Ludwigsstadt–Lehesten railway

The railway Ludwig city - Lehesten was a town in the Upper Franconian Ludwig branching from the Franconian Forest Railway branch line into südthüringische Lehesten. She was decommissioned in 1971.

Two months after the completion of the Franconian Forest Railway was opened, the 7.6 km long secondary path of Louis City to Lehesten in 1885. In particular, the quarries in Lehesten, which produced 646 226 quintals roof and house slate as well as slates in 1880, were interested in the rail connection. For the distance a treaty between the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Duchy of Saxe -Meiningen was necessary, which was closed on 16 June 1884. The majority of the funding ( 0.515 million dollars) was paid by Sachsen- Meiningen, the construction and operation of the branch line was carried out by the Bavarian State Railways. Construction began in September 1884, the opening of the route was finished on 1 December 1885.

The railway line branches in Ludwigsburg city south of the Trogenbach bridge to the east of the Franconian Forest Railway from and follows the course of Loquitz and floodplain. 5.3 km and 2.3 km are in Bavaria in Thuringia area. As a major engineering structures in the Haßbachviadukt Louis city, the Loquitzviadukt on the border of Bavaria / Thuringia and a flyover in Thuringia were necessary.

By 1945, frequented the rule daily four pairs with journey times of around 25 minutes. In freight transport, the route developed for the important connection for the transport of slate. During the Second World War, the route has been used since 1943 to provide the location at Lehesten subcamp Laura with methyl alcohol as fuel for there assembled and tested engines of the V2 rockets. The transportation of prisoners to and from the concentration camps Bergen- Belsen and Buchenwald was over the train track.

Since, according to the occupation of Thuringia by Soviet troops on 3 July 1945, the inner German border in accordance with the old borders crossed the line route, the trains were stopped. It was only on 17 June 1947, the freight train traffic was recorded with a Regelzugpaar and a Bedarfszugpaar as transit goods between Probstzella and Lehesten again. On 12 July 1951, the transit was finally stopped, until May 28, 1952 the dismantling of the line in Thuringia.

On the stretch in Bavaria was officially shutdown on March 1, 1971. Until the early 1960s, here a goods transport connection has been carried out to a quarry at kilometer 2.8. The via the federal highway 85 leading Haßbachviadukt was blown up due to the planned expansion of the national highway on April 2, 1973.