The Neukieritzsch–Chemnitz railway is a line in the German state of Saxony. It branches in Neukieritzsch from the Leipzig–Hof railway and runs via Borna and Geithain to Chemnitz Main station. It is part of a long-distance connection between Leipzig and Chemnitz. The route is electrified between Neukieritzsch and Geithain.
History As early as 1860 a railway committee had been established to promote a direct link between Leipzig and Chemnitz. Initial plans called for an alignment from Kieritzsch (now Neukieritzsch) on the Saxon-Bavarian Railway () to Mittweida on the Riesa–Chemnitz line. Above all, the city of Borna vehemently demanded a rail connection. As these plans were rejected by the Saxon government, the town of Borna proposed the construction of the Kieritzsch–Borna route at its own expense in 1864. This was authorised, although the management of operations was reserved for the state. In October 1865, construction began and was completed on 14 January 1867, having been delayed by the War of 1866.
The Saxon government favoured further construction towards Chemnitz to be carried out with private finance, but there was no candidate who was willing to provide the necessary funds for the expensive construction of the proposed line. Ultimately, the Saxon parliament decided to build the line at the expense of the state. There was still a long controversy surrounding the planned route. For a long time the favourite was a direct connection from Leipzig to Geithain. Ultimately, it was decided for reasons of cost to take the route from Borna via Geithain and Burgstädt to Chemnitz. Branch lines would also be built to Limbach, Penig and Rochlitz.
In the spring of 1869, work began on the track. The creation of several large viaducts was necessary in Göhren, Burgstädt and Chemnitz. On 8 April 1872, operations started on the new line. It was opened together with the branch lines to Limbach, Penig and Rochlitz. The Kieritzsch–Borna city railway passed into state ownership on 1 October 1870, so that there was now a continuous state railway between Leipzig and Chemnitz.
Since 1945
In 1945, the second track was completely dismantled for war reparations to the Soviet Union, but the sections between Neukieritzsch and Borna and between Wittgensdorf and Chemnitz-Küchwald were later rebuilt. On 15 January 1962, Deutsche Reichsbahn inaugurated electric traction between Neukieritzsch and Borna.
With the renovation and upgrading of the Chemnitz–Leipzig line (including the Leipzig–Geithain line via Bad Lausick) the second track was re-established between Geithain and Narsdorf on 11 December 2005. Services at Cossen station were abandoned at the same time.
Since the completion of the work, RE 6 (Chemnitz-Leipzig-Express) services, connecting Chemnitz and Leipzig, have run on the line at hourly intervals. The RE 6 services take only 26 minutes from Geithain to Chemnitz, compared to 39 minutes before 2005. The upgrade of the line also prepared it for the operation of tilting trains, although using tilting technology alone would only reduce running time by three and a half minutes. An additional crossing loop increases the reduction in running time to seven minutes. The tilting technology was used to shorten travel times between 10 December 2006 and 22 October 2009. The trains left Leipzig at 33 minutes past the hour and arrived there at 27 minutes past. After the occurrence of a malfunction on a class 612 set, the tilt system had to be taken out of service on all vehicles of the class for a time. A replacement timetable was introduced with longer travel times between Chemnitz and Leipzig, which remained in force until the end of 2015. Since then the trains have departed Leipzig at 26 minutes past and arrived at 33 minutes past the hour. Until 2011, DB also operated the RE 28 service as a round trip on the Leipzig–Chemnitz–Cranzahl route on Saturdays and Sundays.
The section from Borna to Geithain was electrified in the summer of 2010, so the former MRB 2/70 local service operating from Leipzig via Borna to Geithain could be replaced with the opening in December 2013 of the Leipzig City Tunnel, which can only be operated with electric trains, by S-Bahn-Linie S4 of the network of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland. A new electronic interlocking was installed in Frohburg at a total cost of €8 million. From 15 December 2013 used the line S4 of the new network of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland The section between Neukieritzsch and Geithain has been operated as line S3 since 13 December 2015. The Geithain–Chemnitz section has been operated by Transdev Regio Ost with locomotive-hauled carriages under the brand name of Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn since the timetable change in December 2015. In addition to this, the Burgstädt–Chemnitz section has been operated by City-Bahn Chemnitz under the Chemnitz Model with diesel multiple units as line C13 since December 2015.
Outlook In 2008 and 2009, a study was established by the TU Dresden to investigate how the line could be upgraded to carry long-distance traffic in addition to the existing local passenger services. The result of the study was that the line had to be continuously (or nearly continuously) upgraded to two tracks and electrified throughout to allow the operation of fast trains (such as electrical ICE Ts). At the beginning of 2009, the then Saxon transport minister Thomas Jurk, announced funding for the preliminary planning of the upgrade of the line.
At the end of January 2012, representatives of the Saxon State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Transport proposed the closure of the gap in the electrification between Geithain and Chemnitz. Under this proposal, the preliminary planning would have been completed by 2013. Construction would have begun in 2015/16, with a construction period of three years. This would have allowed Chemnitz to be connected to the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland network. The cost of closing this approximately 36 km-long electrification gap was estimated at more than €100 million. A completion of the second track of the route from Neukieritzsch via Borna to Chemnitz was planned as a further stage.
At the beginning of January 2013, representatives of the state of Saxony and Deutsche Bahn AG signed a contract for the preliminary selection of options for the upgrade and electrification of the Chemnitz–Leipzig line. This would involve the investigation of a route upgrade via Bad Lausick as well as via Borna. As a result of the preliminary investigation, the route via Bad Lausick (and thus including the Leipzig–Geithain railway) was selected as the preferred option. The main advantages of this option were a travel time of 50 minutes and convenient connections for passengers to the other long-distance lines in Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. In July 2013, the State of Saxony and Deutsche Bahn signed a planning agreement for the further upgrade and the electrification of the Leipzig–Chemnitz railway. The Free State of Saxony provided funding of around €2.4 million for this purpose. The preliminary planning was completed in the summer of 2014 and presented to the public in August 2014. On the Neukieritzsch–Chemnitz line there would be, in addition to the completion of electrification, adaptions to the track layouts in the stations of Geithain, Narsdorf, Burgstädt and Chemnitz-Küchwald. According to media reports, commissioning is expected at the earliest after eight years. The State of Saxony intends to commission the other projects in a timely manner and to finance them on a pro rata basis. The project was nominated for the Federal Transport Plan (Bundesverkehrswegeplan) 2030.
Route description Course The line runs parallel to federal road 176 as far as Borna and from Neukirchen to Niedergräfenhain it follows federal road 72. The catenary ends in Geithain station and only the bay platform for trains to and from Neukieritzsch is electrified. After Geithain, the line reaches the central Saxon loess hill country (Mittelsächsisches Lösshügelland) and meets the closed Rochlitz–Penig railway in Narsdorf. After passing the village of Göhren it crosses the Zwickau Mulde together with the Glauchau–Wurzen railway (Mulde Valley Railway—Muldentalbahn) on the Göhren Viaduct. Near Stein the line comes within 600 metres of the valley of the Chemnitz and the closed Wechselburg–Küchwald railway (Chemnitz Valley Railway—Chemnitztalbahn). An extended urban viaduct reaches Burgstädt station, which is located on the eastern edge of the town. After the former junction with the closed line from Limbach-Oberfrohna, the highest point of the line is reached at the station of Wittgensdorf ob Bf (upper station). From there it runs with a maximum gradient of 1:100 in the floodplain of the Chemnitz, where it crosses autobahn 4 on the Bahrebachmühlen Viaduct (Bahrebachmühlenviadukt). After crossing the industrial railway from Grüna, it meets the track to Küchwald freight yard at exactly the same point as the closed Wechselburg–Küchwald railway, which ran largely parallel towards Wechselburg. After a long right turn, the line converges with the tracks from Riesa and from Dresden on the approaches to Chemnitz Hauptbahnhof.
Stations
Neukieritzsch ()
Neukieritzsch station (only Kieritzsch until 3 October 1936) was opened in 1842 together with the Leipzig–Altenburg section of the Leipzig–Hof railway, although the first tracks had been laid in 1841. A railway settlement developed in its immediate vicinity, since the village of Kieritzsch that the station was named after was about 3 km away. The new settlement was eventually named Neukieritzsch (New Kieritzsch). The station was in the vicinity of Kahnsdorf and Pürsten, but both villages rejected the naming of the station after their community. Already at the opening of the station, maintenance facilities were available in Kieritzsch and as a result of the opening of the lines to Borna and to Pegau (opened in 1909), the station developed into a small railway junction during the following decades.
A dense network of factories developed around the station as a result of brown coal (lignite) mining. After 1945, traffic continued to increase, especially freight traffic, so the station had to be extensively expanded. Meanwhile, the station has been dismantled except for a few tracks.
Lobstädt ()
The station was originally opened as a halt (Haltestelle) of Lobstädt on the private Kieritzsch–Borna railway, but was later expanded several times. It was reclassified as a station on 1 May 1905. The station gained greater importance as a result of the brown coal mining, as there were several briquette factories in Lobstädt.
Already in the 1980s, the volume of traffic had declined somewhat, but a major slump occurred in the 1990s, when all the briquette factories were closed. On 9 September 1999, Lobstädt was therefore reclassified as a halt.
Borna (b Leipzig) ()
Borna (b Leipzig) station was built as the terminus of the private railway near the town centre. The importance of the station increased as a result of brown coal mining as well as the extension of the line to Chemnitz. Soon further development at the site (which was near the crossroads of the current federal road 93 and federal road 176) became impossible. Therefore, a completely new station was built in 1903/04 southwest of the old site on the outskirts. This station was put into operation on 1 October and from then on the old station served as a siding for freight traffic. In addition to connecting tracks to various brown coal mines, the new station had a locomotive yard with a two-storey Heizhaus (a roundhouse where locomotives were heated). From then on different shunting locomotives were stationed there.