Native name Elstertalbahn Minimum radius 275 m (902 ft) | Line length 60.38 km (37.52 mi) Line number 6269 | |
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Locale Saxony and Thuringia, Germany Track gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ⁄2 in) standard gauge Operating speed | ||
The Gera Süd–Weischlitz railway (also known as the Elstertalbahn—"Elster Valley Railway") is a main railway line in the German federal states of Thuringia and Saxony that runs along the valley of the White Elster from Gera via Greiz and Plauen to Weischlitz.
History
The construction of the line goes back to the section from Gera Hbf–Wolfsgefärth on the Gera–Saalfeld railway. The section from Wolfsgefärth to Greiz went into service on 17 July 1875. The second section was that from Greiz to Plauen Lower Station ('unterer Bahnhof) which opened on 8 September, the last section to Weischlitz followed on 20 September of the same year, and the line formed a junction with the Plauen–Eger railway. The construction of the many bridges and eight tunnels drove the operating company (Sächsisch-Thüringische Eisenbahngesellschaft) into financial difficulties in 1876, so that the line had to be sold to the Saxon State Railway (Sächsische Staatsbahn). Not until 1 December 1892 was there a direct connexion from Wünschendorf to Gera at the station of Gera Reuß, which no longer exists but was near the site of the present-day Gera Süd. On the same date traffic on the line from Wünschendorf to Wolfsgefärth was withdrawn.