not pursued further. Planning approval procedures The planning procedures for the ten planning approval sections (including railway power lines) were initiated from December 1993. On 3 May 1994 the first consultation procedure for the Zapfendorf–Grub am Forst section began, dealing with 8000 objections. By the end of 1994, nine out of ten procedures had been initiated, the last one being followed in 1995. The first joint plan approval procedure for the section where the railway was "bundled" with the A 71 was launched in January 1995. In 1995, the construction of the new bridge was expected to start in the same year. Various complaints were brought against the project, which were also dealt with by the Federal Administrative Court. Due to the Transport Route Planning Acceleration Act (Verkehrswegeplanungsbeschleunigungsgesetz) adopted specifically for the new transport routes in the new federal states, it was possible to put the first planning approval decision for the Erfurt–Arnstadt section into effect at the end of 1994. The planning approval decisions for the new routes were adopted between 24 May 1995 and 15 April 1997. In the middle of 1996, of the new line and of the rail power line were approved. The approvals were finalised in 1998 apart from the Erfurtstadt and Bad Staffelstein sections. In the middle of 2007, the approvals were finalised for all sections. The planning approval decision for the southern section of the railway power line from the 19 December 1995 lost its effect because the construction work had not commenced within the limited period of validity. As a result, a plan for the southern section of the railway power line to the Roth substation was reapplied for in 2012. Construction halt The coalition agreement of the SPD-Green coalition of 20 October 1998 expressly provided for the examination of the Saxon-Franconian trunkline as an alternative to previous plans for the project. The coalition agreed on a review of the Nuremberg–Erfurt project. A construction site for a section of the new line was announced publicly on 30 March 1999. The Planungsgesellschaft Bahnbau Deutsche Einheit justified this in the absence of a financial agreement with the federal government. About DM 650 million had previously been invested by the company in the project. The Federal Ministry of Transport and Communications emphasised that the project would be re-examined and that the results would be available within weeks. At the end of May 1999, it became