The first railways in Thuringia had been built in the 1840s and the network of main lines was finished around 1880. By 1920, many branch lines had been built, giving Thuringia one of the densest rail networks in the world before World War II with about 2,500 km of track. Between 1950 and 2000 most of the branch lines were abandoned, reducing Thuringia's network by half compared to 1940. On the other hand, most of the main lines were refurbished after 1990, resulting in improved speed of travel. The most important railway lines at present are the Thuringian Railway, connecting Halle and Leipzig via Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha and Eisenach with Frankfurt and Kassel and the Saal Railway from Halle/Leipzig via Jena and Saalfeld to Nuremberg. The former has an hourly ICE/IC service from Dresden to Frankfurt while the latter is served hourly by ICE trains from Berlin to Munich. In 2017, a new high speed line will be opened, diverting long-distance services from these mid-19th century lines. Both ICE routes will then use the ErfurtLeipzig/Halle high-speed railway, and the Berlin-Munich route will continue via the NurembergErfurt high-speed railway. Only the segment west of Erfurt of the Frankfurt-Dresden line will continue to be used by ICE trains after 2017, with an increased line speed of 200 km/h (currently 160 km/h). Erfurt's central station, which was completely rebuilt for this purpose in the 2000s (decade), will be the new connection between both ICE lines. The most important regional railway lines in Thuringia are the NeudietendorfRitschenhausen railway from Erfurt to Wurzburg and Meiningen, the WeimarGera railway from Erfurt to Chemnitz, the SangerhausenErfurt railway from Erfurt to Magdeburg, the GothaLeinefelde railway from Erfurt to Gottingen, the HalleKassel railway from Halle via Nordhausen to Kassel and the LeipzigHof railway from Leipzig via Altenburg to Zwickau and Hof. Most regional and local lines have hourly service, but some run only every other hour.
When will the new high speed train be open?
In 2017, a new high speed line will be opened,

As an important railroad and road junction and production center, Hanover was a major target for strategic bombing during World War II, including the Oil Campaign. Targets included the AFA (Stocken), the Deurag-Nerag refinery (Misburg), the Continental plants (Vahrenwald and Limmer), the United light metal works (VLW) in Ricklingen and Laatzen (today Hanover fairground), the Hanover/Limmer rubber reclamation plant, the Hanomag factory (Linden) and the tank factory M.N.H. Maschinenfabrik Niedersachsen (Badenstedt). Forced labourers were sometimes used from the Hannover-Misburg subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Residential areas were also targeted, and more than 6,000 civilians were killed by the Allied bombing raids. More than 90% of the city center was destroyed in a total of 88 bombing raids. After the war, the Aegidienkirche was not rebuilt and its ruins were left as a war memorial.
What does VLW stand for?
United light metal works

No single feature distinguishes Annelids from other invertebrate phyla, but they have a distinctive combination of features. Their bodies are long, with segments that are divided externally by shallow ring-like constrictions called annuli and internally by septa ("partitions") at the same points, although in some species the septa are incomplete and in a few cases missing. Most of the segments contain the same sets of organs, although sharing a common gut, circulatory system and nervous system makes them inter-dependent. Their bodies are covered by a cuticle (outer covering) that does not contain cells but is secreted by cells in the skin underneath, is made of tough but flexible collagen and does not molt on the other hand arthropods' cuticles are made of the more rigid -chitin, and molt until the arthropods reach their full size. Most annelids have closed circulatory systems, where the blood makes its entire circuit via blood vessels.
What externally divides annelids' segments?
shallow ring-like constrictions called annuli