The Waldheim–Rochlitz railway was a single-track branchline of about 21 km length in Saxony, connecting the towns of Waldheim and Rochlitz via Hartha and Geringswalde.

Another petition in 1872, supported by Geringswalde, Hartha, Rochlitz, and Waldheim unterstützt wurde, was also rejected, and further attempts in the following years remained without success.

With a petition dated 7 November 1887 the towns of Geringswalde, Hartha, Rochlitz, and Waldheim complained to the Second Chamber of the Saxon Parliament about the slow progress.

Site offices were established in Waldheim and Rochlitz, their first tasks were surveying work, purchase of land, provision of materials, and hiring of workers.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held on 27 October 1891 on the site of the bridge across Zwickauer Mulde, the largest engineering structure on the line.

Work in Geringswalde (where 96,000 m3 of earth had to be moved to level the ground for the station) and Hartha started in August 1892, and in Waldheim in November 1892.

There, the expansion of the station in 1888, together with the removal of rock on its north-western edge, had created favourable conditions for further construction work.

After two postponements, the line was opened with a delay of almost half a year on 6 December 1893 with a special train,[6] the stagecoach route between Geringswalde and Rochlitz having ceased operation before.

At this time, the timetable arrangements were found unsatisfactory by the travelling public who requested through trains between Waldheim and Narsdorf as well as better connections, and considered the passenger rolling stock to be outdated.

Beginning in 1987, the section between Waldheim and Döhlen was overhauled and strengthened for an axle load of 21 t. This required the replacement of almost all bridges.

These works were caused by the construction of a combined heat and power station in Döhlen, which was to serve the town of Rochltz, and which was to be supplied with lignite from surface mines in Lusatia.

Special trains ran on occasion of the country festival Tag der Sachsen 1995 in Rochlitz region, some of which continued via Waldheim to Riesa.

[15] Deutsche Bahn offered in late 2011 to sell the grounds of the line in order to facilitate the construction of a bike path.

[19] From Hartha station at the southern edge of the town the line turned left in a southwestern direction and passed the forest Fröhne, where it traversed the watershed between Zschopau und Zwickauer Mulde.

Passing a pond (Fröhnteich) and the bridge across Klosterbach, it reached Geringswalde station, likewise situated at the southern edge of the town.

It passed through Döhlen whose station was situated at the western edge of the village, directly after the level crossing with Bundesstraße B175 (51°03′03″N 12°48′53″E / 51.0507°N 12.8146°E / 51.0507; 12.8146 (BÜ B 175)).

Turning left, and crossing Zwickauer Mulde on a curved bridge, the line reached Rochlitz station.

The station building had stood empty and suffered from increasing decay for several years until most of it was demolished in 2015, leaving only the porticus.

The engine shed used to house locomotives for shunting duties and for the freight services to the paper mills in the Zschopau valley.

It was more important for freight traffic, as there were four sidings serving the local industry, three of which remained in operation until shortly before the closing of the line.

[26][27][28][19] In order to cope with the increasing shunting demands, a new Kö I with Number 0236, built by Windhoff, based in Riesa depot, was stationed here at least until 1945.

The station building was of the same type as that in Hartha, but had been extended by a spacious waiting room, whose eastern interior wall was decorated with a mural with railway motives.

Another siding served a toolmaking factory and linked the animal fodder mill to the railway network via an asymmetric turntable.

When the line was upgraded to carry higher axle loads in the 1980s, a work train with accommodations for the workers was stationed in Geringswalde.

The Rochlitz–Großbothen section of Glauchau–Wurzen railway ("Muldentalbahn") opened in 1875 and was extended to Penig in 1876 and to Glauchau in 1877, making Rochlitz an interchange station.

The replacement, planned for between 1991 and 1995, was not carried out following the German reunification,[33] even though wear and tear required restrictions of the permitted axleload to 16 t, and the maximum velocity to 10 km/h.