Georgensgmünd–Spalt railway

The Georgensgmünd–Spalt railway was opened on 16 October 1872 by the Royal Bavarian State Railways as a branch of the Nuremberg–Augsburg main line, after earlier plans to route the Ludwig South-North Railway from Lindau to Nuremberg via Gunzenhausen, Spalt and Georgensgemünd did not come to fruition. It was the second of the new category of light branch line, the so-called Vizinalbahnen, to be built. The hop farmers of Spalt would initially oppose this due to fears about the steam locomotives affecting the quality of their world-famous hops. Later, however, when the railway had established itself as a means of transportation, the town of Spalt tried several times to have a connexion built to the railway at Georgensgemünd, but eventually had to pay 80,000 gulden for the line as required by the Vizinalbahn law.