Gotha station is the main station of Gotha in the German state of Thuringia. It is served by InterCity trains and every two hours by Intercity-Express trains on the

Thuringian Railway Thuringian is an East Central German dialect group spoken in much of the modern German Free State of Thuringia north of the Rennsteig ridge, southwestern Saxony-Anhalt and adjacent territories of Hesse and Bavaria. It is close to Upper Saxon sp ...

. Services on the Gotha–Leinefelde line to the north also serve the station. Passenger services on the Ohra Valley Railway (''Ohratalbahn'') to the south ended in December 2011.

History

Gotha station was built in 1847, when the local section of the Thuringian line was completed between

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hall ...

and Bebra. Gotha was at this time the provincial capital of Saxe-Gotha and already had 15,000 inhabitants. Accordingly, the station was built in a neoclassical style. In 1870 the second line was built from Gotha, running via

Mühlhausen Mühlhausen () is a city in the north-west of Thuringia, Germany, north of Niederdorla, the country's geographical centre, north-west of Erfurt, east of Kassel and south-east of Göttingen. Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967 and bec ...

to Leinefelde (continuing to Göttingen). The third and last line connecting to Gotha station was the Ohra Valley Railway opened in 1876 to Ohrdruf and to the line to Würzburg at

Gräfenroda Gräfenroda is a village and a former municipality in the Ilm-Kreis district, in Thuringia, Germany. Since 1 January 2019, it is part of the municipality Geratal. It was the administrative seat of the former ''Verwaltungsgemeinschaft'' Oberes Ger ...

in 1892. In 1894 the Gotha tramway was opened. The station was the junction of several tram lines. In 1929, the Thuringian Forest Railway (''Thüringerwaldbahn''), an overland interurban tramway was opened from Gotha station, running across the city tramlines and continuing to

Bad Tabarz Bad Tabarz is a municipality in the district of Gotha, in Thuringia, Germany. It is a winter sports resort and the terminus of the Thüringerwaldbahn rural tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle ...

via Waltershausen and Friedrichroda. In the Second World War the central section and west wing of the station were destroyed in air strikes; the east wing and the entrance area survived. Some of it still has not been repaired. In 2007, the station forecourt was completely restructured and the stop on the Thuringian Forest Railway was relocated.

Services

The following services stopped at Gotha station in 2019. Long distance: Regional services: * Regional-Express 1 Göttingen– Leinefelde–

–''Gotha''–Erfurt– Jena– Gera–

Chemnitz Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt , ) is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the 28th largest city of Germany as well as the fourth largest city in the area of former East Germany a ...

/ Zwickau ( Gotha–Leinefelde railway) * Regionalbahn (RB) 20 Eisenach–Gotha–Erfurt–Weimar–

Naumburg Naumburg () is a town in (and the administrative capital of) the district Burgenlandkreis, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany. It has a population of around 33,000. The Naumburg Cathedral became a UNES ...

– Weißenfels–Halle *Between Eisenach and Gotha and between Erfurt and Gotha, shuttle service 22A runs daily from Monday to Friday, so that the Gotha has a service every half-hour clock during the main traffic period to its two major neighbouring cities * RB 53 ''Gotha''– Bad Langensalza * From the forecourt, the Thuringian Forest Railway ( interurban tramway to Waltershausen)

References

{{Authority control Railway stations in Gotha

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

Buildings and structures in Gotha (district) Railway stations in Germany opened in 1847