Well, that was pretty amazing.
We’re only at the midpoint of the Trains 75th Anniversary tour of Germany, but for spectacular railroading, it’s going to be hard to top the Harz Railway, the meter-gauge steam operation in the Harz Mountains where we spent Monday and Tuesday.Here’s a quick look at our visit to the Harz. (No doubt it deserves more, but with our tour still ongoing, time constraints dictate a relatively brief post.) Imagine the Durango and Silverton — except with block signals, welded rail, locomotives built as recently as the mid-1950s, and significantly more trains — and you start to get the idea just how impressive this operation is.
On a daily basis during its summer season — from late April to Nov. 1 — the railroad runs a dizzying number of steam-powered trains on its three, the Brockenbahn, Harzquerbahn and Selketalbahn. We rode the first two of those, which split about 12 miles from the railroad’s base, in Wernigerode, at the station of Drei Annen Hohne That station sees 24 steam departures daily between 9:45 a.m. and 7:23 p.m. (The full, extensive network of the railroad, formally the Harzer Schmalspur Bahnen, also includes diesel railcar and electric operations.)
The steam portion of this activity relies primarily on 17 2-10-2T locomotives, one built in 1931 and the others dating from the mid-1950s. (There are also three Mallets, dating as far back as 1897, brought out for occasional special events.) The 2-10-2Ts are handsome little engines, as these photos should illustrate.
The trip from Wernigerode to Brocken is the best-known and most heavily patronized line, with seven daily round trips drawing railfans and other tourists, bound for the Harz National Park.The climb’s the thing on this 21-mile trip: Wernigerode, where the trip begins, is at about 820 feet; Brocken is at 3,743 feet. The competition for space on the platforms (the Harz passenger cars have open platforms at each end, and passengers are welcome to ride there) was pretty intense, but well worth the effort, even on a wet, gray day when temperatures dipped to 36 degrees at the top of the hilll.
Our second-day trip took us 27 miles to Eisfelder Talmülde, which sees just a couple of steam round trips daily through scenic, heavily wooded terrority. Here, after leaving Drei Annen Hohne, where many passengers transferred to go to Brocken, we mostly had the consist to ourselves. Eisfelder is a pretty little spot in a mountain valley, where our train met two railcars bound for other parts of the system.
In addition to riding, our schedule allowed plenty of opportunities to shoot other trains as they came and left from Wernigerode, including (for me) a walk up to see the railroad's one short stretch of street running. The weather may not have been perfect, but the photos are still pretty spectacular.
Much like the experience itself.
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