Gozdnica railway station

51°26′32.4″N 15°05′43.2″E / 51.442333°N 15.095333°E / 51.442333; 15.095333

Gozdnica is a disused railway station in Gozdnica, Lubusz Voivodeship. The station has been disused since 2005.

The station opened as the terminus of the Gozdnica–Ruszów railway on 1 December 1896, by the Lusatian Railway Company. The line branched off Ruszów, and was built to transport Gozdnica's ceramics and glass industries by rail.^[1][2]

On 1 January 1939, the Lusatian Railway Company was nationalised. The line became apart of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, as a branch line. It took between 18 and 22 minutes for a passenger train to cover the whole 8.42 km (5.23 mi) route.^[3]

After World War II, the area was placed under Polish administration as the Oder–Neisse line became the new border between Germany and Poland. In the summer of 1945, the Red Army dismantled the tracks of the railway line to Gozdnica under 'war reparations'. Since the route was needed to continue the local industry production of ceramics and glass, the line was reconstructed. On 4 May 1947, Polish State Railways resumed railway services^[4] with two passenger trains every day, one in the morning, and one in the evening.

On 26 October 1962, passenger train services were withdrawn on the whole line. Freight trains still ran until 1999. The last train arrived into Gozdnica on 28 April 2002, and was a special tourist train service, operated by a Ty3-2 steam locomotive.^[5] The line remained operational until 2005,^[4] with the tracks being dismantled in 2015.

• Kuchinke, Stephan (2000). Die Localbahn Aktiengesellschaft. Eine bayerische Privatbahn und ihre Geschichte (in German). ISBN 3-921237-21-1.
• Bürnheim, Hermann (1974). Localbahn A.-G. München (in German). ISBN 3-921237-21-1.