From there the railway descends again until it reaches the Goldene Aue near Sangerhausen, a plain between the Harz mountains and the Kyffhäuser hills.

The main station is a terminus with its approach from the west; as a result the line has to loop around the northern part of the city.

While Kassel was the goal, the continuation of the line remained controversial, especially the best route through the Werra and Fulda valleys running through the Kingdom of Hanover.

In 1869, the railway company opened a connection from Arenshausen via Eichenberg, Witzenhausen Nord (above the city and on the other side of the Werra) and Hedemünden to Hann.

The development of the Halle–Kassel line was motivated not only by militarily considerations but also as a means of putting pressure on the Thuringian Railway, leading to its nationalisation between 1882 and 1886.

Together, the South Harz, the Solling and the Altenbeken–Kreiensen lines created a major east-west freight route between Nordhausen and Halle.

[3] Near the southern Harz, the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp was established to the northwest of Nordhausen in 1943; it was attached to vast underground weapons factories.

The construction of this Helme Valley Railway (Helmetalbahn) cost the life of several hundred forced labourers.

[4] In the last years of the war the line was overloaded with armaments and military traffic, but also with trains carrying prisoners.

The last train crossed the future border on 24 July 1945, when U.S. troops handed Thuringia over to the Red Army.

In subsequent years, released prisoners of war and "displaced persons" took the train to Arenshausen, from where they had to walk to the local border transit camp at Friedland.

Potash mining and the newly formed cement industry in Deuna led to the duplication of the line at Sollstedt in 1979.

Until the opening of the Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway, the western section of the Halle-Kassel line was served by shuttle trains running between Kassel and an interchange at Göttingen station, while intercity services trains took the direct route from Bebra to Göttingen, bypassing Kassel.

The community of Fuldatal ultimately succeeded after years of litigation with Deutsche Bundesbahn in having their station re-opened.

The infrastructure was consistently in place on 3 May 1990, trains were able to run on 26 May and on 30 June passport and customs controls were established.

The electrification between Halle and Bernterode West junction was part of a project started by the East German railways in January 1989, which was completed and continued to Eichenberg.

In parallel, the South Harz Autobahn was built for €1.4 billion, crossing the railway line five times between Bleicherode and Wallhausen.

In 1998, a connection curve was opened to the northeast of Eichenberg, allowing trains to run directly between Erfurt/Halle and Göttingen.

In 2003 Interconnex (a subsidiary of Veolia Verkehr) operated a service on the Rostock–Berlin–Halle–Kassel–Cologne and Neuss route, but only for a few months.

In the public transport plan of Saxony-Anhalt, an upgrade of this line to 140 km/h is required and the state hopes to improve facilities for freight traffic.

Since the timetable change on 13 December 2009, the Intercity service, Kyffhäuser, runs on Friday from Frankfurt via Halle to Leipzig, returning on Sunday.

The Halle–Nordhausen line is operated by an hourly Regionalbahn service, called the Kupfer-Express (copper express) in commemoration of the region’s mining tradition.

Thus, the division of labour that prevailed before 1945 has been restored on the main routes between the Harz and the Thuringian Forest: freight trains run via Sangerhausen and Nordhausen, while fast passenger services run via Bebra and Erfurt (the Thuringian Railway).