- Südharzstrecke
The Südharzstrecke (also called Südharzbahn) is a
railway route through Niedersachsen and Thuringen,Germany . It runs fromNortheim toNordhausen , viaHerzberg am Harz , Bad Lauterberg-Barbis,Bad Sachsa ,Walkenried andEllrich . The line is convert|69|km long. The distance markers begin in Northeim at convert|88.6|km|abbr=on (measured fromHannover Hbf ) and end in Nordhausen at convert|157.5|km|abbr=on.The Südharzstrecke has a
Regionalbahn passenger service provided byDeutsche Bahn . Since10 December 2006 , there has been hourly trainsGöttingen –Nordhausen and back, with interchange at Herzberg forOsterode am Harz andBraunschweig .The Südharzstrecke opened in 1868 from Northeim to Herzberg and 1869 to Nordhausen. Up to 1945, together with the
Sollingbahn and theHalle-Kasseler Eisenbahn the line provided an important freight route between theRuhr industrial area and Halle/Leipzig .At Ellrich the line crossed the former
Iron Curtain between West andEast Germany , and freight traffic continued to cross here between the two German states. From12 November 1989 , passenger services resumed. However the line was in grave need of repair – with a speed limit of convert|30|km/h|abbr=on in sections – and for some time under threat of closure. After the redevelopment of the line and stations it is now possible to operate the greater part of the route at convert|100|km/h|abbr=on.The branch to Bad Lauterberg, the former
Odertalbahn , closed to passengers on12 December 2004 . Later the Scharzfeld station closed , replaced by a new halt "Bad Lauterberg im Harz–Barbis" on11 December 2005 . This halt is distinguished by itssolar andgeothermal heating , appreciated in winter.From Herzberg to Niedersachswerfen the Südharzstrecke crosses the Südharzer Gipskarst
gypsum karst . At Tettenborn, at Sachsenstein near Walkenried and at Woffleben there are problems with sinkage: the load-carrying capacity of the soil must be regularly controlled. During the building of the Walkenrieder Tunnel the miners discovered an unstable cave, which made construction difficult. Three workers died during the tunnel construction, when several meters collapsed.In Walkenried from 1899 to 1963 there was interchange with the RailGauge|1 gauge Südharz-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft route to
Braunlage . In Ellrich there was interchange with the Kleinbahn-AG Ellrich-Zorge narrow gauge route to Zorge.In Zorge, near Walkenried, the Staatliche Maschinenfabrik in Zorge built wagons and locomotives from 1836 to 1879.
Literature
* Manfred Dittman: "Vor 150 Jahren – Lokomotiven aus dem Harz. Vom Lokomotiv- und Tenderbau in Zorge 1842–1851." Clausthal-Zellerfeld 1992
* Joseph Högemann: "Eisenbahn Altenbeken–Nordhausen. Geschichte eines Ost-West-Schienenstrangs." Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn 1991External links
* [http://www.suedharzstrecke.de/ suedharzstrecke.de] de icon
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