These two stations were barely 100 metres apart from each other and were connected by a railway line, but treaties prevented unrestricted rail operations.

Gerstungen acquired a special operational importance in 1898 with the opening of the main marshalling yard between Kassel and Weißenfels.

In the 1950s, the bordering places near Eisenach had a favourable location for people assisting escapes from East Germany.

On 13 April 1962, a line from Förtha to Gerstungen was inaugurated, which bypassed the West German territory around Herleshausen.

Between 1963 and 1978, a pair of freight train operated on the old line every day, serving the supply of fuel and industrial goods to the border regions.

A special feature was the potassium trains, which came from Philippsthal and Heringen area in Hesse and, in the absence of a direct link to the rest of the Deutsche Bundesbahn’s network, ran over the Gerstungen–Vacha railway and to Gerstungen in the DDR and reversed in the station before heading back towards Bebra in the Federal Republic.

In older Deutsche Reichsbahn foreign travel guides, this fact was pointed out specifically,[8] but in later years the stop at the station was no longer shown.

[11] After the fall of the Wall, Gerstungen gradually lost its function as a border control station.

The express trains in Gerstungen were allowed to enter and exit and rail services across the border increased significantly.

On 3 March 1990, Willy Brandt travelled to Thuringia on the D 455 and spoke in front of numerous inhabitants while changing trains at Gerstungen station.

In 1991, Deutsche Bundesbahn extended their regional services from Bebra, which had previously ended in Hessian Obersuhl, to Gerstungen.

The traditional route of the Thuringian Railway via Wartha was reopened on 25 May 1991 after 13 years of being closed, initially as a single-line operation.

On 19 July 1994, the Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahn-Bundesamt) approved the closure of the line, which was dismantled in the following years.

The demolition of the locomotive depot and the border station began in May 2012 to create space for a solar farm.