Harold,
that article is historically not quite correct.
Actually, the starting date was 1851, when a construction permit was granted to build a railway with a gauge of 30 Prussian inches, equating to 785 mm. From 1851 to 1854, the network of lines was operated by horses. In 1854, some 2-4-2 steam locos where purchased, which did not run satisfactorily and in 1860, the new owner, Rudolf Pringsheim, sold the locos for scrap and went back "to the horses". Steam service came back in 1872. In 1904, Pringsheim´s license was not renewed and the line became a part of the Royal Prussian Railway Administration (KPEV). Until the outbreak of WW I, the line grew to a respectable length of 138 km (about 80 miles) and 203 km for spurs and sidings. It was operated by 51 locos and 3.693 freight cars. Passenger service was of lesser meaning. Following the Versailles treaty and disregarding a vote of the people of that area, much of the region was ceded in 1920 to the newly established Polish Republic, against the will of the people. The line was split in a German and a Polish part, the German side becoming an integral part of Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRG), the Polish part integrated into PKP, the Polish State Railway. January 1945 saw the occupation of that area by the Soviet Red Army. The German population, together with the population of Lower Silesia, Pomerania, East and Western Prussia (in total 10 million people) were forcibly removed from their land - following the Jalta agreement between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. Nearly a million people died in the process of this - also large parts of my family.
Following the ethnic "cleansing", the Polish State Railway took over all of the line in summer 1945. It remained in full operation until 1995, when the decline began, ending with the termination of service in 2001. Formally, the line still exists under the ownership of the towns of Beuthen, Tarnowitz and Georgenberg and operation is handled by a historical society, but regular service is most unlikely, as most of the rails have been stolen by now - a sad end of a huge network of narrow gauge lines, which appears to have been the first in continental Europe.