Dessau–Köthen railway
| Dessau–Köthen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route number: | 334 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Line length: | 21.2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Track gauge: | 1435 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum speed: | 100 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Dessau–Köthen railway connects the cities of Dessau-Roßlau and Köthen in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is one of the oldest lines in Germany and forms the western end of the main line of the Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company (German: Berlin-Anhaltische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, BAE). The only passenger services to use the line are regional services.
The Dessau–Köthen line opened on 1 September 1840 as the first section of the Anhalt Railway. On 10 September 1841 the line was completed to Berlin. Regular long-distance services ran between Berlin and Köthen. Two daily services ran between Dessau and Köthen. With the opening of direct Dessau–Leipzig and Wittenberg–Halle lines in 1859, the Dessau–Köthen increasingly lost its importance. The line lost almost all of its freight traffic with the opening of the nearby Canon Railway in 1879.
In 1870/71 the BAE and the Magdeburg-Halberstadt Railway Company (MHE) opened a new Köthen station in Georgstraße. In 1863, the MHE had acquired the Köthen–Bernburg line, which had opened in 1846. The Magdeburg-Leipzig Railway continued to use its separate station in Köthen. In 1916 a new central railway station was opened in Köthen for all lines, slightly to the east of the 1870/71 station, requiring only limited rebuilding of trackwork. During this period most of the level crossings in Köthen were replaced by bridges. At this time water tower to the east of the station, which is still preserved, was built. In the 1880s the route was nationalised and transferred to the Prussian State Railways.
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Wikipedia