Nostalgic wintertime steam train travel in the Harz mountains

By Bernd Kubisch Dec 13, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Wernigerode/Goslar, Germany - Many of the travellers are taking off their scarves and overcoats. In the wood-panelled coaches of the historic narrow-gauge Harz mountain steam railway pulling out of the town of Wernigerode, it is comfortably warm.

The train is heading towards the nearby Brocken peak, which at 1,141 metres is the highest point in northern Germany's rugged Harz Mountains. The travellers are warmed further as they pour beverages from their thermos flasks - coffee, grog and mulled wine.

While the stoker shovels coal into the steam engine in the locomotive up front, the passengers sit back to enjoy the winter scenery - deep, dark pine forests covered in white, the trees' branches bending beneath the weight of the snow. The forests alternate with high-altitude fields covered by snowdrifts.

The train makes a longer stopover at the Drei Annen station at 542 metres, as two steam locomotives are taking on a new load of water. Many travellers pay a visit to the 'Harzquerbahn' pub.

Each day, five or more regularly scheduled trains - all of them travelling the one-metre narrow-gauge rails and pulled by a steam locomotive - stop here. For the next 50 minutes, the locomotive will be chugging strenuously away as it pulls the train up the steepest 19-kilometre final stretch to the peak.

Train conductor Rolf Apel checks the passengers' tickets and chats with the travellers. Apel's experience goes back to the old days of the Reichsbahn of the former East Germany. Now his heart and soul are in his work for the Harz narrow-gauge railway company. At a stop in the town of Schierke, the 57-year-old talks about those bygone days.

'For three decades, this (Schierke) was the trains' final stop. Everyone had to get off here,' he said, noting that during the period of the division of the two Germanies (1961 to 1989), East Germany made the Brocken, which was very close to the former internal border, off-limits to the people. During those Cold War days, the Brocken summit was a military facility used for electronic eavesdropping.

Now, as the train nears the Brocken, the tree cover is thinning out. Small pines and shrubs, bent over by the wind and covered by snow, call to mind images of gnomes, witches and other legendary beings which populate the folklore of the Harz mountain region.

An average of 4,000 people visit the summit daily, while on good days the number can reach upwards of 15,000 people. When the weather is clear, the visibility is 100 kilometres. On this day, the view is only so-so. All the same, the visitors seem to be happy.

The snow is deep and the trail markers are covered with icicles. Amid ice-covered bushes, glittering in the daylight, children are romping around, riding their sleighs and having snowball fights. Meanwhile hikers and cross-country skiers pass by, or stop for a rest.

In the winter as well, the Brocken's attractions - a snack stand, restaurant and hotel - are very much in demand.

'They are closed only for heavy snowstorms, but that happens only rarely,' says Brocken restaurant manager Daniel Steinhoff, whose family started up the business in March 1991 with a small field kitchen that they transported in their Trabi car.

'Throughout the year we'll have between 10 and 3,000 guests per day. It depends on the weather.'

The narrow-gauge train also travels to towns with traditional Christmas markets, such as Wernigerode, Quedlinburg and Nordhausen.

In fact, a Christmas market tour of the area covers a triangle of the three German states which share the Harz Mountains - Saxony-Anhalt, Thueringia and Lower Saxony. The distances between the towns are easily manageable.

The Harz Tourism Association also has a list of more than 30 towns which have Christmas markets, including Aschersleben, Altenau, Sangerhausen, Thale and Wildemann.