Mid-Germany Railway

The central element of this link connects Chemnitz and Glauchau in the east via Gera and Jena to Weimar in the west.

It is part of a possible direct rail connection from the Ruhr and Frankfurt am Main via Eisenach, Erfurt, Weimar, Jena West, Jena-Göschwitz, Gera, Gößnitz, Werdau, Zwickau, Chemnitz as far as Dresden and offers an alternative route to the route currently used by long-distance traffic from Erfurt to Dresden via Leipzig.

It also formed an important connection with the Elster Valley Railway between Bohemia and western Germany.

Until May 1995, diesel locomotives ran from Erfurt to Bebra, as the electrification of the Neudietendorf–Bebra section of the Thuringian Railway was still not complete.

The first stage consists of upgrading the line to allow tilting trains to run at 140 km / h and the installation of electronic interlocking.

The single-track sections between Weimar and Großschwabhausen and between Neue Schenke and Stadtroda are due to be duplicated by 2014.

A problem for long-distance connections is that Intercity-Express (ICE) services on the Munich–Nuremberg–Berlin route on the Saal Railway through the Saale valley do not stop at Jena-Göschwitz station (ICE trains stop instead at Jena Paradies), which prevents a direct transfer to services on the Mid-Germany Railway running to Chemnitz via Gera and Zwickau and to Erfurt via Weimar.