The Plaue–Themar railway is a 62 kilometre-long, single-track, non-electrified, standard-gauge branch-line in the Thuringian Forest (Thüringer Wald) in Germany. The Stützerbach–Schleusingerneundorf section was built as the first Prussian rack railway between 1879 and 1904 and connects the Erfurt–Schweinfurt railway in the north via the towns of Plaue, Ilmenau, Schleusingen and Themar with the Eisenach–Lichtenfels railway in the south.
It is divided into three sections: the northern section from Plaue to Ilmenau is currently operated once an hour by Erfurter Bahn, the steep section in the middle from Ilmenau to Schleusingen, which originally contained stretches of rack, and the southern section from Schleusingen to Themar. There is occasional freight traffic on the southern section.
Plaue–Ilmenau Route
Today's secondary line branches off the Erfurt–Schweinfurt railway in Plaue. The line climbs 200 metres during the 10 km-long section to Geraberg. The route followed here does not run through the easier Reichenbach valley, but instead climbs the slope up the valley of the Zahme Gera. The reasons are historical. There are numerous rocky areas where the terrain is nearly impassable. The line climbs steeply on the western slope of the valley and reaches a height that is about 30 m above the valley in Angelroda. Here it crosses the valley on a viaduct, which is followed by a 20 m deep cutting, where the line transitions from the Gera valley to the Reichenbach valley. It continues through relatively flat terrain to Martinroda, which also has a Haltepunkt (halt), although it is about 2 km from the village. The next place on the line is Geraberg. The route changes again from the Reichenbach valley to the Gera valley. The line runs above the village around Mönchsheide hill to Elgersburg station. In the village there is a cutting that is about 12 m deep, which takes the line from the Gera valley to the Reichenbach valley again. Here it runs relatively directly on the edge of the forest to the southeast towards Ilmenau-Roda. There the high point of the section is reached at an altitude of 515 metres. It then passes through a wide curve, past the halt of Ilmenau Pörlitzer Höhe (opened in 1995) through the town of Ilmenau down into the Ilm valley, where Ilmenau station is located at an altitude of 477 metres.
History Background and construction
When the Neudietendorf–Arnstadt railway reached Arnstadt, there were increasing demands for railway to Ilmenau. The efforts failed for the time being due to the political fragmentation of Thuringia. The rulers of four Thuringian states had to give permission for a route between Arnstadt and Ilmenau. They had little interest in economic competition with their capital cities along the Leipzig–Weimar–Erfurt–Gotha–Eisenach axis. In addition, transport planners were already forging other plans, like an Ilmenau–Suhl connection, which would form part of a Berlin–Stuttgart route, and an Ilmenau–Saalfeld connection. Prussia urged Suhl (which, along with Erfurt, belonged to Prussia) to build a connection to the northern Thuringian foreland to provide an efficient access to the arms industry in Suhl. A further extension of the line via Stützerbach to Suhl, which had already been envisaged by the planners in the early planning phase, was not carried out, since no agreement was reached between the small states of the Thuringian area affected by the line and the construction costs were too high. Under this option, an approximately 2000 m-long tunnel would have been built under the ridge of the Thuringian Forest in the Schmücke/Großer Finsterberg area.
When the Thuringian Railway Company (Thüringische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) proposed in 1876 to continue the line from Arnstadt to Ilmenau, difficult negotiations had to be held with the representatives of the various states. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Ernst II offered the greatest resistance. The Thuringian Railway Company knew that the Duke liked to stay in Elgersburg for recreation and they wanted to meet him with a proposal for a route that would start in the valley of the Zahme Gera and run via Geschwenda, Arlesberg (which later merged with mid-Thuringian—mittelthüringischen—Gera to form Geraberg) to Elgersburg. This plan failed initially due to the resistance of the Duke, who wanted to build a railway from Ohrdruf to Elgersburg that would have run entirely over his own territory, but also due to massive protests by the citizens of Geschwenda against the railway. The citizens feared that constant boiler explosions would ravage the country, that the smoke of the locomotives would pollute the air and make the grass bitter and that the cows would give only sour milk as a result of the sight of the monsters—common prejudices in the time, which George Stephenson also had to fight in England. The planned line running entirely through the Reichenbach valley and Martinroda was welcomed there and Martinroda was willing to provide the land for any route through it free of charge. However, this route now failed because of the veto of the Duke of Gotha. Since his preferred route from Ohrdruf to Elgersburg proved too expensive, he had to give it up and now wanted a station in Elgersburg on the Arnstadt–Ilmenau line. His approval for the project was needed because the Arnstadt–Plaue section of the line had to run through his territory. A route from Plaue that only ran through the Reichenbach Valley would not have passed through Elgersburg, but it would have been much cheaper. The Duke's consent was dependent on a large and prestigious station in Elgersburg, which would include permanent additional tracks that would be available for the use of his special trains.
The route now required an elaborate and expensive structure in Angelroda in order to be able to fulfill the promise given to Martinroda, even though Martinroda station could no longer be built in the village and instead had to be built 2 km away from it. The new complex route also avoided touching the area of the municipality of Geschwenda, whose citizens were vehement against the building of a railway. In fact, Martinroda and Geraberg (at that time still called Gera ) provided virtually all the land for the line free of charge. As a result of the new route, Geraberg also now received a station. This is only about 1.1 km in a direct line from the station in Elgersburg, also connected by a direct road, but the railway was difficult to build. It is 1.7 km-long and required an elaborate, deep cutting through rock. In Angelroda support for the 26 m high embankment on the edge of the village, which was now necessary, was anything but enthusiastic, as it was feared that there would be less "good air" coming down from the Thuringian Forest in down-slope winds. They therefore wanted a bridge that was as long as possible. This would have increased the cost of the project that was now estimated to cost 4,140,000 marks (M) by a further 27,000 M, which the Thüringian Railway Company did not want to raise to benefit farmers in Angelroda. The little village of Angelroda did not have the necessary financial resources to pay for the proposed change, even though this was only a fraction of the cost of the changes required to meet the special demands of the Duke of Gotha.
The Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt sought a continuation of the line to Gehren and on to Schwarzburg, Rudolstadt and Saalfeld. There it would have connected with the Gera–Saalfeld–Eichicht railway opened in 1871. The building permit for the Arnstadt–Ilmenau railway was therefore issued only on the condition that this connection was to be built within 10 years and that the entire line was to be at least prepared to allow a second track to be built. This requirement meant that all viaducts, mountain sections and bridges had to be built significantly larger than originally planned. All stone bridges and the embankment from Plaue towards Ilmenau across the valley of the Zahme Gera (called the Sand valley in Plaue), which is 825 m long and up to 8.5 m high, were designed for the eventual laying of a second track, but only the abutments of stone bridges like the viaduct over Angelroda were built for two tracks, while the steel superstructures and pillars were built for one track. The only doubling of the track that was ever implemented was a section built between Arnstadt and Plaue during the construction of the main line from Plaue via Oberhof and Suhl to Würzburg and Stuttgart.
As a result of tenacious negotiations, the Thuringian Railway Company was able to conclude treaties with all four Thuringian Principalities concerned. Agreements were signed with Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach on 16 April 1877, with Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and with Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt on 6 June 1877 and with Schwarzburg-Sondershausen on 27 June 1877. Tree clearing began in the winter of 1877/78 and the groundbreaking ceremony was held on 23 April 1878 at Kleine Spiegelsberg, between Roda and Elgersburg. The building was divided into two sections (Arnstadt–Angelroda and Angelroda–Ilmenau) and it was carried out simultaneously in all construction phases. On average, 300 workers were employed in each section. Among them were many workers from Italy, Croatia, Poland and the Tyrol. The pay was 3.50 M to 4.50 M per day in the summer and 2.25 M to 3.25 M per day in the winter because of the shorter days. Day labourers earned 2.25 M per day. During the construction work, five workers were killed in work accidents, while there were five major and eleven minor injuries. The line was essentially built by hand and was supplied by a field railway from Arnstadt.
The most outstanding achievements were the rock cutting on the approach through a hill to the bridge in Angelroda, which was up to 26 m deep, and the movement of earth for an embankment near Plaue, which was 825 m long and up to 8.5 m high. 90,000 m³ of rock was placed for this embankment below the track and 150,000 m³ of rock was placed above the track bed. The project used a funicular, which ran on a wooden trestle which had been built for it. Rock was dumped from the funicular down on the embankment. The wooden trestle was left in the completed embankment. Rocks along almost the whole line had to be loosened with explosives. 2,950 kg of dynamite, 8,810 kg of black powder and 115,000 percussion caps were used for about 10,000 firings.