Bebra–Baunatal-Guntershausen railway

The railway line Bebra - Baunatal - Guntershausen is a two-track, electrified main line in Hesse, which was originally built and operated as part of the Friedrich- Wilhelms- Northern Railway. It runs from Bebra to Baunatal - Guntershausen. The track was one of the first railway lines in Hesse-Cassel.

Location

The Friedrich- Wilhelms- Northern Railway was built by the Friedrich- Wilhelms- North Railroad Company as part of the continuous east-west rail link between Westphalia and Halle an der Saale. In Kassel, she joined the Carl railway to the north, was of the turn in Hümme the continuation towards Warburg and Westphalia. In Gerstungen the connection to the Thuringian Railway Company was established in Warburg railway Hamm- Warburg of the Royal Westphalian Railway Company.

Formation

The states of Saxony -Weimar- Eisenach, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prussia and Hesse-Cassel negotiated since 1840, this east-west connection. Between Gerstungen the east of the electorate and Haueda on the border of Westphalia the route via Bebra and the former capital Kassel should lead by Kurhessisches area. In the autumn of 1841, negotiations were completed. 1844 was awarded the Friedrich- Wilhelms- North Railroad Company the concession to track construction on kurhessischem territory.

Designation

The Friedrich- Wilhelms- Northern Railway in 1853 renamed the Elector Friedrich -Wilhelms- North train and after the annexation of Electoral Hesse by Prussia as a result of the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 in Hessian Northern Railway.

When Friedrich -Wilhelms- North train not only the route described here is called, but the name is also for the overall link between Warburg and Gerstungen. This is due to that was initially part of the electorate considered the most important compound, namely between the capital and the Weser Port Charles harbor, the railway and Carl completed a priority. The two branches of the route Friedrich -Wilhelms- Northern Railway and the compound of Westphalia were "attached".

In terms of the traffic importance but it soon turned out that the expected in Karl port traffic did not materialize, but very soon shifted resulting from the Weser to the mid-19th century rail network. The train to Port Charles was ere long to a distance of only local importance. This meant that the name Carl Bahn limited to the spur track Hümme -Karl port, the name of Friedrich- Wilhelms- Northern Railway but was transferred to the entire distance between Warburg and Gerstungen.

Thus, the Friedrich- Wilhelms- North train was from Kurhessischer perspective first attempt to open up North and Oberhessen with remote paths to the Main Line. Only the western branch has been completed with the Main- Weser Railway in Kurhessischer time. The eastern branch over Bebra, Fulda to Hanau (Frankfurt- Bebra railway) - all Hessian cities and thus for the electorate of the highest priority - came because of there difficult for railway construction topography is not so fast and were only completed in the Prussian era.

Construction

On July 1, 1845, they celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the Friedrich -Wilhelms- Northern Railway, since 29 December 1849, the entire route was navigable throughout. She graduated in Guntershausen to the Main -Weser -Bahn, in Kassel to a year earlier opened Carl web. Between Guntershausen and Bebra it follows the Fulda valley.

Route launch:

• Bebra - times -field Guxhagen on August 29, 1848
• Gerstungen - Bebra on September 25, 1849
• Guxhagen Baunatal on September 25, 1849
• Guntershausen - Kassel on December 29, 1849 ( Main- Weser -Bahn )

The track is now part of the mid - Germany connection and is traversed with several IC trains.

Planned expansion

The project is an expansion route Dortmund -Kassel to which the route belongs, was not originally included in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 1985. In the wake of German reunification, the importance of the route rose as an east -west tangent. With the distance the Ruhr should be connected to the new lines Hannover- Würzburg and Hannover- Berlin.

An expert report was initially result in an annual deficit of the expansion variant of DM 2 million in the late 1980s. The former German Federal Railroad reduced as a result, the planned investment volume for the expansion of 1.7 billion to 690 million D-Mark. In February 1989, the Federal Transport Minister Jürgen Warnke secured the extension to full length. The business plans of the Federal Railroad in 1989 contained an amount of 10 million marks for extension work between Dortmund and Paderborn.

The track has been fitted between Kassel- Bebra height and with a GNT system based on ZUB 262.