The Leipzig-Dresden railway line through time

"General permission is granted for the proposal to build a railway between Leipzig and Dresden ... to the Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company ... to establish a direct connection between these towns and to extend it to the frontier at its own discretion."

The Saxon Government had obviously read Oeynhausen and Dechen's Report in detail and although it did not promote the railway directly it was supportive towards the setting up of the Company, comprising businesspeople from both Leipzig and Dresden. Karl Kunz, was appointed by the Company to manage the construction of the railway. He was sent on a study visit to both Belgium and Britain and spoke at length with Stephenson and James Walker in 1833 and 1834. The advice cost the Company 18,000 Thaler but was crucial to the future financial success of the railway.

On 14 May 1835, 1,500,000 Thaler ( £210, 000) were subscribed in a matter of hours to finance the building of the railway between Leipzig and Dresden. Four days later the share value had risen by 22%. On the evening of the share issue, List left Leipzig, probably for good, on the way to Berlin to approach the King of Prussia for concessions to build lines from Leipzig to Magdeburg and Berlin to Hamburg, also a short line from Leipzig to the saltworks at Dürenburg in Prussia. He was unsuccessful with this approach to the Prussians, who were not interested in listening to this itinerant railway promoter. Any plans they had for unification of Germany were not to be led by List, who soon found that again his economic theories were to be dismissed by politicians, who were nor prepared for such an outsider to lead them forward.

The four principal promoters of the new Company were:

• William Seyfferth, who had been a shareholder in a British manufacturing company and had inherited his father's business in 1832. He was a main shareholder in a distribution and exchange company - Vetter and Co - who imported goods from abroad.
• Albert Dufour Feronce, who had inherited one of the biggest trading companies in Leipzig - Dufour Gebr and Co -on the death of his father in 1817. The company had strong links with France, importing silk from Lyons and selling it in southern and eastern Europe.
• Gustav Harkort, whose family money was in land and forestry and who was a large brandy producer. He had founded, with his brother, a major trading company in 1820, which traded extensively in Saxony and sold overseas.
• Carl Lampe, who was the son of the main shareholder in the drug company Brückner, Lampe and Co, which had ext-ensive connections with Russia and America.

The company, therefore, had substantial inherited capital available and was significantly connected with the import and export trade of Saxony.

Originally List had proposed that the Leipzig-Dresden railway line should be built through the Mulde highlands linking Meissen an important industrial town to both Leipzig and Dresden. The local promoters, however, had engaged a prominent Scots engineer, James Walker to plan thoroughly a route between the two cities. Two directors Crusius and Klug of the Leipzig - Dresden Railway Company met again with Walker, then the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, in his London offices in Great George Street, close to the British Houses of Parliament, during 1835. They discussed with him the plans that the Company had already set in motion and he agreed to take on the job of surveying the route.