page_title: St. Andreasberg rack railway
section_title: Closure
hierarchical_section_title: St. Andreasberg rack railway / Closure
caption_attribution_description: Ehemalige Haltestelle am Schwalbenherd
context_page_description: The St. Andreasberg rack railway operated a now-closed, standard gauge, rack railway in the Upper Harz in central Germany. To begin with its shareholders were the state of Prussia, the Province of Hanover und the town of Sankt Andreasberg. After 1924, it was operated by the Hanover State Light Railway Office.
context_section_description: In 1955, the Lower Saxony Ministry for the Economy and Transport warmed that operations on the St. Andreasberg rack railway were very unprofitable. Rapidly rising traffic on the roads and the lack of modernization of the line made the end of the rack railway ever more likely.
  A serious accident on the Drachenfels Railway in September 1958, which killed 18 and injured 100 people, was cited, at a business meeting on 28. November 1958, in announcing the closure of the line in Sankt Andreasber. Consequently, rail services ceased on 1 January 1959 after 46 years of operations, on safety grounds, even though the cause of the accident on the Drachenfels line was not directly applicable. The last train probably worked the line on 23 April 1959.
  On 17 August 1959 the rack railway was officially closed and work began immediately on lifting the track. The St. Andreasberg Railway Company (St. Andreasberger Eisenbahn GmbH) operated a bus service until 30 May 1965 when it was taken over by the DB.
  The surviving station building was a resort administrative office and then, until 2005, an artist's studio. The large roof overhang is a bus station today. The old trackbed has been partially tarmacked and leads to the barbecue site of Waldarbeiter. In addition the old locomotive shed is used by a local bus company as a garage.
caption: Former wayside halt at Schwalbenherd
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