Nuremberg–Würzburg railway  The Nuremberg–Würzburg Railway is a German trunk line railway in northern Bavaria, connecting the city of Nuremberg with Würzburg, the two largest cities in Franconia, and passing through Fürth, Neustadt an der Aisch and Kitzingen. In addition to hourly Regional-Express trains and numerous freight trains, it is served by Intercity-Express trains during the day at half-hourly intervals with some gaps. On its total length of just over 100 kilometres, the railway line has a total of 18 stations. The two endpoints of the line, Nuremberg Hbf and Würzburg Hbf, are served by fast long-distance services. The line runs through more than 80 curves in a landscape of low ranges. The 86 km stretch from Fürth to Rottendorf near Würzburg was built in as a shortcut between the Ludwig South-North Railway in Nuremberg and Ludwig's Western Railway line in Wurzburg. This shortened the 155 km-long indirect route via Bamberg and Schweinfurt. The state railway initially had little interest in the connection, so initially private Committees considered plans for such a route. At first, in 1857, a proposal via Siegelsdorf, Windsheim, Marktbreit and Ochsenfurt had been favoured, which led to an alternative route being put forward from the Neustadt and Kitzingen area, which ultimately prevailed. Initially, short sections were built as sections of other rail lines:  Construction began in 1861 and was completed in 1864. Only the viaduct in Emskirchen was not finished due to the difficult ground conditions. The Nuremberg–Würzburg railway was finally completed with opening of the 86.6 kilometre-long Fürth–Rottendorf section on 19 June 1865. At the same time the eight km-long section between Rottendorf and Würzburg was duplicated. In the summer of 1985 a third track was added to this section. On 1 July 1886, a heavy head-on collision of two trains took place between Würzburg and Rottendorf, causing the death of 16 people. On 8 December 1889, the Bavarian State Parliament approved the doubling of the single-track line between Fürth and Rottendorf, which was completed by 1891.