page_title: Gemünden–Ebenhausen railway
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gemünden–Ebenhausen railway / History
caption_attribution_description: UnterfrankenShuttle der Erfurter Bahn (EIB) in Gräfendorf
context_page_description: The Gemünden–Ebenhausen Railway is a 55 kilometre long, single-tracked, railway line in the northern part of the province of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It runs from Gemünden via Bad Kissingen to Ebenhausen and follows, for most of the way, the Franconian Saale river.
context_section_description: The spa town of Bad Kissingen was given its first link to the railway network on 9 October 1871 in the shape of a 20 kilometre long stub line from Schweinfurt, after attempts to gain approval for a through route from Gemünden (Main) to  Meiningen foundered. After that little hope was envisaged for opening up the Saale Valley to the railway. Nevertheless, on 1 July 1884 a second stub was opened by the Royal Bavarian State Railways from Gemünden am Main to Hammelburg. After forty years, on 15 April 1924 the gap between Hammelburg and Bad Kissingen was finally closed and the through line taken into service.
  The line, now a through route, initially developed an increasing importance; but the car-oriented 1960s led to a significant reduction in timetabled services. Only its incorporation into the statewide Bayern-Takt (Bavarian fixed-interval service) saw a return to a two-hourly through service on most of the Saale Valley Line, reinforced by an hourly service between Bad Kissingen and Ebenhausen.
caption: A multiple of the Lower Franconia Shuttle on the Saale Valley Railway
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