Gößnitz station is a railway station on the

Leipzig–Hof railway The Leipzig–Hof railway is a two-track main line in the German states of Saxony, Thuringia and Bavaria, originally built and operated by the Saxon-Bavarian Railway Company. It runs from Leipzig through Altenburg, the Werdau wye junction, Reiche ...

, the

Glauchau–Gößnitz railway The Glauchau–Gößnitz railway is a single-track electrified main line railway in the German states of Saxony and Thuringia. It was originally built and operated with the support of the Saxon government and eventually became part of the Royal Sa ...

and the Gößnitz–Gera (

Mid-Germany Railway The Mid-Germany Railway (german: Mitte-Deutschland-Verbindung) is a rail link between German states of Thuringia and Saxony. The central element of this link connects Chemnitz and Glauchau in the east via Gera and Jena to Weimar in the west. It i ...

) in

Gößnitz Gößnitz () is a town in the Altenburger Land district, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated on the river Pleiße, 12 km south of Altenburg, and 20 km northwest of Zwickau Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), th ...

in the German state of

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

. The station was opened on 15 March 1844 with the

Altenburg Altenburg () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located south of Leipzig, west of Dresden and east of Erfurt. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district and part of a polycentric old-industrial textile and metal production region betw ...

–

Crimmitschau Crimmitschau () is a town in the district of Zwickau in Saxony, Germany. Geography Crimmitschau lies on the river Pleiße in the northern foothills of the Erzgebirge. Neighboring municipalities Adjacent communities include: Zwickau, Dennherit ...

section by the Saxon-Bavarian Railway Company (''Sächsisch-Baiersche Eisenbahn-Compagnie'').

History

On 1 July 1841, work began on the construction of the Leipzig–Hof railway, the first section of which opened to

on 19 September 1842. The section to Gößnitz and

was opened to on 15 March 1844 and the rest of the line was opened on 15 July 1851. The first Gößnitz station building was a wooden building, which was replaced by a new building with the opening of the Glauchau–Gößnitz railway on 15 November 1858. The Gößnitz–Gera railway was opened on 28 December 1865. The construction of the third station building took place in 1893. In Gößnitz there was a water tower with high tanks and water cranes for steam locomotives. These facilities were no longer needed after the railway line from Leipzig to Reichenbach was electrified in 1962/63. The demolition of the water tower, the freight shed as well as the north wing of the stately heritage-listed station building in Neo-Baroque style began in 2007. Three years later demolition of the rest of the building followed. Since then, the town has been trying to find a solution because the site belongs to Deutsche Bahn and it does not see any need for further action after the demolition. In 2013, a bus loop and some parking lots were erected in front of the railway station. Gößnitz has been integrated in the network of the

S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland represents an enlargement of the previous Leipzig-Halle S-Bahn. It is an electric rail public transit system operating in the metropolitan area of Leipzig-Halle, Germany. This S-Bahn (German abbreviation for ''Stadtschnel ...

since 15 December 2013.

Platforms

Gößnitz station was built with an extra long platform to allow several trains to be run from the platform in different directions simultaneously. A sign at the station indicates that the station has the longest platform in Germany at 608 metres. It is also listed in the station register of DB Station&Service as having a construction length of 608 metres. The useful length of the platform is shown as only 435 metres. Gößnitz does not actually have the longest platform in Germany. In the stations of

Mainz Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...

(706.5 metres),

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

(667 metres),

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

(627 metres) and

Zittau Zittau ( hsb, Žitawa, dsb, Žytawa, pl, Żytawa, cs, Žitava, :de:Oberlausitzer Mundart, Upper Lusatian Dialect: ''Sitte''; from Slavic languages, Slavic "''rye''" (Upper Sorbian and Czech: ''žito'', Lower Sorbian: ''žyto'', Polish: ''żyto' ...

(347 + 287 metres) there are platforms with a larger structural length than that in Gößnitz.

Passenger services

History

Until the 2000/2001 timetable, Gößnitz was a stop for long-distance passenger traffic. The last long-distance services in Gößnitz were the Interregio 2792 ( Munich Hbf–

Leipzig Hbf Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (Leipzig main station, ) is the central railway terminus in Leipzig, Germany, in the district Mitte. At , it is Europe's largest railway station measured by floor area. It has 19 overground platforms housed in six iron train ...

) and the

D-Zug A ''Schnellzug'' is an express train in German-speaking countries, where it refers to trains that do not stop at all stations along a line. The term is used both generically and also as a specific train type. In Germany and Austria it is also ref ...

2793 (Leipzig–Munich). Gößnitz station is also an important hub for east Thuringian and west Saxon passenger services. Portions of regional trains were attached and detached in Gößnitz between December 2002 and June 2014. A portion of

Regional-Express In Germany, Luxembourg and Austria, the Regional-Express (RE, or in Austria: REX) is a type of regional train. It is similar to a semi-fast train, with average speed at about 70–90 km/h (top speed often 160 km/h) as it calls at f ...

service 1, coming from

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

, continued via

Werdau Werdau () is a town in Germany, part of the Landkreis Zwickau in Saxony. It is situated on the river Pleiße, 8 km from Zwickau. The town was mentioned as early as 1304, and in 1398 it was purchased by Frederick, then margrave of Meissen, ...

Zwickau Zwickau (; is, with around 87,500 inhabitants (2020), the fourth-largest city of Saxony after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz and it is the seat of the Zwickau District. The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ' ...

, while the other portion operated via

Meerane Meerane () is a town in the Zwickau district of Saxony, Germany. It lies midway between the towns of Altenburg and Zwickau, west of Chemnitz. As of 31 December 2015, there were 14,851 inhabitants. The population has declined from a peak of over 2 ...

Glauchau Glauchau (; hsb, Hłuchow) is a town in the German federal state of Saxony, on the right bank of the Mulde, 7 miles north of Zwickau and 17 miles west of Chemnitz by rail ( its train station is on the Dresden–Werdau line). It is part of the ...

. From December 2011, the train continued from Glauchau to

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 ...

and connected the two Saxon centres with the long-distance service node of Erfurt. The service to Zwickau was abandoned as part of the restructuring of regional services with the opening of the

City Tunnel City Tunnell may refer to: * City Tunnel (Malmö), a railway tunnel in Sweden * Cross City Tunnel, a road tunnel in Sydney, Australia * Frankfurt City Tunnel, a railway tunnel in Germany * Offenbach City Tunnel, a railway tunnel in Germany * Leipzi ...

Current

Status: summer 2016 timetable In the 2015/2016 timetable, the station is serviced by lines S5 and S5X of the

, which was put into operation in December 2013 with the opening of the City Tunnel Leipzig. The line S5 service has been running every hour since December 2015 from Halle via

Leipzig/Halle Airport Leipzig/Halle Airport (German: ''Flughafen Leipzig/Halle'') is an international airport located in Schkeuditz, Saxony, Germany and serves both Leipzig, Saxony, and Halle, Saxony-Anhalt. It is Germany's 14th largest airport by passengers and ...

, and from here continuing via Gößnitz and

. The S5 is supplemented by an hourly express service on line S5X, which starts at Leipzig/Halle Airport but does not serve all stations. Since December 2013 the S5X replaces the former

services RE 8 (Leipzig–Zwickau) and RE 16 (Leipzig–Hof/Bad Brambach) and Regionalbahn, S5 replaces the previous regional service RB 130 (Leipzig–Altenburg–Gößnitz–Zwickau/Glauchau) since then. The second important connection runs from Thuringia. A service using tilting diesel-multiple units of class 612 runs from

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

via

, Jena-Göschwitz,

Gera Gera is a city in the German state of Thuringia. With around 93,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt and Jena as well as the easternmost city of the ''Thüringer Städtekette'', an almost straight string of cit ...

and Gößnitz, continuing via

. To and from Meerane, the Regional-Express running every two hours is supplemented by the RB 37 service, operated by Erzgebirgsbahn, which connects Gößnitz and Glauchau and the two services together produces an approximately hourly service.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gossnitz station Railway stations in Thuringia Railway stations in Germany opened in 1844 Buildings and structures in Altenburger Land