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.
During the division of Germany, it became part of one of the most important German north-south axes in long-distance rail freight and rail passenger transport, the North–South railway. The route continues to be of great importance for traffic, but has been relieved in sections since 1991 by the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway. Further new lines are being planned as part of the Aus- und Neubaustrecke Hanau–Würzburg/Fulda–Erfurt ("Hanau-Würzburg/Fulda-Erfurt upgraded and new line") project.
History When railways began to be built in Germany in the nineteenth century, the two largest cities of the Electorate of Hesse (Kurfürstentum Hessen, shortened to Kurhessen), which had been re-established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, were its capital Kassel and the city of Hanau in its far south. Initially it was not practical to build a railway to connect Kurhessen through the mountainous country between Hanau and Fulda. Instead a railway was established jointly by the three countries of Kurhessen, the Grand Duchy of Hesse and Free City of Frankfurt, and completed between Frankfurt and Kassel in 1852. Meanwhile, the Frankfurt–Hanau railway was opened in 1848 by the Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (Frankfurt–Hanau Railway Company), allowing a connection between Kassel and Hanau via Frankfurt, although the lines were not physically linked.
In order to reach Hanau through the Kurhessian area, it would be necessary to start from the town of Bebra, which was on the line of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn-Gesellschaft ("Frederick William Northern Railway Company") and could be reached from Kassel. A railway line could be built via Fulda to Hanau. The Kurhessische Staatsbahn ("Kurhessen State Railway") was given the commission to construct the line by a decision of the Kurhessian Estates Assembly (Kurhessische Ständeversammlung) on 19 March 1863. (originally published by Deutsche Reichsbahn in identical form in 1935)
Construction The first section between Bebra and Hersfeld was opened on 22 January 1866. After the annexation of the Electorate of Hesse by Prussia following the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the project was taken over by Prussia and construction began in the southern section as well. In order not to leave Kurhessian territory, the railway followed the valley of the Haune and not that of the Fulda, which belonged to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. A winding route was accepted for this. The Kingdom of Prussia was able to open the line to Hanau within two years.
As late as 1864, the former Free City of Frankfurt had prevented the line from being continued to Frankfurt and also refused the Frankfurt–Hanau Railway Company permission to use the Frankfurt East–Hanau–Aschaffenburg route, even though it ran through Kurhessian territory. After Prussia had also annexed Frankfurt in the Peace of Prague, trains from Bebra could now run via Hanau station to Frankfurt. However, since this was in the east of Frankfurt and thus far away from the Frankfurt western stations and the lines ending there, the trains were connected to the Main-Neckar station (Main-Neckar-Bahnhof) via the Frankfurt City Link Line from 1869.
Extension to Frankfurt
The North Main connection via the Frankfurt–Hanau Railway Company line had several disadvantages. It meant a detour and bypassed the town of Offenbach am Main, not least because the capacity of the city link line was limited. So there were plans for a southern Main line that would connect with the Frankfurt–Offenbach Local Railway in Offenbach. However, the tracks of the local railway were not designed to handle long-distance railway traffic, so a new long-distance line was built on an embankment, which bypassed the centres of Sachsenhausen and Offenbach to the south. The proposed line ran through the Grand Duchy of Hesse. This section of the new railway line was therefore authorised a state treaty of 12 June 1868. This state treaty determined, among other things, in Article 21, that:
all scheduled trains that transport passengers had to stop at the station for Offenbach and at all stops for Steinheim and Mühlheim, at least three trains would stop daily in each direction to arrange passenger traffic to and from the other stations of the Hanau-Frankfurt railway and, as far as practicable, also to and from the connecting railways.
In Hanau, the line could not be routed through the then Hanau station (now ) as it was not well-located for the location specified for the Main crossing. Instead, Hanau Ost station (now Hanau Hauptbahnhof) was built a little further south-east, at the point where the Frankfurt–Bebra railway crosses the Frankfurt–Hanau Railway Company line to Aschaffenburg.
The opening of the new line was delayed until the completion of the Steinheim Main Bridge. The line was first put into operation to Bebra station (now Frankfurt (Main) Süd station) in Sachsenhausen on 15 November 1873.
In 1874 the new railway was subordinated to the Direction der Bebra-Hanauer Bahn (railway division of the Bebra-Hanau Railway), which was relocated from Kassel to Frankfurt and from 1 April 1874 was called the Königliche Eisenbahn-Direction zu Frankfurt am Main (Royal Railway Division of Frankfurt am Main). On 15 November 1874, the Bebra-Hanauer Eisenbahn (Bebra-Hanau Railway) was renamed the Frankfurt-Bebraer Eisenbahn (Frankfurt-Bebra Railway).
Trains from Sachsenhausen could reach Frankfurt's Main-Neckar station from 1 December 1875.
+ Opening dates 22 January 1866 – 1 October 1866 Bad Hersfeld–– 1 May 1867 Hanau (Ost)– 1 July 1868 Fulda–Neuhof 1 July 1868 Wächtersbach–Steinau (Straße) 15 December 1868 Neuhof–Steinau (Straße) (including the zig zag in Elm station) 15 November 1873 Hanau (Ost)–Frankfurt Bebraer station 1 December 1875 Frankfurt Bebraer station–Frankfurt Main-Neckar station
Extension to Göttingen The section from Friedland (Han) to Göttingen was built in 1867 as part of a connecting line from Arenshausen on the Halle–Hann. Münden railway to the Hanoverian Southern Railway.
After the annexation of Hanover and Kurhessen, the Prussian state railways wanted to connect the Hanoverian Southern Railway and the Frankfurt-Bebra Railway directly. A north–south axis was to be created together with the Elm–Gemünden railway that was planned at the same time. In addition, the also planned, militarily important Kanonenbahn ("Cannons Railway") would have connections to the north (Hannover–Göttingen) and south (Bebra–Hanau). Arenshausen and Witzenhausen were also discussed as connections in the north, but agreement was reached on a link in Friedland and a link with the Halle–Hann. Münden railway in Eichenberg. On 25 March 1872, the Prussian state decided to build a line from Bebra to Friedland and a branch line from Niederhone to Eschwege.
The section from Bebra to Niederhone (now Eschwege West) and from there the first section of the Cannons Railway to Eschwege station were opened in 1875. A year later, the Niederhone–Eichenberg–Friedland section followed. In order to cross the watersheds between the Fulda and the Werra near Cornberg and between the Werra and the Leine near Eichenberg, considerable gradients and four tunnels were necessary and the route had many curves.
The direct connection between Friedland and Arenshausen was abandoned in 1884 as the connection via Eichenberg was sufficient.
Development up to the Second World War To connect to the new Central-Bahnhof Frankfurt ("Frankfurt Central Station", now Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof), a new line had to be built from Sachsenhausen to a point about a kilometre further to the south-west. For this purpose, the new Main-Neckar Bridge was built from 1881 and opened on 1 August 1885 initially only for freight traffic. After the closure of the Frankfurt West station and the opening of the Central Station on 18 August 1888, the old line over the old Main-Neckar Bridge (now the Friedensbrücke) was abandoned.
From 1908 to 1910, the railway facilities in Göttingen were redesigned: the tracks were raised, a marshalling yard (that is now closed) was built and the Göttingen–Bodenfelde railway was connected. The railway to Bebra also received a new route from Göttingen to Rosdorf west of Leineberg. Before that, the line separated from the Hanover–Kassel line at Göttingen station and ran almost in a straight line south towards Rosdorf, hence the Eisenbahnstraße ("Railway Street") in the Leineviertel (the area south of Göttingen station on the east bank of the Leine).
The topographic problem was crossing the ridge between Flieden and Schluechtern. With the technical means available at the time when the railway was being built, a tunnel of almost 4 km in length was initially too complex and expensive. Instead, a zig zag was built—with Elm as the zig zag station. Here, all through trains had to change direction, which became increasingly unacceptable with increasing traffic and the connection of the Flieden–Gemünden railway in Elm in 1873. The technology for building longer tunnels was improved at the beginning of the 20th century and, in particular, significantly improved by the dynamite that was now available. The construction of the Schluechtern Tunnel under the Distelrasen range began in 1909. This was completed on 14 February 1914 and went into operation on 1 May.
In 1914, a connecting curve was opened south of Bebra, which enabled journeys from Frankfurt to Leipzig to Berlin without having to change direction in Bebra. So it is called the Berliner Kurve ("Berlin curve").
The regional traffic volume in the sparsely populated region north of Fulda was low. The branch lines that branched off did not increase traffic much. The Bad Hersfeld–Treysa railway was opened from Bad Hersfeld in 1906. Some of it is still used for freight transport. The Hersfeld Kreisbahn (Hersfeld District Railway) also branched off in Bad Hersfeld from 1912 to 1993. In Hünfeld there was a connection via Eiterfeld to Vacha. From Götzenhof it was possible to travel through the northern Rhön to Hilders from 1889 to 1986.
In 1939, four pairs of Durchgangszug (express trains with corridor coaches) ran between Göttingen and Bebra each day, while twelve expresses ran on the neighbouring Main–Weser Railway between Kassel and Frankfurt.
During the Second World War, the strategically important line was the target of Allied air raids, notably on 4 December 1944 near Schluechtern and Gelnhausen.
Division of Germany Since 1866, national borders between Eichenberg and Bebra had been irrelevant. That changed in 1945 when Germany was divided into occupation zones. A section about four kilometers long near Werleshausen south of Eichenberg ran through the Soviet occupation zone. In order to ease this situation, an exchange of territories was agreed in the Wanfried Agreement in 1945. After the agreement was concluded, the participating officers exchanged flasks of whisky and vodka, and from then on the railway line was known jokingly in German as the Whisky-Wodka-Linie.
As a result of the new border, the line was consistently in the area of the Western Allies and thus completely on the territory of the later Federal Republic. All eastbound routes from Eichenberg (Halle–Hann. Münden railway) and Eschwege (Kanonenbahn, several branch lines) were interrupted by the border.