page_title: South Harz Railway
section_title: Route
hierarchical_section_title: South Harz Railway / Route
caption_attribution_description: Der Bahnhof von Nordhausen (Thüringen).
context_page_description: The South Harz Railway is a railway line through the German states of Lower Saxony and Thuringia. It runs from Northeim to Nordhausen, via Herzberg am Harz, Bad Lauterberg-Barbis, Bad Sachsa, Walkenried and Ellrich. The line is 69 kilometres long.
context_section_description: The South Harz line runs roughly east–west, with Northeim lying further north than Nordhausen. It runs from the Leine valley along the Rhume and the Oder (Harz) rivers with normal grades through Katlenburg-Lindau to Herzberg am Harz. From there it rises on a grade of up to 1.06% through Scharzfeld and Barbis to the former station of Osterhagen, the highest point of the line. The line falls gently and runs south of Bad Sachsa to Walkenried. To the east is the only tunnel on the line, connecting to the valley of the Zorge. Shortly after the tunnel is the border of Lower Saxony and Thuringia, the former Inner German border. From Ellrich the line follows the Zorge to Nordhausen. The Harz Railway (Harzquerbahn) runs parallel from Niedersachswerfen.
  From Herzberg to Niedersachswerfen the South Harz line crosses the South Harz gypsum karst. Near Tettenborn, at Sachsenstein near Walkenried and near Woffleben there are problems with subsidence: the load-carrying capacity of the soil must be regularly controlled. During the building of the Walkenried Tunnel in 1868, the miners discovered the unstable Himmelreich cave, which made construction difficult. Three workers died during the tunnel construction, when the tunnel fell several metres.
  The distance markers begin in Northeim (Han) station at 88.6 km (55.1 mi) (measured from Hanover Central) and end in Nordhausen at 157.5 km (97.9 mi).
caption: Nordhausen station
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