The Frankfurt–Göttingen railway line is a double-track and electrified railway line in Hesse and southern Lower Saxony. The line was initially built in Bebra as a Hessian project towards Fulda and from 1866 onwards was continued as a Prussian project to Hanau and Frankfurt. The extension from Bebra to Göttingen followed later. During the division of Germany, it became part of one of the most important German north-south axes in long-distance rail freight and passenger transport, the north-south line. The line continues to have great transport importance, but since 1991 it has been relieved in sections by the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed line. Further new lines are being planned as part of the “Hanau–Würzburg/Fulda–Erfurt line expansion and new construction” project. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Details: Length of track: 110 km Track gauge: 1435 mm (standard gauge) Track class: D4 Power system: 15 kV 16.7 Hz ~ Maximum speed: 200 km/h Maximum speed with tilting technology: 200 km/h Train control: PZB ZUB 262 (Haitz-Höchst–Flieden) Double track: throughout ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History: In the middle of the 19th century, Hanau was the second largest city in the Electorate of Hesse and was only connected to the railway network via the Frankfurt East–Main Valley–Hanau line of the private Frankfurt-Hanau Railway Company. A connection to the capital Kassel only existed indirectly via the Main-Weser Railway, which crossed the Upper Hesse province of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and belonged to the three neighboring states as a condominium railway. In order to reach Hanau via Electorate of Hesse, a railway line was to be built from the town of Bebra, which could be reached from Kassel via the Friedrich Wilhelms Northern Railway Company line, via Fulda to Hanau. By resolution of the Electorate of Hesse's Estates Assembly on March 19, 1863, the Electorate of Hesse's State Railway was commissioned to build the line. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Construction: The first section between Bebra and Hersfeld was opened on January 22, 1866. After the annexation of the Electorate by Prussia due to the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the project was taken over by Prussia and construction began on the southern section as well. In order not to leave the territory of the Electorate of Hesse, the railway between Hersfeld and Fulda followed the valley of the Haune and not that of the Fulda, which belonged to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. In return, a winding route was accepted. 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 extended to Frankfurt and had also refused to allow the Frankfurt-Hanauer Railway Company to use the Frankfurt East–Hanau–Aschaffenburg line, even though it ran through the territory of the Electorate of Hesse. After Prussia had annexed Frankfurt in the Peace of Prague, trains from Bebra could now travel to Hanau station in Frankfurt. However, since this was in the east of Frankfurt and thus far away from the Frankfurt West stations and the railway lines ending there, from 1869 onwards the trains were connected to the Main-Neckar station via the municipal connecting railway. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- continuation to Frankfurt The north Main connection via the Frankfurt-Hanauer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft line had several disadvantages. It meant a detour and bypassed the city of Offenbach am Main, not least because the capacity of the municipal connecting railway was limited. There were plans for a south Main line that would meet the Frankfurt-Offenbach local railway in Offenbach. However, the local railway's track systems were not designed for the conditions of long-distance rail traffic, so a new long-distance railway line was built on an embankment, which bypassed the inner cities of Sachsenhausen and Offenbach to the south. The planned route ran through the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The construction of the railway line in this section was therefore based on a state treaty of 12 June 1868. This state treaty stipulated, among other things, in Article 21: that “all scheduled trains carrying passengers must also stop at the Offenbach station” and “at least three trains in each direction should stop daily at all stops for Steinheim and Mühlheim to provide passenger transport to and from the other stations on the Hanau-Frankfurt Railway and, where possible, also from and to the connecting lines.”[10] In Hanau, due to the constraint imposed by the crossing of the Main, the line could not be routed through the then Hanau station (today: Hanau West). Instead, Hanau Ost station (today: Hanau Hbf) was built a little further southeast, at the point where the Frankfurt-Bebra Railway crosses the Frankfurt-Hanauer Railway Company’s line to Aschaffenburg. The opening of the new line was delayed until the Steinheim Main Bridge was completed. On November 15, 1873, the line was put into operation, initially as far as Bebra station (now Frankfurt (Main) South) in Sachsenhausen. In 1874, the new railway was placed under the control of the Royal Directorate of the Bebra-Hanauer Railway, which was moved from Kassel to Frankfurt and was called the Royal Railway Directorate of Frankfurt am Main from April 1, 1874. On November 15, 1874, the name Bebra-Hanauer Railway was replaced by the Frankfurt-Bebra Railway. It took until December 1, 1875, before the Frankfurt Main-Neckar station could be reached from Sachsenhausen. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Development up to the Second World War: To connect to the new Frankfurt Central Station (now the main station), a new route had to be built from Sachsenhausen, running about one kilometer further southwest. For this purpose, the new Main-Neckar bridge was built from 1881 and opened on August 1, 1885, initially only for freight traffic. After the closure of the Frankfurt West stations and the opening of the Central Station on August 18, 1888, the old route 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 now-disused marshalling yard was built, and the Göttingen-Bodenfelde railway line was connected. The railway to Bebra also received a new route from Göttingen to Rosdorf west of the Leineberg. Previously, the line separated from the Hanover-Kassel railway line at Göttingen station east of the Leine and ran almost straight south towards Rosdorf, hence the "railway road" in the Leineviertel. Sketch of the replacement of the Elm hairpin bend with the Schlüchtern tunnel, 1911 The topographical problem was overcoming the ridge between Flieden and Schlüchtern. With the technical means available at the time the railway was built, a tunnel almost 4 km long was initially too complex and expensive. Instead, a hairpin bend was set up - with Elm as the hairpin bend station. Here, all through trains had to change direction, which became increasingly unacceptable with increasing traffic volumes and the connection of the Fulda-Main railway in Elm in 1873. The technology for building longer tunnels was significantly improved at the beginning of the 20th century, particularly thanks to the dynamite that was now available. In 1909, construction began on the Schlüchtern tunnel under the Distelrasen, which was completed on February 14, 1914 and went into operation on May 1. In 1914, a connecting curve was opened south of Bebra, allowing journeys from Frankfurt to Leipzig to Berlin without changing direction in Bebra, hence the name "Berlin curve". The regional traffic volume in the sparsely populated region north of Fulda was low. The branch lines that branched off did little to change this. The Knüllwaldbahn began in Bad Hersfeld in 1906, a remaining section of which is still used for freight transport. The Hersfelder Kreisbahn also branched off from there from 1912 to 1993. In Hünfeld there was a connection via Eiterfeld to Vacha, and from Götzenhof you could travel through the northern Rhön to Hilders from 1889 to 1986. In 1939, four express train pairs ran between Göttingen and Bebra, while the neighboring Main-Weser-Bahn Kassel–Frankfurt am Main had twelve. During the Second World War, the strategically important route was the target of air raids by the Allies, for example on December 4, 1944 near Schlüchtern and Gelnhausen ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After German reunification: In 1990, the interrupted Halle–Hann. Münden railway line was reopened east of Eichenberg. In 1998, a connecting curve was built northeast of Eichenberg, which enables direct journeys from Göttingen to Heiligenstadt. It thus takes over the function that the Arenshausen–Friedland railway line, which was abandoned in 1884, had. On February 2, 1995, the scheduled use of double-decker carriages on the line between Hanau and Fulda began, half of which was financed by Deutsche Bahn and half by the state of Hesse (from funds from the Municipal Transport Financing Act). With the possibility of overtaking regional trains “on the fly” during the journey, made it possible to avoid long waiting times in the stations by setting up track switching operations. The travel time on the 55-kilometer-long Wächtersbach–Frankfurt route was reduced by up to 18 minutes. The New Schlüchtern Tunnel was built in 2007. This initially went into operation with two tracks in April 2011. The old tube was then renovated. At the beginning of 2014, the old tunnel went back into operation (single track). The second tube was reduced to one track by June 2014; since then, one track has been available in each direction. The permitted speed in this section was increased from 110 km/h to 140 km/h to 160 km/h as part of the renovation. Federal Motorway 66 construction site in the area of Neuhof station (2010) As part of the construction of the Federal Motorway 66 Neuhof–Eichenzell, the route in the Neuhof area was rerouted on a 3.3 kilometer long section and combined with the motorway. The permitted speed was increased from 130 km/h to 160 km/h. The planned investment was 56 million euros. Commissioning took place gradually until the end of 2011. A regional train from Wächtersbach to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf stops unscheduled on track 3 of Niedermittlau station. In the background, the bridge of the bypass road from Gründau to Niedermittlau can be seen. Besides the Bebenroth tunnel, a 1030 meter long new tunnel was drilled between 2010 and 2013 and the existing tunnel was renovated. Since then, both tubes have only contained one track. The Fulda-Bebra section was upgraded for the use of the eddy current brake (ICE 3) as part of the Fulda-Erfurt axis. In December 2015, a bridge was built over the railway line in Niedermittlau, replacing the previous level crossing. In 2018, DB Netz built electronic signal boxes (ESTW) in Bad Hersfeld and Haunetal-Neukirchen. On March 25, 2019, the Haunetal electronic interlocking system, with a control station in Bad Hersfeld, went into operation. It controls a section of around 25 km between Mecklar and Burghaun. In July 2020, the Federal Railway Authority approved an electronic interlocking system in Wirtheim. On April 9, 2021, an electronic interlocking system in Flieden was put into operation. At the end of December 2019, the Gelnhausen flood bridge was renewed and auxiliary bridges that had been used for several years were removed. Gelnhausen station could thus be used again at 160 km/h. The auxiliary bridges could be used at 90 km/h. On March 28, 2019, the Lower Saxony State Local Transport Company and the DB agreed to convert Rosdorf station back into a passenger station. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Train control: A 16-kilometer-long section between Hanau and Gelnhausen (route kilometers 24.8–40.3) is equipped with scheduled train control, has three tracks and can be used at speeds of up to 200 km/h. In the rest of the area, the route is double-tracked and can be used at speeds of up to 160 km/h. Between Frankfurt Hbf and Hanau Hbf and between Haitz-Höchst and Flieden, the route is also equipped with ZUB 262, as there are bends in the area of Wirtheim, Wächtersbach and between Bad Soden-Salmünster and Flieden that can sometimes only be used at a maximum of 130 km/h (between Bad Soden-Salmünster and Schlüchtern even only at 110 km/h). The introduction of the ICE T on line 50 should reduce the travel time. Curved driving (tilting technology) was not used for several years after technical problems with the vehicles. From the end of 2022, all trains on line 50 are to be GNT-capable again, but the travel time savings from tilting technology only serve to reduce delays and are not included in the regular timetable. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Offenbach main station: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schlüchtern: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fulda main station: I know that this route is in Train Sim World. But since I don't have it and some Train Simulator Classic don't either, we Train Simulator Classic fans would be very happy to get this route for Train Simulator Classic. Because we Train Simulator fans just feel neglected right now, except that it was worked on in Train Simulator Classic. And why are you letting us down at the moment? I mean, there is Salzburg - Rosenheim for the TSC too and you have built it twice, but you don't build it for the TSC fans the other way round? I think that's a real shame. Because we TSC fans have Frankfurt - Koblenz with the S8 or S9 for example and if we can now build the same route again for the TSC, we could continue the S8 to Hanau. That's why I just don't understand it. Nevertheless, I would be very happy if we could get this route for Train Simulator Classic 2024. Best regards BR430
