page_title: Dresden–Werdau railway
section_title: Reconstruction between Oederan and Flöha
hierarchical_section_title: Dresden–Werdau railway / History / Reconstruction between Oederan and Flöha
caption_attribution_description: Viadukt Hetzdorf
context_page_description: The Dresden–Werdau railway is an electrified, double-track main line in the German state of Saxony. It runs from Dresden via Freiberg, Chemnitz and Zwickau to Werdau wye, where it joins the Leipzig-Hof railway.
  The line was opened in several sections and its first section from Werdau to Zwickau was opened 1845, making it one of the oldest railways in Germany. The Dresden–Tharandt section was completed in 1855, the Chemnitz–Zwickau section followed in 1858, the line was extended from Tharandt to Freiberg in 1862 and the section from Chemnitz to Flöha was opened as part of the line to Annaberg in 1866. The entire line was not open until 1869, when the missing section from Freiberg-Flöha was opened. From then on the railway line developed into an important connection. It continues to be an important part of the so-called Saxon-Franconian trunk line from Dresden to Nuremberg.
context_section_description: In the mid-1980s, the Hetzdorf Viaduct over the Flöha valley in the distinct of Mittelsachsen, which dated from the opening of that section of the line, had reached the end of its service life. In the final years, crossing the viaduct was only possible at a top speed of 20 km/h, which greatly restricted the section's capacity. Deutsche Reichsbahn eventually designed a straightened route bypassing the old viaduct. The new bridge consists of two prestressed concrete bridges, each 344 metres long, that cross the Hetzbach and Flöha valleys. The construction company VEB Autobahnbaukombinat ("Publicly Owned Operation for motorway construction combine") built the bridges from 1987 onwards using the incremental launch method, for the first time during the construction of a railway bridge in East Germany. The new line was completed and put into operation on 12 May 1992, shortening the connection between Dresden and Chemnitz by about one kilometre.
  The new section is 2,033.9 metres long, 966.1 m shorter than the old route. It has grades of up to 1.68%.
caption: Hetzdorf Viaduct at the beginning of the 1990s
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