Panel 5 The Klingenthal Train Station

The first train connection from Zwotental to Klingenthal

1862: More than ten years after the first efforts of the municipal council, Klingenthal receives the news about the planned connection to the railroad network: “On April 5, 1862, the news arrived in the evening that the Royal State Government had decided to have a Voigtland-Bohemian railroad built.” writes Pastor Karl August Wolf in his “Historical News” about the memorable event.

In 1875, precisely on Christmas Eve, December 24, the railroad era began for Klingenthal. From now on, the train commuted from the station in Zwotental to Klingenthal. Since negotiations between the Saxon and Bohemian-Austrian sides on the exact location of a border station were far from complete, trains stopped at the temporary station as a terminus for the time being. This consisted only of barracks. Four pairs of trains travelled the line daily.


The Border Train Station and the Station Building

Negotiations between the governments in Dresden and Vienna on the location of the border station lasted almost eleven years. The track between Klingenthal and Graslitz was still missing, which made it difficult to export Bohemian lignite. This was the decisive reason why the Austrian side finally agreed in a state treaty to the location of the border station in Klingenthal in order to enable the expansion of the railroad line.

1885: The ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of the reception building was held on April 11, 1885. Around 130,000 cubic meters of soil and rocks had to be removed. For the enormous sum of 900,000 marks at the time, the 120-meter-long building was erected, complete with the adjoining buildings.

In September 1886, the Klingenthal station was elevated to a 2nd class station.
1886: On October 1, the 6.9-kilometer section of the Klingenthal/Unter-Graslitz line was put into operation, operated by the private Buschtěhrad Railway. It was named after the small town of Buschtěhrad near Prague, where the company had its first route. Freight and passenger trains ran daily between Falkenau and Klingenthal.


The Use of the Station Building and Station Area
 
The entire area was divided between the Saxon and Buschtěhrad railroads, and some facilities were shared.
The 70.5-meter-long central building with one upper floor was preceded by a 15 x 21.5 m section with two upper floors to the east and west. The ground floor alone had 27 rooms:
In the middle building there were customs inspection rooms, railroad service rooms, restaurant rooms and waiting rooms, kitchens and storerooms, recreation rooms for railroad personnel, separated according to Saxon and Buschtehrad railroad administration, the switchman’s apartment, the archive and four lavatories. In the western part were the Royal Saxon 2nd Class Customs Office and the Imperial-Royal Customs Station. The eastern part was reserved for the Imperial-Royal Postal Conductor, the Imperial Post, Telegraph and Telephone Office 2nd Class. The upper floors were occupied by official residences.

1938: After the “Anschluss” (annexation) of the Sudetenland to the German Reich, the Czechoslovak state railroad lines, which had been in operation since 1918, were taken over by the German Reichsbahn in 1938. The railroad line Falkenstein - Muldenberg, which was already put into operation in 1892, experienced a new relation in 1942: Herlasgrün - Falkenstein - Klingenthal - Falkenau (today Sokolov). Not only passenger trains but also freight trains, especially coal trains used the line between the Eger Valley and the Ore Mountain Ridge. Because of the heavy load, two locomotives were usually needed to handle the steep routes, and sometimes even three locomotives as far as Schöneck or Muldenberg.

1938: After the “Anschluss” (annexation) of the Sudetenland to the German Reich, the Czechoslovak state railroad lines, which had been in operation since 1918, were taken over by the German Reichsbahn in 1938. The railroad line Klingenthal - Herlasgrün, which was put into operation in 1892, was extended in 1942: Herlasgrün - Falkenstein - Klingenthal - Falkenau (today Sokolov). Not only passenger trains but also freight trains, especially coal trains used the route between the Sudetenland and Saxony. Because of the heavy load, two locomotives were usually needed to handle the mountainous routes, and sometimes even three locomotives as far as Schöneck or Muldenberg.

On April 16, 1945, the train service was stopped.

From the Czechoslovak Republic, from August 1945, with the exception of one railcar, the railroad traffic between Graslitz and the border town of Markhausen (Hranicna) was abandoned for the purpose of passenger transport, and on May 17, 1952, it was finally discontinued.

2000: The railroad bridge, which crosses the course of the Zwota at the level of the federal road B 283, was dismantled and rebuilt only in 2000. Since then, trains have been running again on the Klingenthal - Graslitz (Kraslice) line. From now on, the line is part of the cross-border transport project “EgroNet”, which was even presented by the Euroregion “Euregio egrensis” as an external project on the occasion of the world exhibition “EXPO 2000” in Hanover.

2001: A new use for the station building, which is no longer used by Deutsche Bahn and state authorities, has been sought unsuccessfully since 1990. The demolition took place in 2011.


The “Electrical”

For the musical instrument industry in the Klingenthal area, which had been growing strongly since 1829, the connection to the railroad system was a great advantage. Since the towns stretched for many kilometres, it was necessary to reach a railway siding of the large companies. As early as 1896, a scheduled freight forwarding service with horse-drawn carriages via Brunndöbra to Untersachsenberg was put into operation from the Klingenthal station. This made it easier for companies to have their products transported to the station. There had been plans to build a rail line on this line since 1893, but it was not until 1910 that a corresponding community decision was taken. Construction began in the summer of 1913. The planned inauguration in the fall of 1914 could not take place because of the First World War. Since the electric catenary could not be installed due to copper rationing, freight service began on October 4, 1916, using a steam-powered Fairlie locomotive captured in Belgium.

1917: On May 14, 1917, the only electric and shortest narrow-gauge railroad in Saxony was opened. Freight traffic was operated with electric locomotives (called “Gidderompl” = freight rumble), passenger traffic with tramway trains.
On the 4.1 km long line there were ten intermediate stations up to the final station Untersachsenberg(-Georgenthal) at 612 m above sea level.

In July 1960, general cargo traffic was discontinued, as was wagonload traffic on so-called wagon carrier trucks on April 9. The last tramway in passenger service ran on April 4, 1964.