Organization: mbp Software&Systems GmbH at ESOC, Darmstadt, Germany
Date: Monday, 13 Apr 1992 13:32:34 CET
From: Dr. Lutz Massonne <LMASSONN@ESOC.BITNET>
Newsgroups: rec.railroad,rec.travel
Subject:    TRAVELOGUE: Steam trip in Thueringen (Germany)

This weekend I attended a steam railway trip through the
"Thueringer Wald" in the centre of Germany.

The Thueringer Wald is a mountain/woodland region in the German state
of Thueringen (in the former East German part).
One of the most known towns there is Eisenach (with the famous
Wartburg castle), home of Johann Sebastian Bach and the place
where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German language
while hiding on Wartburg castle.
Apart from the Wartburg, Eisenach features the Bach and Luther
houses, restored with period furniture and museums displaying
topical relics.
The railway trip was organised by the German Society for Railway
History (DGEG), on occasion of the first run of their newly restored
Prussian passenger locomotive class P8 (Reichsbahn number 38 2267)
after overhaul in the Reichsbahn (East German State Railway) repair
shop in Meiningen (also in Thueringen, specialised on steam
locomotive repairs).
The locomotive had spent 10 years as static display in a park
in East Germany when after the unification the DGEG decided to buy
the engine and restore it for service on their museum line
in the Ruhr valley near Bochum.

I went to Eisenach already on the evening before the trip, using the
through train from Frankfurt/Main to Erfurt.
The part through the former East/West border region was interesting,
with the abandoned watchtowers and fences partly standing,
the now-defunct border station with many now unused lines of
rails and the last part using the now-reactivated Werra valley
line.
This part of the West-East connection had been unused for a long
time due to the fact that it crossed the West/East German border
several times. The East German Reichsbahn had built a new
line solely on East German territory to avoid this, with steeper
gradients as a penalty.
Now the old line is used again, but only single-line, and
repair and technical upgrades are still ongoing.
The express train even had to stop at a crossing and the guard
had to go out and close the gates manually.

The booking of hotel rooms in East Germany has become a lot
easier than in the first months after the unification, with
tourists offices now available in most town of interest and
a gradually inclining telephone service.
The hotel I stayed still had the nostalgic charm of the former
German Democratic Republic, with fire safety regulations
reminding the guest "to look after the People's Property"
and the guest mail paper still giving the address as
"Place of German-Soviet Friendship" (being renamed to the old name
of Karlsplatz in the meantime).

On Saturday morning all railfans met at the station to board
the special train, with the steam engine "38 2267" newly
painted and polished at the head.
The train consisted of five cars, one first-class car, a combined
baggage/2nd class car and three 2nd class cars, all green or
green-beige Reichsbahn express train cars.
Just before the special train left Eisenach, the regular express to
Dresden passed, drawn by one of the big Soviet-built
Diesel-electric class 232 locomotives.
Eisenach still features the old semaphore-type signals which
are mostly gone on West German railway lines, and the
composition of the big Russian locomotive with a set of Bundesbahn
cars passing by the Reichsbahn semaphore signals in the morning mist
was (imho) a sight which might soon be gone.

The steam train left Eisenach at 9:15 and went to Bad Salzungen
with several photo stops and "Scheinanfahrten" (= photographers leave
the train, the train backs up and re-enters the station with much
noise and steam).
The line had steep gradients and, being single-track, there were a
number of crossing stops with scheduled passenger and freight
trains. This resulted in impressive sound effects of a
hard working steam locomotive at high speed (max speed was 90 km/h
on that line) and a good number of photo opportunities.
Having made a circle around the hills, from Bad Salzungen
the train now went right into the mountains.
At Grimmenthal the locomotive was changed to a five-coupled
tender engine (Prussian type T14, Reichsbahn class 94 1292).
This was the type of steam engine that replaced the former cog-wheel
operations on the gradient lines over the mountains.
With some additional photo stops and one stop at the top of the
hills to check the brakes, the train went to Suhl and then to
Zella-Mehlis where it met the 38 2267 again.
On the steep climb downhill the steam engine is required to run
with the firebox on the lower side to avoid that the top of the
firebox gets dry with low water level in the boiler.

This part of the Thueringer Wald is of great natural beauty, with
many walking tracks and a touristic infrastructure dating back to
the last century.
From Zella-Mehlis the class 38 pulled the train back to Bad Salzungen,
a small resort with some nice wooden structures for inhalation
of salt water spray near to the railway line.
From there the branch line to Vacha was taken.
In that part of Thueringen a number of salt mines are located,
some of which are already closed in the aftermath of the
German unification which suddenly rendered these companies
unprofitable.
At the end of the branch to Vacha there is a extension to
Unterbreizbach, used for goods traffic only.
The special train went there, too, but the steam engine was
not powerful enough to handle that very steep part of the
line.
A diesel-electric class 231 (a 3000 HP six-wheeled engine,
built in Woroschilovgrad in 1971) pulled the train "over the
hill". The 231 can handle only five loaded salt cars on that
branch line due to the gradient.
(As an aside: Diesel-electric locomotives are very rare in Germany.
 Normally the Diesel-hydraulic power transmission is used,
 in West Germany only the class 288 (former V 188) was a Diesel
 electric locomotive, but the 288 was built by the German army
 during World War II for the heavy railway artillery
 and the West German Bundesbahn never acquired a Diesel-electric
 locomotive.
 In East Germany all locally built Diesel locos also were diesel-
 hydraulic, only the Soviet-built heavy locomotives and some
 Czechoslovakian-built class 107 locomotives were Diesel-electric)
After the short excursion to Unterbreizbach and back to Vacha
the steam engine pulled the train back to Bad Salzungen,
tender first as there was no turntable to turn the engine around
at Vacha.
From the Bad Salzungen the train then went back to Eisenach with
again some nice photo stops, allowing the passengers to
take pictures of the train on a scenic stone viaduct and,
from a passenger bridge for platform access, entering a station.
We arrived on time back at Eisenach at 19:32, keeping the
connection to the express train back to Frankfurt which left
8 minutes later.

Apart from this special tour there are regular steam trains with
the class 94 engine over the gradients on the Schleusingen to
Meiningen line which take place every month.
If someone is interested in details, please send me a note.

Regards, Lutz Massonne