The district town of Marienberg in the remote Oberwesterwaldkreis did not have a nearby train station until the 1880s. Only with the opening of the second section of the Limburg – Altenkirchen railway line was there a railway connection near the district town. The section from Fehl-Ritzhausen to Marienberg was opened together with the Westerwaldquerbahn. [5]
Viaduct over the Nister
The rest of the route was a little more difficult to lay out. Due to unsuitable subsoil near Erbach, the route could not simply be led east of the Nister, but had to be built on the western slope of the river. Next to the crossing of the Limburg – Altenkirchen railway line, an eleven-arched 300 m long and 40 m high concrete viaduct, which was then the largest in the German Empire, [4] [6] was built over the Nister in just six months. [3] The railway line was opened on August 31, 1911. [2]
In 1957 the viaduct over the Nister was extensively renovated. [3] [2]
Traffic was quite brisk, in 1963 ten pairs of trains ran on weekdays, plus one Erbach – Marienberg and one to Fehl-Ritzhausen – Marienberg, and nine pairs of trains ran on Sundays. Rail buses were used.
On September 26, 1971, passenger traffic on the entire route and goods traffic between Marienberg and Fehl-Ritzhausen were suspended. [7] On July 1, 1996, the remaining section, which until the end of 1994 [5] - albeit only sporadically - was still served by freight traffic, was shut down. [8]
Source: Wikipedia