bahn. The Neckarelz–Mosbach section has also been served by the Heilbronn Stadtbahn since 2014.
Meiningen station is a junction of four railways and with its facilities is one of the most important railway stations in southern Thuringia, Germany.
The Aar Valley Railway is a 53.7 km long line between Wiesbaden, the capital of the German state of Hesse, and Diez in Rhineland-Palatinate. From 1985 to 2009, the southern end was operated as a heritage railway with historic trains. The Hessian part of the line is heritage-listed. Currently, two bridges are unusable and several sets of points are defective and need to be repaired. Its northern end is operated with draisines.
The Weil am Rhine–Lörrach railway, also known as the Gartenbahn, is a 4.836 km long electrified, single-track main line railway in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, near Basle. It runs from Weil am Rhein on the Rhine Valley Railway through Tüllinger Berg to Lörrach-Stetten on the Wiese Valley Railway. The continuation of the former bypass of Switzerland was the now disused Wehra Valley Railway from a branch near Schopfheim on the Wiese Valley Railway to Bad Säckingen on the High Rhine Railway (Hochrheinbahn).
The Rosenstein tunnel is the name of several past, present and planned tunnels in the Stuttgart metropolitan area, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Today it is a railway tunnel under Rosenstein Park to Bad Cannstatt. It now connects the Fils Valley Railway (Filstalbahn) from Stuttgart Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) to the Rosenstein Bridge over the Neckar to Bad Cannstatt station.
Lauda station is a junction station in the town of Lauda-Königshofen in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, where the northern section of the Tauber Valley Railway branches from the Franconia Railway. Lauda station is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 5 station.
The Alsenz Valley Railway is a line that runs from Hochspeyer via Winnweiler and Alsenz to Bad Munster am Stein in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The line closely follows the Alsenz river from the Enkenbach district and crosses it several times. It was originally built primarily as a long-distance route, but it has lost this function since 1990 and is now exclusively used for local transport.
The Katzenberg Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Karlsruhe–Basel high-speed railway that opened in December 2012. The tunnel was built to increase the capacity and speed of the Mannheim–Karlsruhe–Basel railway and was built to remove the freight traffic from the towns on the old line. The two parallel, single-track tunnels, which can be passed at up to 250 km/h, extend from Bad Bellingen to Efringen-Kirchen With a length of 9,385 m, it is the third longest tunnel after the Landrücken Tunnel and the Münden Tunnel and the longest twin-bore tunnel in Germany.
