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The Dresden–Görlitz railway is a two-track main line railway in the German state of Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, originally built and operated by the Saxon-Silesian Railway Company. It runs through Upper Lusatia

Upper Lusatia

Upper Lusatia is a region a biggest part of which belongs to Saxony, a small eastern part belongs to Poland, the northern part to Brandenburg. In Saxony, Upper Lusatia comprises roughly the districts of Bautzen and Görlitz , in Brandenburg the southern part of district Oberspreewald-Lausitz...

 from Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

 via Bischofswerda

Bischofswerda

Bischofswerda is a small town in Germany at the western edge of Upper Lusatia in Saxony.-Geography:The town is located 33 km to the east of Dresden at the edge of the Upper Lusatian mountain country. The town is known as the "Gateway to Upper Lusatia" - "Tor zur Oberlausitz" in German. It is...

, Bautzen

Bautzen

Bautzen is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and administrative centre of the eponymous district. It is located on the Spree River. As of 2008, its population is 41,161...

 and Löbau

Lobau

The Lobau is a Vienna floodplain on the northern side of the Danube and partly in Großenzersdorf, Lower Austria. It has been part of the Danube-Auen National Park since 1996 and has been a protected area since 1978. It is used as a recreational area and is known as a site of nudism. There is...

 to Görlitz

Görlitz

Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...

. The line is part of the route from Dresden to Wrocław and Pan-European Transport Corridor III

Pan-European corridors

The ten Pan-European transport corridors were defined at the second Pan-European transport Conference in Crete, March 1994, as routes in Central and Eastern Europe that required major investment over the next ten to fifteen years. Additions were made at the third conference in Helsinki in 1997...

. The first section of the line opened in 1845 and it is one of the oldest lines in Germany.

Construction and opening

A treaty between Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

 and Saxony

Kingdom of Saxony

The Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...

 signed on 24 July 1843 authorised the construction of a cross-border railway and its proposed connection to the Lower Silesian-Markish Railway from Görlitz to Węgliniec

Wegliniec

Węgliniec is a town in Zgorzelec County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the administrative district called Gmina Węgliniec...

 (Kohlfurt) was the first step in the building of the railway between Dresden and Görlitz. The treaty required that construction of the line be finished within four years. The Saxon-Silesian Railway Company was established for the construction of the line, with capital of six million thalers

Prussian thaler

The Thaler was the currency of Prussia until 1857. From 1750, it was distinct from north German Reichsthaler unit of account in that it contained 1/14 of a Cologne mark of silver, rather than 1/12, and was minted as a coin...

. The Saxon government owned a third of the company. The Saxon government required the company to build a branch from Löbau to Zittau.

The construction began on 10 May 1844 and the first section to Radeberg was opened to traffic on 17 November 1845. The line was extended to Bischofswerda on 21 December 1845, to Bautzen on 23 June 1846 and to Löbau on 23 December 1846. A test run from Bautzen on 16 December 1846 was stuck in heavy snow drifts in a cutting in Rabitz, just four kilometres beyond Bautzen. On the Prussian side, construction of earthworks began at Reichenbach in October 1845. Up to 800 men worked simultaneously on the section between Reichenbach and Gersdorf, but the snowy winter of 1846/47 brought work to take a stop. A test run between Löbau and Reichenbach was held on 29 April 1847 and the section was opened on 1 July of that year. The 102.2 km long line from Görlitz to Dresden was formally opening on 1 September 1847, along with the line from Görlitz to Węgliniec.

For nearly 20 years the railway line was controlled by the Saxon government. Following the Austro-Prussian War

Austro-Prussian War

The Austro-Prussian War was a war fought in 1866 between the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire and its German allies on one side and the Kingdom of Prussia with its German allies and Italy on the...

 of 1866, Saxony ceded control of the railway to Prussia, as Saxony had fought the war on the side of the loser, Austria. In 1867 Prussia took over the operations of the Saxon-Silesian Railway Company.

In the Second World War

With the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, restrictions were soon imposed on the right of the public to travel on trains.

In April 1945 the line became heavily used for the passage of refugees, especially from Silesia

Silesia

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

, and the retreating Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

. All military trains had first priority on the line, often preventing the movement of trains carrying refugee and the wounded for days. On 16 April the Eastern Front

Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...

 reached the Neisse river and the spearhead of the Soviet

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 52nd Army reached the edge of Bautzen

Bautzen

Bautzen is a hill-top town in eastern Saxony, Germany, and administrative centre of the eponymous district. It is located on the Spree River. As of 2008, its population is 41,161...

 on 19 April. On 20 April the 52nd Soviet army began an attack

Battle of Bautzen (1945)

The Battle of Bautzen was one of the last battles of the Eastern Front in World War II. It was fought on the extreme southern flank of the Spremberg–Torgau Offensive, seeing days of pitched street fighting between forces of the 2nd Polish Army and elements of the Soviet's 52nd Army and 5th Guards...

 on the defences of the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm

Volkssturm

The Volkssturm was a German national militia of the last months of World War II. It was founded on Adolf Hitler's orders on October 18, 1944 and conscripted males between the ages of 16 to 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard.-Origins and...

 in the town centre. The German army held the Soviets off, but the Soviets broke through to the centre of the town on 24 April and heavy street fighting took place around the station. The last refugee train ran on the morning of 20 April from Bautzen towards Bischofswerda

Bischofswerda

Bischofswerda is a small town in Germany at the western edge of Upper Lusatia in Saxony.-Geography:The town is located 33 km to the east of Dresden at the edge of the Upper Lusatian mountain country. The town is known as the "Gateway to Upper Lusatia" - "Tor zur Oberlausitz" in German. It is...

. As a result of the fighting on 24 April, the station building was completely destroyed. After the end of the war on 9 May 1945, almost all of the line was unusable, since all the bridges between Görlitz and Bautzen had been blown up or otherwise destroyed by the German Army on 7 May 1945, including the Neisse viaduct in Görlitz, the rail bridge in Löbau

Lobau

The Lobau is a Vienna floodplain on the northern side of the Danube and partly in Großenzersdorf, Lower Austria. It has been part of the Danube-Auen National Park since 1996 and has been a protected area since 1978. It is used as a recreational area and is known as a site of nudism. There is...

 and the Spree

Spree

The Spree is a river that flows through the Saxony, Brandenburg and Berlin states of Germany, and in the Ústí nad Labem region of the Czech Republic...

 viaduct in Bautzen. Furthermore, the line also lacked rolling stock, as many locomotives had been moved to the west.

Reconstruction after the Second World War

The reconstruction of the viaducts proved to be especially difficult, therefore travellers often had to change train. New stations were established, for example, Löbau Ost station opened at the eastern end of the Löbau viaduct on 6 August 1945 for a shuttle service from Görlitz. According to the timetable of November 1945, travellers from Görlitz had to take a two km walk from Löbau Ost to Löbau station. Numerous temporary bridges were built. The temporary bridge in Bautzen was completed in September 1945 and it was followed in October by the temporary Demitz viaduct. After the completion of temporary bridges at Blösa

Kubschütz

Kubschütz is a municipality in the district of Bautzen, in Saxony, Germany....

 (6 November 1945) and Löbau (10 November), a continuous train service officially resumed between Görlitz and Dresden-Neustadt. Most of the temporary bridges were continuously monitored by so-called "bridge guards" of the transport police. Probably in anticipation of the subsequent dismantling of the second track, the temporary bridges were built for one track only.

In March 1946 work began on removing one track between Dresden and Görlitz to provide reparations

War reparations

War reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land.- History :...

 to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. Stations left with crossing loops included Breitendorf, Pommritz, Kubschütz and Seitschen stations.

Normalisation in the 1970s and 1980s

In 1970, the second track was restored between Dresden-Klotsche and Bautzen. This was followed in later years by the restoration of the Bautzen–Breitendorf, Reichenbach–Gersdorf and Markersdorf–Schlauroth marshalling yard sections. Between 1980 and 1984, the Gersdorf–Markersdorf and Löbau–Zoblitz sections regained their second track. One reason for the restoration of the track was increasing coal freight traffic. Single track remained until 1993 or 2000 only on the sections between Breitendorf and Löbau and between Schlauroth and Gorlitz. In 1975 there were nine pairs of express trains, six of which ran to or from Poland. Travel time was a minimum of 92 minutes, only seven minutes less than in 1905.

After the political changes in East Germany in 1989

After the political changes in Eastern Germany in 1989, reconstruction of the second track was accelerated. On 16 October 1994, the last remaining significant section of the line between Breitendorf and Löbau was restored to two tracks. Single track initially remained on short section of line between Schlauroth junction and Görlitz. During the reconstruction of the Görlitz node in 2000 this was reconstructed as double track. On 25 June 2000, two track operations commenced.

The former express service between Dresden and Görlitz was replaced in the late 1990s by InterRegio

InterRegio

The InterRegio is a train service seen in some European countries. Mostly they are trains that run "from region to region", as best described by Swiss Federal Railways.-Switzerland:...

 trains. Services stopping in Bautzen, Görlitz and Löbau ran every two hours. With the progressive abolition of InterRegio trains, this service was replaced by three pairs of trains, which reversed in Görlitz to continue to Wroclaw. On 11 December 2004, long-distance trains were discontinued altogether on this line. Since then, the Dresden–Görlitz line has only been served by regional trains.

In 2002 electrical contact wire was installed on the short section between Dresden-Neustadt and Dresden-Klotzsche for the S-Bahn

Dresden S-Bahn

The Dresden S-Bahn provides commuter train services in Dresden and the surrounding area. It was established in 1973 and comprises three lines...

 service to Dresden Airport.

In 2003, a German–Polish agreement was signed on cooperation to improve rail links. As part of this agreement, it was agreed to upgrade the Polish border–Görlitz–Dresden section to allow speeds of 120–160 km/h, with long-term electrification. This is intended to reduce travel times for EuroCity

EuroCity

EuroCity, abbreviated EC, denotes an international train service within the European inter-city rail network. In contrast to trains with the "IC" label, "EC" trains are international trains that meet certain criteria. The EuroCity label replaces the older Trans Europ Express name for...

 and InterCity

Intercity (Deutsche Bahn)

Intercity is the second-highest train classification in Germany, after the ICE. Intercity services are loco-hauled express services, usually over long-distances. There are Intercity routes throughout Germany, and routes generally operate with a two-hour frequency, with multiple routes giving a more...

 trains with traditional railway vehicles to about 3 hours 45 minutes between Dresden and Wroclaw. The implementation of these measures depends on funding. This work has not yet started.

Operations

The Dresden–Görlitz line traffic is currently served by regional transport only. Trains on the line are managed by the Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe

Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe

The Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe is a transport association run by public transport providers in the Upper Elbe area of the German state of Saxony...

 (Upper Elbe Transport Authority) and the Verkehrsverbund Oberlausitz-Niederschlesien (Upper Lusatia–Lower Silesia Transport Authority). A few services are provided under a contract awarded in December 2008 to Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn and operated as line OE60V. All other services are operated by DB Regio

DB Regio

DB Regio AG is a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn which operates short and medium distance passenger train services in Germany, and operates light and heavy rail infrastructure in the United Kingdom.-Germany:...

.
Since March 2009, three pairs of regional trains each day have been operated commercially between Dresden and Wrocław by Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn

Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...

.

The following table shows regional services that use all or part of the Dresden–Görlitz line (March 2009):

Line	Route	Frequency in minutes	Remarks
RE1	Dresden–Bischofswerda–Görlitz	120
RE100	Dresden–Görlitz–Wrocław	–	3x daily
RE2	Dresden–Bischofswerda–Zittau Zittau Zittau is a city in the south east of the Free State of Saxony, Germany, close to the border tripoint of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. , there are 28,638 people in the city. It is part of the Görlitz district....  (–Liberec Liberec Liberec is a city in the Czech Republic. Located on the Lusatian Neisse and surrounded by the Jizera Mountains and Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge, it is the fifth-largest city in the Czech Republic.... )	120
RB33	Dresden–Königsbrück Königsbrück Königsbrück is a town in the Bautzen district, in the Free State of Saxony, Germany. It is situated west of Kamenz, and northeast of the Saxon capital Dresden...	60 (Sa/Su: 120)
RB34	Dresden–Kamenz Kamenz Kamenz is a Lusatian town in eastern Saxony, Germany, with a population of 18,243, and is part of the Bautzen district. The town is located about northeast of Dresden and about northwest of Bautzen....	60 (Su: 120)
RB60	Dresden–Bischofswerda–Görlitz	120
OE60V	Bischofswerda–Görlitz	120	Mo-Sa only
RB61	Dresden–Bischofswerda–Zittau	120
S2	Pirna–Dresden Airport	30