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The Coburg–Sonnenberg railway is a single-track, electrified, 20 kilometre-long main line railway from Coburg

Coburg

Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920...

 in the German state of Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 via Neustadt

Neustadt bei Coburg

Neustadt bei Coburg is a town in the district of Coburg in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 15 km northeast of Coburg, as its name indicates.-Local sudivisions:...

 to Sonnenberg

Sonnenberg

Sonnenberg is a municipality in the Oberhavel district, in Brandenburg, Germany....

 in Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. It was opened in 1858 and is one of the oldest railways in Germany.

History

In 1841 the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

The Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was created in 1809 by the merger of the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach. It was raised to a Grand duchy in 1815 by resolution of the Vienna Congress. In 1877, it officially changed its name to the Grand Duchy of Saxony , but this name was...

 and the duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha served as the collective name of two duchies, Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, in Germany. They were located in what today are the states of Bavaria and Thuringia, respectively, and the two were in personal union between 1826 and 1918...

 and Saxe-Meiningen

Saxe-Meiningen

The Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin dynasty, located in the southwest of the present-day German state of Thuringia....

 signed a treaty to establish a railway from Eisenach to Coburg. This also covered the construction of a line from Coburg to Sonnenberg, connecting Sonnenberg with the city of Meiningen

Meiningen

Meiningen is a town in Germany - located in the southern part of the state of Thuringia and is the district seat of Schmalkalden-Meiningen. It is situated on the river Werra....

 and south to Bavaria.
in 1855 the newly formed Werra Railway Company (Werra-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) received a concession to build and operate the line and on 1 November 1858 the Werra Railway was opened. 28 years later, on 1 October 1886, a 19.2 km long extension was opened from Sonnenberg to Lauscha

Lauscha

Lauscha is a town in the district of Sonneberg, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 13 km north of Sonneberg, and 24 km southwest of Saalfeld. It became known for its glassblowing.-Geography:...

.

On 1 October 1895, the Werra-Railway Company, including this line, was acquired by the Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n government and it was administered by the railway administration

Railway divisions in Germany

In Germany and Austria, the running of railway services for a railway administration or the regional network of a large railway company was devolved to railway divisions, variously known as Eisenbahndirektionen , Bundesbahndirektionen or Reichsbahndirektionen ...

 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn

Deutsche Reichsbahn

Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

 in Erfurt

Erfurt

Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...

 until 1945. The timetable of the German State Railway (Deutsche Reichsbahn

Deutsche Reichsbahn

Deutsche Reichsbahn was the name of the following two companies:* Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German Imperial Railways during the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the immediate aftermath...

) in 1939 included 14 daily passenger trains and an express train in each direction with a running time on the line of 20 minutes for the expresses.

After the occupation by Thuringia by Soviet troops

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 in July 1945, operations between Sonnenberg and Neustadt were interrupted. In 1 September 1947, freight services resumed over the Inner German Border, with a break during the Berlin Blockade

Berlin Blockade

The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War and the first resulting in casualties. During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway and road access to the sectors of Berlin under Allied...

. Two pairs of freight trains each day had been approved by the occupying powers for the transport of coke from Neustadt to Sonnenberg, but traffic was small and irregular. On 30 September 1951 the last run took place, which was followed by the dismantling of the tracks in the spring of 1952.
The Coburg–Neustadt section was electrified in 1975 with a financial subsidy from the State of Bavaria. This allowed the avoiding of a locomotive change to a class 86 steam locomotive

DRG Class 86

The DRG Class 86 was a standard goods train tank locomotive with the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft. It was intended for duties on branch lines and was delivered by almost all the locomotive building firms working for the Reichsbahn...

 or a class 280 diesel locomotive in Coburg. Instead the class 144 electric locomotives continued to Neustadt. In 1979, Oeslau station was renamed Rödental

Rödental

Rödental is a town in the district of Coburg, in northern Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 7 km northeast of Coburg.-See also:*Schloss Rosenau, CoburgRödental was the name given to a group of towns that were united in the 1960s under the Rödental name...

 station and a new station building was opened. A year later rail operation on weekends were abandoned.

After the fall of the Inner German Border the line through the gap between Neustadt and Sonnenberg was immediately reinstated. Some of the land had to be bought back as only a few years earlier part of the line had been sold to the Bavarian forest service. On 28 September 1991, the line, including the 3.5 km section to Sonneberg, was electrified and returned to service.

From 2004 to 2006, DB Station&Service

DB Station&Service

DB Station&Service is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG, responsible for managing over 5,000 stations on the German railway network....

 rehabilitated platforms along the line (at Neustadt, Mönchröden and Rödental stations) and adapted them for disabled people. In addition, the new halts of Coburg Nord and Rödental Mitte were built and put into operation on 11 December 2005.

Operations

Regionalbahn

RegionalBahn

The Regionalbahn is a type of local passenger train in Germany.-Service:Regionalbahn trains usually call at all stations on a given line, with the exception of RB trains within S-Bahn networks, these may only call at selected stations...

 services run on the line every two hours, alternating with Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

 Regional-Express trains (route number 820). The latter usually run via Bamberg

Bamberg

Bamberg is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in Upper Franconia on the river Regnitz, close to its confluence with the river Main. Bamberg is one of the few cities in Germany that was not destroyed by World War II bombings because of a nearby Artillery Factory that prevented planes from...

 to Nuremberg

Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof

Nuremberg Central Station is the main railway station for the city of Nuremberg in Germany. It is the largest station in north Bavaria and belongs to the 20 stations in the highest category of importance allocated by DB Station&Service....

, while the Regionalbahn services mostly end in Lichtenfels

Lichtenfels station

Lichtenfels station is in the town of Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia in the German state of Bavaria. It is a regional rail hub and an ICE stop on the Hamburg–Berlin Munich route and is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a station of category 3.-Location :...

. On week days, twenty pairs of services operate between 4:30 AM and 22 PM, usually requiring 22 minutes for the route, stopping at all stations. The Regional-Express and Regionalbahn services together provide services at approximately hourly intervals. The regional express trains consist of double-deck carriages hauled by class 111

DB Class 111

The Baureihe 111 is a class of electric locomotives built for the Deutsche Bundesbahn, and now owned by Deutsche Bahn AG.- History :Class 111 is the successor of the Class 110 express Einheitslokomotive...

 and 146

DBAG Class 145 and 146

The DBAG Class 145 and DBAG Class 146 are Bo'Bo' mainline electric locomotives built by Adtranz primarily for the Deutsche Bahn at the end of the 1990s. The Class 145 is the freight version for DB Cargo; the Class 146 is the passenger version for DB Regio...

 locomotives. The Regionalbahn services running during the week are hauled by class 143

DR Class 243

The DR Class 243 is a universal electric locomotive of the Deutsche Reichsbahn which is used for general rail service. Deutsche Bahn lists the locomotive as Class 143. The locomotives of class 143/243 still belong to the most successful class of German electric locomotives.- Development :Since...

 locomotives; on weekends they are operated by class 642 (Siemens Desiro) diesel multiple unit

Diesel multiple unit

A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple unit train consisting of multiple carriages powered by one or more on-board diesel engines. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railmotor, depending on country.-Design:...

s.

Scheduled freight traffic has been re-established. When required, IntEgro Verkehr GmbH operates container trains from Monday to Fridays from Hof to Sonnenberg Ost and return.