page_title: Görlitz–Dresden railway
section_title: Construction and opening
hierarchical_section_title: Görlitz–Dresden railway / History / Construction and opening
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Das südliche Gleisvorfeld des Bahnhofs Dresden-Neustadt mit dem einfahrenden Regionalexpress Dresden-Görlitz.
context_page_description: The Görlitz–Dresden railway is a two-track main line railway in the German state of Saxony, originally built and operated by the Saxon-Silesian Railway Company. It runs through Upper Lusatia from Dresden via Bischofswerda, Bautzen and Löbau to Görlitz. The line is part of the route from Dresden to Wrocław and Pan-European Transport Corridor III. The first section of the line opened in 1845 and it is one of the oldest lines in Germany.
context_section_description: A treaty between Prussia and Saxony signed on 24 July 1843 authorised the construction of a cross-border railway and its proposed connection to the Lower Silesian-Markish Railway company's line from Görlitz to Węgliniec (Kohlfurt), which was the first step in the building of a railway between Dresden and Görlitz. The treaty required the construction of the line to be finished within four years. The Saxon-Silesian Railway Company (German: Sächsisch-Schlesische Eisenbahngesellschaft) was established for the construction of the line, with capital of six million thalers. 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 from Dresden 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 of 1866, in which Saxony had fought on the Austrian side, and the Peace of Prague, Saxony ceded ownership of the railway section located in Prussia to Prussia, but continued to operate the whole line on a contractual basis.
caption: Dresden-Görlitz Regional-Express in Dresden-Neustadt station
exif: {"Image Rating": "0", "Image Tag 0x5012": "1", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "80", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2351"}