10th February 2013 - Snow, steam and sunSunday 10th February 2013 In a total contrast to yesterday, the sky was clear and a nice day beckoned but the sun had yet to appear as we made our way across the road to the station and took a couple of shots of the locos on the shed and the diesel station pilot which had brought the coaches into the platform. 199 861 at Wernigerode The charter, with 99 7235 back in charge again, set off about 15 minutes in front of the first service train and it was only a matter of minutes before we all alighted for the first photo of the day as the train rounded the curve between Wernigerode “Hbf” and Westerntor stations just as the sun rose. Somebody with some excellent local knowledge must have worked that one out though it was a shame about all the detritus lying around the area. 99 7235 at Wernigerode As we were so close to Westerntor station, the charter did not set back to pick us up – it couldn’t in any case as the first public departure of the day was not far behind, so that was photographed as well before we all walked the short distance to Westerntor station whilst the service train went on ahead. The next photo location was at Drei Annen Hohne where the train set back down the hill for a “false arrival”, unfortunately the sun chose to disappear behind a cloud at that point so the results were slightly disappointing. 99 7235 at Drei Annen Hohne We turned “left” towards Nordhausen again today and had an “arrival shot” at Elend before we crossed the same railcar as yesterday. A much better picture was possible today as the sun had re-appeared and was at just the right angle. 187 017 at Elend There were two more run-pasts in the forested area around Sorge before we crossed the steam hauled service from Nordhausen at Benneckenstein again, this time without exchanging locos, and we were only at Eisefelder-Talmühle long enough to take water, run round and shunt in order to have an easier departure towards Stiege. There was one run past on the steep climb near Birkenmoor which we did not bother with as the loco was running bunker first but it turned out to be the noisiest one of the whole weekend; perhaps the driver was trying to compensate for the loco being the “wrong” way round. We had never done the line between Eisefelder-Talmühle and Stiege, or the loop at the latter but the charter did not do the loop line as it would have turned the whole train meaning that the loco would be running in reverse for the rest of the day. Never mind, it would just mean that we would have to pay another visit in the future, though by the look of the current timetable the loop is not the easiest bit of line to cover. Instead of using the loop, the charter continued to the end of the line at Hasselfelde where somebody had opened the shed doors to reveal 99 7244 inside. From what we can ascertain, this loco has been incarcerated here for at least the last 10 years and is one of a number of stored locos dotted about various sheds on the Harz system. 99 7244 at Hasselfelde Shortly after leaving Hasselfelde there was yet another photo stop where we all decamped into a snow covered field and were treated to another noisy run past along a nice reverse curve followed by yet another one a short distance beyond Stiege. Beyond our photo location, the line is flanked by a fair amount of trees so photo locations were harder to come by but it was time we got a move on in any case as the afternoon train from Gernrode had to be crossed. 99 7235 near Stiege There are not so many passing loops on this section so the crossing manoeuvre was performed at Silberhütte, not in the loop at the station which was out of use, but by reversing our train into an old factory siding; not without a little difficulty as the points had to be thawed out using a flare lit from the loco’s fire. We were free to wander round and a nice picture of the service train headed by Mallet 0-4-4-0T 99 5906 was obtained by standing in front of the buffer stop on the headshunt of the factory siding. 99 5906 at Silberhütte (Anh) Unfortunately for the track bashers the train did not go right down to the far end of the siding, the track looked as if it was intact but we were too busy taking photographs to go and investigate on foot whether this was actually the case. There were two more trains to cross before we finally reached Quedlinburg, both diesel units, the second crossing of which doubled as a photo stop at the request stop of Sternhaus Ramberg and involved more action with stiff brushes and fire to free the points. Sternhaus Ramberg Once the unit passed the charter was reversed out of the loop, a bit easier than messing around trying to free the points at the far end and we set off non-stop to the fairly new HSB terminus at Quedlinburg. The original end of the line was at Gernrode but closure of the standard gauge line between Quedlinburg and Frose in 2004 enabled the HSB to extend some 8.5 kilometres to connect with the “main line” between Halberstadt and Thale just under two years later; a description of the project (in German) with photos can be found on the IG-HSB website. At Quedlinburg there were meant to be two road coaches to return the group to Wernigerode so we all stood waiting patiently in the large car park next to the HSB tracks with no sign of any transportation. Eventually somebody phoned the coach company and it turned out that the coaches were waiting outside the front of the station building on the standard gauge side; luckily it was not a long drive round and we were soon all on our way back to Wernigerode after a minor flap when it appeared we might be a couple of seats short. In conclusion we would certainly do one of these trips again though probably not this year, our only criticism being that there were rather too many people on the trip in our view meaning we did tend to get in each other’s way at times. However, these sort of trips cannot be cheap to put on and have to be paid for somehow so it was good that such a venture was so well supported.
Keywords:
Germany,
Harzer Schmalspurbahnen
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