Chemnitz Hauptbahnhof: once the gateway to the world, today a laughing stock?

Already in 1835 the inhabitants of Chemnitz realized the advantages that would bring a railway connection with Leipzig and Dresden. In addition, an “Erzgebirge railway” was being planned for Zwickau, explains Kurt Kaiss. The former teacher and railway historian worked intensively on the expansion of the Chemnitz connection network. The people of Chemnitz hoped that the connection to the Leipzig-Dresden line would allow easier access to raw materials and the removal of finished products, he reports. Access to coalfields near Zwickau was important for the resource-hungry industrial city.

However, the specially founded Chemnitz-Riesaer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft was unable to finance the construction of the railway, which was to be connected to the Leipzig-Dresden line in Riesa. But Saxony initially refused urgently needed support. For the kingdom, the goal was to connect to the emerging route networks of neighboring German states, Kaiss continued. In 1840 Leipzig was connected to Halle and Magdeburg in Prussia and in 1848 to Hof and with it to the Bavarian railway network.

In 1845, construction of the connection to Chemnitz began from Riesa, although the exact route was not yet certain. The first section was opened in 1847, but the numerous engineering works on the difficult stretch between Limmritz and Waldheim led to the ruin of the private railway company. Now the state had to step in and take over the company in 1850 to complete construction of the line. For the inauguration on September 1, 1852, none other than the Saxon King Frederick August II, together with his family and his ministers, had himself driven from Riesa to Leipzig. The city of Chemnitz was connected to the railway network and the king was immediately urged to extend the line to Zwickau.

While people in Dresden and Leipzig mockingly asked what Chemnitz wanted with the connection, “when the population of the Erzgebirge factory had no reason for business travel and money for leisure travel”, the expansion of Chemnitz’s connection network was now in constant progress, explains the railway historian Kaiß: 1858 Zwickau was connected directly to the Saxon-Bavarian railway network via Gößnitz. In 1866 Annaberg followed via Flöha, in 1869 the direct connection with Dresden via Freiberg and in 1872 the direct connection with Leipzig via Narsdorf. In the same year, the Annaberg line was extended to Weipert (Vejprty) and connected to Komotau (Chomutov) in Bohemia in coordination with Austria. This reduced the Leipzig-Prague-Vienna line by 45 kilometers.

Chemnitz central station is constantly increasing in importance, therefore 1920 also a higher occupancy than the main station in Leipzig. A look at the 1939 summer textbook shows that more than 70 destinations could be reached from Chemnitz without having to change trains. 14 long-distance railway lines had a stop in the industrial city and carried their passengers directly to Wroclaw, Salzburg and Saarbrücken. The route via Chemnitz was particularly important for the east-west connection through what was then the German Reich.

After the war, rebuilding the destroyed track systems proved difficult because the Soviet Union had huge repairs required. Now a trend has begun that has continued almost uninterrupted to this day: the Saxon route network has shrunk for the first time. However, in 1980 the Saxon railway network was still the second densest in Europe.

Since 1945, one track has been dismantled on all double-track routes, with the exception of the Frankfurt (Oder) -Berlin-Halle / Leipzig-Erfurt connection. This dismantling also affected parts of the Chemnitz-Leipzig route and the entire connection with Dresden. However, starting in 1950, parts of the important line to the state capital were returned to their second track.

With the division of Germany, the east-west axis Görlitz-Dresden-Chemnitz-Plauen quickly lost its role as one of the most important railway lines in Germany. In the GDR the focus on Berlin was decisive, from where the so-called star-shaped main routes led to the neighboring countries of the GDR. Chemnitz thus lost its outstanding position in the long-distance network.

From 1960 onwards, an urban express transport network was established in the GDR, also oriented towards Berlin. Fewer intermediate stops have resulted in shorter travel times than express trains previously used in long-distance transport, including those from Karl-Marx-Stadt. Since 1976 the city express traffic has been replaced by a City Express added. The attractive orange and ivory trains represented the highest quality fast link in the GDR until 1991 and ran from Zwickau via Karl-Marx-Stadt. For an additional fee, you could now be driven directly to Berlin in luxury cars and with freight priority as well. Since 1984 the city express “Fichtelberg” has departed from Chemnitz, the “Sachsenring” from Zwickau passed through Leipzig. At times, a night train ran to Rostock with stops in Leipzig, among other places, and was especially popular with vacationers and schoolchildren.