Last Day in the DDR

Saturday, 20th April 1985

Today was supposed to be a "rest day" to allow us to catch up after a hectic week's train riding and other adventures in the DDR and Poland before making yet another overnight journey home. The itinerary promised a leisurly day exploring Dresden and no doubt enjoying the odd beer or two on the way round.

But because of the problem we'd had in Thale on the previous Saturday, when "bus, hitch or taxi to Gernrode" failed to work (read again here) we still had most of the Harz narrow gauge system to do. So it was another fairly early start, with us being up and away and at Dresden Hauptbahnhof for the almost four hour (260km) ride to Gerrode on the 0858 train, with changes to be made at Wegleben and Quedlinburg. Bob records that for some reason we only bought tickets for the first leg of this trip. Therefore, on arrival at Wegleben I leapt from the train and legged it to the booking office to get tickets for the rest of the way.

I was in a hurry becuae we only had five minutes or so between trains, but the queue at the booking office was so long and moving so slowly that I had to abandon the attempt and we had to continue without tickets.  This was potentially a more serious offence on a Deutsche Reichsbahn main line train than it would have been on the Polish narrow gauge, but we appear to have got away with it and, after a further change of train at Quedlinburg, arrived at Gernrode at 13.47.

Gernrode station, where we had two minutes to change trains, buy tickets and, apparently, take photographs!

We were just in time for the 1349 to Stiege and it appears that despite the two minute connection we did manage to find time to buy tickets and take the odd photograph!  Nowadays our journey from Dresden would be easier as, in a rare event, the standard-gauge, diesel worked branch line from Quedlinburg has been closed and replaced by an extension of the narrow-gauge line from Gernrode!

In 1985 Gernrode was the easternmost terminus of a network of lines that spanned the Harz Mountains. Trains ran westwards to Alexisbad (where a branch ran off to Harzegerode), Stiege (for the Hasseldelde branch) and the important junction in the middle of nowhere at Eisfelde Talmüle where it met the north-south line from Nordhausen running up to Wernigerode. A further branch of the system - from Drei Annen Höhe up to the summit of the Broken - which is now the busiest part of the network - was in 1985 only open for passengers as far as the village of Schierke and even then anyone travelling required a permit  due to the proximity of the village to the border and the fact that the top of the Broken Mountain and the terminus for the line, housed a Russian Millitary base.

We obviously had time at Alexisbad, probably waiting for a connecting train from Harzgerode to take photos.
 I loved the way you could get up close and personal to trains on these narrow-gauge lines.

Our train was going to Hasseldelde, but the timetable didn't allow us to go all the way and we had to change at Steige.

Stiege. We had two minutes to change trains here but already had through tickets.

After a two-minute halt and a quick change of trains we were off again, this time to the more important junction at Eisfelde Talmühle where we met the Harz "main line" running from Nordhausen to Wernigerode. There was plenty to see during our 22 minute wait here.

Despite its importance as a junction, Eisfelde Talműhle was in a remote spot.

We left at 16.34, with the 43km journey to Wernigerode scheduled to take just under two hours. The line closely paralleled the border between the DDR and the Federal Republic of Germany and in places some of the frontier fence could be seen from the train. On a similar trip in 1988 I got into trouble with the guard for taking photos, after having been warned by him not to do so, although I got the impression he didn't really mind and it was more of a "look, I've got to tell you this because it's my job" sort of telling off, rather than anything more serious.

A train from the Harz running into Wernigerode. Note the lack of level crossing controls!

And so, at 18.29 we were back at Wernigerode, almost where we started after over 2,000km of train and bus travel (not counting the journey from London) plus, of course 487km in the Lada hire car.

We allowed ourselves a twenty-five minute respite before boarding the 1854 to Halberstadt to begin our journey home.

to be concluded....