Schweinfurt–Meiningen railway

Schweinfurt—Meiningen railway
Overview
Native name	Bahnstrecke Schweinfurt-Meiningen
Locale	Bavaria, Thuringia in Germany
Termini	Schweinfurt Hbf Meiningen
Stations	14
Operation
Commenced	9 October 1871 (1871-10-09) (Schweinfurt Hbf—Bad Kissingen)
Completed	14 June 1872 (1872-06-14)
Owner	Deutsche Bahn
Operator(s)	DB Bahn, Erfurter Bahn
Technical
Line length	77.9 km (48.4 mi)
Number of tracks	Single track
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Minimum radius	500 m
Maximum incline	1.1 %

Schweinfurt–Meiningen railway
from Bamberg 0,0 Schweinfurt Hbf 216.0 m above NN 1,5 from and to Würzburg 6,5 Oberwerrn 250.6 m above NN 10,1 Poppenhausenformer station 267.8 m above NN 13,2 Ebenhausen 298.6 m above NN to Bad Kissingen 18,4 Rottershausen 19,3 Rottershausen 324.6 m above NN 20,0 Rottershausen tunnel (400 m) 21,5 to Stadtlauringen (1900-1960) to MUNA goods station (1940-ca.1960) 21,7 MUNA Rottershausen branch 28,9 Münnerstadt 247.6 m above NN 31,6 Burglauer 232.9 m above NN 34,3 Niederlauer 233.1 m above NN 38,8 Bad Neustadt (Saale) 232.4 m above NN to Bischofsheim (1885-1989) to Königshofen (1893-1995) 42,6 Heustreu 237.3 m above NN 46,0 Unsleben 247.9 m above NN 49,1 Oberstreu 256.2 m above NN 52,1 Mellrichstadt 270.8 m above NN to Fladungen 57,1 Mühlfeld 314.90 m above NN 57,68 Bavarian/Thuringian border from Römhild (1893-1972) 63,2 Rentwertshausen 366,28 m above NN 65,0 Bibra 67,7 Wölfershausen 70,5 Ritschenhausen 314,61 m above NN to Grimmenthal (–Erfurt) from Grimmenthal (Werrabahn) 77,9 Meiningen 287.10 m above NN to Eisenach (Werrabahn) twin-tracked section

twin-tracked section

The Schweinfurt–Meiningen railway, route number 5240, is a single-tracked main line in the states of Bavaria and Saxony in southern Germany. It is also called the Main-Rhön-Bahn ("Main-Rhön railway") and is listed in the Deutsche Bahn timetable as route (Kursbuchstrecke) 815. The railway has been part of the Erfurt–Schweinfurt route since 1993. Passenger services on the line are provided by DB Regio and the Erfurter Bahn (EB).

After the completion of the first major railway lines in the middle of the 19th century the Bavarian government became very interested in opening up other parts of Bavaria and also in establishing shorter links within the existing railway network. As a result, aspirations arose for a connexion between the Bamberg-Würzburg railway at Schweinfurt and the Werrabahn at Meiningen, not least in order to improved the accessibility of the Saxon-Meiningen provincial capital.

So the governments of Bavaria and Saxe-Meiningen signed a state treaty on 21 March 1868 for the establishment of a railway line from Schweinfurt via Neustadt an der Saale to Meiningen. The Bavarian state railway took on the construction and management of the entire route; each government bore the cost of the section of the line on its own territory.

In 1871, after railway operations had begun on the line from Schweinfurt to Bad Kissingen via Ebenhausen, work started on the section from Ebenhausen to Meiningen on 14 June 1872. In Meiningen the Bavarian station (Bayerische Bahnhof) was built on the southern side of the existing Werrabahn station. Its construction entailed major topographical alterations and changes to the way traffic operations were conducted in the area of the town. The 64 kilometre long route was opened on 15 December 1874 by the Royal Bavarian State Railways, the operator of the line. Following the completion of the railway from Ritschenhausen to Neudietendorf in 1884, express trains ran over the line from Berlin via Meiningen to Stuttgart. This required locomotives to be exchanged as the train crossed over from the jurisdiction of the Prussian to the Bavarian state railways at either Meiningen or Ritschenhausen.

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Wikipedia