Wolfenbüttel–Helmstedt railway
The railway line Wolfenbüttel - Helmstedt is a 51 -kilometer-long railway line in southeast Lower Saxony. It was created in 1843 and 1858 in two stages. It opens up the area south of the Elms and is therefore also called Südelmbahn. The main intermediate stops were Schoningen and Schoeppenstedt that were connected both via Helmstedt and Wolfenbüttel with over Brunswick. The 33 -kilometer section of Schoeppenstedt to Helmstedt was shut down on December 8, 2007. This is only the western section into operation.
The first state-owned railways in the German Confederation was opened by the Ducal Brunswick Railway on December 1, 1838 route from Braunschweig to Wolfenbüttel. She combined the two most important cities in the former Duchy of Brunswick.
On July 10, 1843 opened the route Wolfenbüttel Schoeppenstedt - Jerxheim from where was a cross connection on Gunsleben to Oschersleben for the Magdeburg- Halberstadt railway. This was until the opening of the Berlin- Lehrter Railway 1871 part of the shortest route between Hanover and Berlin.
From Jerxheim a branch line via Schoningen to Helmstedt was built, which took up the traffic on 20 July 1858. This new section was shorter and led by structurally simpler than the site in 1872 following a direct connection Helmstedt - Braunschweig king Lutter on the current railway Brunswick- Magdeburg. For node Jerxheim more routes have been performed, as the route opened on May 1, 1868 by Börßum from where was the Brunswick Southern Railway to Kreiensen. Then the Ruhr could be achieved over the train track Kreiensen - Altenbeken. This line was particularly significant in the long-distance freight transport and also took some express trains. Later addition to railways such as Jerxheim - Nienhagen ( 1890) and the Braunschweig- Schöninger Railway (1902 ) were added. The sections of Wolfenbüttel Jerxheim and between Schoningen and Helmstedt, however, had only medium importance, they were neither in 1914 nor in 1939 traveled by express trains.
With the division of Germany, the German-German border separating all branching off to the east and southeast routes; only Helmstedt -Magdeburg remained. As a result, the connection Jerxheim - Börßum lost its importance and was abandoned. This was left between the border and the ridge Elm only the main line Wolfenbüttel Jerxheim - Helmstedt. It was obtained despite moderate traffic from structural reasons; you closed the opencast lignite mines in the Helmstedt mining area and the power plant bush house on it. Between Wolfenbüttel and Schoeppenstedt it is now operated as a branch line.
After the reunification was intensively discussed the reopening of railway lines. The route Jerxheim - Dedeleben - Nienhagen as a link from Halberstadt to Helmstedt and Braunschweig were certainly has potential; However, the project was not implemented. Since the reopening of the railway line Halberstadt - Vienenburg 1996 and the closure of the railway Jerxheim - Nienhagen 2001, this reactivation is no longer pursued.
A relocation of the rail line because of the expansion of open cast mines was estimated from the Brunswick area to be too expensive; Instead, their attitude has been approved. Also between Schoeppenstedt and Schoningen the traffic was abandoned in December 2007. The money saved regionalization funds should be used to build a tram-train from Braunschweig to Schoeppenstedt ( tramtrain Braunschweig), the project was discontinued in October 2010.
By 2009, parts of the route between Helmstedt and Schoningen already been eliminated for the open pit.