The Breitengüßbach–Dietersdorf railway was a single-tracked

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industri ...

in the province of

Upper Franconia Upper Franconia (german: Oberfranken) is a ''Regierungsbezirk'' (administrative 'Regierungs''region 'bezirk'' of the state of Bavaria, southern Germany. It forms part of the historically significant region of Franconia, the others being Middle F ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

, southern

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It branched off from the main line from Bamberg to Hof, northeast of Breitengüßbach station, only a few hundred yards after the branch line to Ebern–Maroldsweisach, and headed north into the lower reaches of the

Itz The Itz is a river of Thuringia and Bavaria, Germany. The Itz is long and a right tributary of the Main. The Itz begins in Sachsenbrunn (Stelzen), Thuringia and flows southward through Bachfeld and Schalkau. It crosses into Bavaria and feeds ...

valley. The line was taken into service on 1 October 1913. For the first 20 kilometres it followed the course of the Itz to Kaltenbrunn. From there it ran into the Alster and Rodach valleys towards Seßlach and Dietersdorf.

History

The line was taken into service on 1 October 1913. A link line to the '' Itzgrundbahn'', which terminated at Rossach only 6.7 kilometres from Kaltenbrunn, was considered but it was never implemented. The reasons were, on the one hand that the existing, but somewhat longer main line from Bamberg via Lichtenfels to Hof, which was also just a few kilometres away, ran almost parallel to it and wanted no competition. On the other hand, the ''Itzgrundbahn'' ran through the Duchy of Coburg but the line to Dietersdorf was in Bavarian territory. After the annexation of

Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...

by Bavaria, the gap in the network foundered due to costs.
A link to Thuringian Lindenau, also only six kilometres from Dietersdorf, where the narrow gauge railway from

Hildburghausen Hildburghausen (IPA adapted from: ) is a town in Thuringia in central Germany, capital of the district Hildburghausen. Geography It is situated in the Franconian part of Thuringia south of the Thuringian Forest, in the valley of the Werra river ...

ended, also failed to materialise. The journey time for the four pairs of passenger trains in 1970 was an hour. Passenger services were withdrawn on 28 September 1975; on 27 September 1981 the line was closed completely. Between August 1982 and March 1983 the line was completely dismantled and much of it nowadays is a cycle path.Bahntrassenradeln
Seßlach - Kaltenbrunn - Rattelsdorf
(in German)

Sources

* Wolfgang Bleiweis, Stefan Goldschmidt und Bernd Schmitt: ''Eisenbahn im Coburger Land''. Resch Druck, Coburg 1996, * Stefan Goldschmidt, Thomas Standke: ''Lokalbahn Breitengüßbach - Dietersdorf''. Eisenbahn-Fachbuch-Verlag, 2013,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breitengussbach-Dietersdorf railway Branch lines in Bavaria

History

See also

Sources

References