The Werdau–Mehltheuer railway is a branch line in the German states of Saxony and Thuringia, originally built and operated by the Royal Saxon State Railways (Königlich Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen). The section from Werdau to Weida via Wünschendorf is now closed. The section between Weida and Mehltheuer is part of the Gera–Hof link.
History
The Werdau–Wünschendorf–Weida section was opened by the Saxon State Railways on 29 August 1876.
The building of the section of line to Mehltheuer, which is now part of the community of Rosenbach/Vogtl., had a complex history: the first plans were developed in 1864, including a planned extension of the Weißenfels–Zeitz–Gera railway, which had been opened by the Thuringian Railway Company (Thüringische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) in 1859, failed due to the resistance of Bavaria. The Mehltheuer-Weida Railway Company (Mehltheuer-Weidaer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, MWE) was established in Plauen in 1872 with the aim of constructing a railway line which would be shorter than the existing state railway link from Leipzig via Plauen to Hof and Cheb (then called Eger). The line would branch from the Gera–Saalfeld railway of the Thuringian Railway in Weida station, which was located in the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and run to the south through the territory of the Principality of the Reuss Junior Line via Hohenleuben and Triebes to Zeulenroda lower station (Zeulenroda unt Bf), which was located in the Principality of the Reuss Elder Line. It would eventually reach the Saxon Vogtland in Pausa and after 35 kilometres it would end in Mehltheuer, where it would connect with the state railway between Leipzig and Hof. Treaties were concluded between the four participating governments and the corresponding concessions were granted.
Financial problems developed when construction started. The handing over of the project to the Eisenbahnkönig ("railway king") Strousberg also did not assist development. The MWE became bankrupt in 1876 and was acquired by the Saxon State Railways. It downgraded the line to a secondary railway and opened the line from Weida Altstadt to Mehltheuer on 15 November 1883. The Weida–Weida Altstadt section followed on 1884.
The line was later converted to two tracks and upgraded to a main line in places, between Triebes and Zeulenroda in 1913 and over parts of the whole Werdau–Weida–Mehltheuer line in the 1930s, for example between Loitsch-Hohenleuben and Triebes. In the process, the two signal boxes in Loitsch-Hohenleuben and the northern signal box in Triebes were rebuilt in the 1930s.
Since 1945
There was only limited damage to the line as a result of the war, but the bridge over the White Elster near Wünschendorf was blown up. As part of reparations to the Soviet Union, the second track was removed after 1945 and the line is still single-track and unelectrified. In the first post-war years, the timetable was very thin: the timetable of 1947 had only three train pairs between Wünschendorf and Zeulenroda on workdays, but on the other two sections there were four. There were two pairs of through trains (one on Sundays and holidays) with a journey time of about 3 hours 30 minutes.
From 1953 until its closure before 1962, a rail link ran from Katzendorf to Teichwolframsdorf and from there to the sächsischen Aufbereitungsbetrieben (Saxon processing operations), which was used by uranium ore trains running as block trains or in groups of wagons. The loading of uranium ore mined in the open-cast mine of Culmitzsch began in 1957 and the transport of ore to Lengenfeld, Dresden-Gittersee, Tannenbergsthal and Crossen bei Zwickau for further processing began. A 2.2 km-long connection from Gauern to the Culmitzsch loading yard was opened on 11 September 1958; it was closed in 1966. When the Neue Fabrik ("new factory") processing plant (AB 102) in Seelingstädt was opened in 1960, the Culmitz ore traffic was transferred from Seelingstädt station to the processing plant via the Taigakurve (Taiga curve).
Since the second track of the adjacent main line, the Leipzig–Hof railway, had also been dismantled for reparations, diverted traffic ran over the Mehltheuer–Weida line, some continuing to Werdau, until the 1970s. This included, for example, the D 145 service between Munich and Dresden in 1967. In the 1970s, the D 308/309 service from Berlin to Munich was still scheduled to run over the Weida–Mehltheuer section and in the 1980s during construction work on the main lines to Probstzella and Gutenfürst, a Transitzug (transit train, running non-stop between West Germany and West Berlin), which was not shown in the timetable, still ran over the line. The 1988/89 timetable listed only a through coach, running each way between Zwickau and Bad Salzungen via Wünschendorf and Gera on Saturdays. Freight operations on the line—in addition to a local freight shuttle running several times a day on the Gera–Mehltheuer–Gera route—consisted of traffic running to Seddin, partly under the brand of Trans-Europ-Express-Marchandises (a system of cross-border freight trains modelled on Trans Europ Express), and empty tank wagons.
From 1995 to 1999, a pair of InterRegio trains ran betweene Gera and Karlsruhe using the Weida–Mehltheuer section, giving the line a long-distance service for a short time again. The train stopped in Weida and Zeulenroda, but not in Mehltheuer. InterRegio trains were occasionally detoured over the Wünschendorf–Werdau section when the Gera–Gößnitz–Glauchau main line, or parts of it, were blocked because of construction work.
The Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahn-Bundesamt; EBA) approved the closure of the Wünschendorf–Weida section on 1 May 1997; freight traffic had already ended on 31 January 1996 and passenger services ended on 2 June of the same year. Thus, the line was no longer used. Deutsche Bahn submitted a request to the Federal Railway Authority to be permitted to dismantle the tracks on this section (km 28.5 to 31.9) on 18 July 2012.
A Regional-Express service running on the Gera–Zwickau route was introduced in 1998 on the Wünschendorf–Werdau section at four-hour intervals, stopping only at Seelingstädt, Teichwolframsdorf and Werdau West. Class 219 locomotives were used, which were clearly underused in hauling only two UIC-Z cars.
Even before the introduction of this Regional-Express service, the timetable on the Zwickau–Werdau–Wünschendorf–Gera route had been thinned, so that the still operating trains were lightly used because of their poor times and lack of stops. No services ran on Sundays in the 1998/99 timetable, favouring the use of cars. This approach improved the case for closing passenger services, which ultimately occurred. An already prepared and begun project for the repair of sections of the line between the stations of Werdau-West, Langenbernsdorf and Teichwolframsdorf was cancelled and not completed, requiring speed restrictions (in places as low as 10 km/h) and leading to further reductions in railway traffic. Deutsche Bahn economised on safety and personnel in the 1998/99 timetable year.
Lack of demand and poor track quality led to the abandonment of Deutsche Bahn's "slowest" Regional-Expresses on 30 May 1999, including all services on this section of line. The closure of the section was approved by the EBA on 15 November 2000. Since then there have been several initiatives for its re-commissioning, but they have been unsuccessful. Since no overpass was installed over the disused line during the construction of the Werdau bypass, the line is now also interrupted between Werdau West and Werdau. In addition, the flying junction that had been built over the Leipzig–Hof railway in Werdau was demolished. The section between Seelingstädt and Gauern, which had been converted into a branch line from Seelingstädt station, was also officially closed. A customer was still served in Gauern by Wismut-Eisenbahn until 2003. In June 2007, Deutsche Regionaleisenbahn (DRE) leased the line from Deutsche Bahn AG and handed operations of it over to the "Friedrich List" association in Zwickau, which promotes railways, so that the latter could arrange for train operations between Werdau West and Wünschendorf/Elster to be resumed.
Developments after the closure of the Werdau–Wünschendorf/Elster line
After the closure of the Wünschendorf/Elster–Werdau/West section, the Werdauer Waldeisenbahn (Waldau Forest Railway) project was developed. This section of line has been gradually rehabilitated by a railway association since 2007. At the beginning of September 2007, the company resumed operations with a historic handcar operation between Teichwolframsdorf and Langenbernsdorf. In May 2010, five handcar operations were scheduled on the Werdau/West–Langenbernsdorf–Teichwolframsdorf route and in reverse on four weekends. This alternative, offered as an interim solution, has promoted the development of the Werdauer Waldeisenbahn and associated tourism in the region. Since 2012, a steam train service has also been occasionally integrated into the rail operations.
After the Weida–Mehltheuer line was operated by Vogtlandbahn from 2000 to 2003, passenger services were operated from June 2012 by DB Regio trains. In 2006, Regionalbahn 103 services ran on the Gera–Mehltheuer route at two hour intervals, stopping at all stations, but in some cases only on request. In addition, Regional-Express (RE) 12 services ran on the Leipzig–Gera–Hof (–Munich) route every four hours until December 2006. Because the service ran from Saxony through Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia to Bavaria, this line was also called the Vier-Länder-Express ("four states express"). In between the RE services, Regionalbahn (RB) 103 services run between Gera and Zeulenroda, some of which connect directly with Regionalbahn 51 services running between Leipzig and Weida. Trains have not stopped at Pöllwitz and Bernsgrün since the timetable change on 11 December 2011. At this time, the timetable for Monday to Friday on the section from Weida to Zeulenroda included ten more pairs of Regionalbahn services and four pairs of Regional-Express services on the whole route, two of them continuing through Hof to Regensburg.
On 10 June 2012, Erfurter Bahn (EB) took over all the services in local rail transport and now operates all services as the EBx 13 service (Erfurter Bahn Express). While passenger services passed through Pöllwitz without stopping, the stop in Schüptitz was reintroduced after public protests. The timetable now contains a maximum of ten trains a day, of which some continue through Zeulenroda to Hof and some run to or from Leipzig.
On 3 August 2012, DB Netz's south-eastern regional branch sought approval from the Federal Railway Authority for the dismantling of the Werdau West–Mehltheuer line (6653) from rail-km 28.500 to 31.900 in the Gemarkung of Wünschdorf/Elster and the Gemarkung of Veitsberg, district of Greiz. The planned dismantling would be between the stations of Wünschendorf/Elster and Weida.
In the course of an ongoing modernisation of the route and the installation of electronic interlockings, crossing loops were only retained in the stations of Loitsch-Hohenleuben and Zeulenroda unt Bf. Pöllwitz station was closed.
Route description Course
About two-thirds of the Werdau–Weida section is located in Thuringia. From 1900, it left Werdau station to the north-west and then ran through the Werdau Forest (Werdauer Wald). Until 1900 the line exited to the south-west and took a shorter route. Before the halt at Trünzig, the line leaves the Werdau Forest, crosses over federal road 175 (B 175) in Chursdorf and leaves Gauern running in the valley of the Fuchsbach. South of Wünschendorf/Elster, it swings into the valley of the Elster, where it meets the Elster Valley Railway. After Wünschendorf, it crosses the Elster after crossing the Elster Valley Railway and ends at Weida station.