History

Süd-Thüringen-Bahn GmbH (STB) was founded in December 1999 and the transport contract with the Free State of Thuringia was signed in February 2000. On behalf of Deutsche Bahn AG (DB), STB took over the local passenger transport on the three railway lines Eisenach-Meiningen-Eisfeld, Wernshausen-Zella-Mehlis and Meiningen-Erfurt Hauptbahnhof from January 1, 2001, initially with the DB vehicles; only on May 1, 2001 - within the framework of a Pro Bahn event - Regio-Shuttles were used. From 10 June 2001, the STB operated the line network called "Dieselnetz Südthüringen" itself with its own locomotives. It was originally planned - but not implemented - for STB to take over passenger transport on the Bad Salzungen–Vacha railway for the timetable change in 2001, since due to disputes between the Free State of Thuringia and the Wartburgkreis (parallel bus traffic) the local rail passenger transport (SPNV) was terminated there on 9 June 2001.

In October 2002, local public transport began on the Eisfeld-Sonneberg route and in December 2002 on the Sonneberg-Neuhaus am Rennweg route. The EB 46 line from Erfurt to Ilmenau, operated by Erfurter Bahn until 2017 (from 10 December 2017 STB 46), was largely operated by the STB on behalf of Erfurter Bahn due to a lack of vehicles. The trains of the STB 44 and EB 46 lines from Erfurt to Plaue (Thuringia) were operated in a train association, where the train was divided; one unit went on to Ilmenau, the other to Meiningen. Since the Regio Shuttles are equipped with modern central buffer couplings, this so-called winging was possible at the push of a button. The infrastructure company responsible for the Eisfeld-Sonneberg and Sonneberg-Lauscha-Neuhaus am Rennweg sections is not DB Netz AG, but the private Thüringer Eisenbahn GmbH (ThE), which leased these lines in August 2001 for 17 years and has comprehensively renovated them since then.

On 11 June 2011, the Süd-Thüringen Railway celebrated the 10th anniversary of its first operation with a major station festival. In December 2017, the line network continued to grow with the routes Fröttstädt-Friedrichroda and Erfurt-Ilmenau-Bahnhof Rennsteig. In addition, new customer centres were opened at the Meiningen and Ilmenau stations in 2017. In 2018, the STB decided to build a new depot at Meiningen station with a workshop and office building, new track facilities, filling station and parking spaces due to increased capacity requirements.^[3] Therefore, the STB acquired from Deutsche Bahn AG the site of the former freight station for this purpose. The commissioning of the new depot is scheduled for 2020.

New tender 2017-2028

The STB was able to prevail against other applicants in the new tender for the routes in the "Dieselnetz Südthüringen"^[4] and thus continues to operate its main network from December 2017 to 2028. The contract was signed on 6 April 2016 in Meiningen by Thuringia's Transport Minister Birgit Keller and the STB managing directors Michael Hecht and Susanne Wenzel.^[5] The STB network continued to grow with the regional lines STB 46 (Erfurt-Ilmenau-Bahnhof Rennsteig) and STB 48 (Fröttstädt-Friedrichroda (Friedrichroda Railway)). Two new express lines were created for this purpose: Erfurt-Zella-Mehlis with train throughput to Wernshausen (Monday to Friday) and Erfurt-Meiningen (both STx 50) as well as Erfurt-Ilmenau (STx 45 / Monday to Friday), which are each operated with several train pairs. The division of the STB 44 and EB 46 lines at Plaue ceased in December 2017 and the journey time between Meiningen and Erfurt was shortened by 10 to 15 minutes. The well-known vehicles of the "Regioshuttle" type will remain on the network for passengers from 2017. The 37 shuttles, five of them from ODEG, were modernised and received an extensive redesign in conventional green and white before the contract change. The number of employees is to increase to 150 and the mileage is to be increased to four million kilometers per year.