Off the Rails: The Iron Horse and the Iron Curtain

Strecken und Fahrpläne

Routes and Schedules

There was no reason to go to Wernigerode. We may as well have thrown a dart at a dartboard. I had only vaguely heard of the Harz Mountains: the land of the Brothers Grimm. My mother had a conference in Jena and I had simply picked somewhere to meet with decent train connections both from Jena and Berlin.

Luckily, Wernigerode was charming. A 19th-century castle looms over the city, built upon the foundations of medieval fortress of the Count of Wernigerode. The historic center is a collection of half-timber houses, golden light spilling out of the doorways onto the cobblestone streets. Cafés line the main road enticing tourists with Italian coffees and German cakes. But the star of the region is the Brocken Railway, one of the three railways that form the Harz narrow gauge network. It started service in 1899, bringing tourists to the peak of the Brocken, the tallest mountain in the Harz.

Friends of my mother’s had announced that they would join us in Wernigerode. They were a couple: She had gone to school with my mother in Mannheim when they were teenagers in the 1950s. Her husband knew the region, his family had lived locally at some point, maybe before the jagged border split Germany along the edge of the Harz mountains. They arrived by car and were happy to chauffeur us throughout the region, planning daily trips of things to see.

“There’s a train,” I said.

“Well, yes,” they said. “But we have a car.”

There are two types of holiday-goers; stringent planners who wish to do everything together and let-it-ride adventurers who drift aimlessly without plans, wandering off at the slightest opportunity. I can be a German stickler for organization, with itineraries which are exact to the minute, or the California beach bum, late to breakfast and wondering why everyone else is standing there with their coats on. If I weren’t me, I wouldn’t want to holiday with either of me.

My mother’s friends were firmly in the first category: everything must be negotiated and done together. The point: There was no possibility of my sneaking away to spend a day on my own as a train hobo.

Fahrkarten

Tickets

At breakfast, my mother mentioned that she wanted to send postcards, a task for which we, of course, needed to accompany her. As luck would have it, the Wernigerode post office is at the main train station. I seized the opportunity. “We’ll just be a minute,” I promised, dragging my mother’s friends to the smaller station next door. They looked wistfully at my mother, who sped away at the chance to send her postcards in peace, and accompanied me to the Harz Schmalbahnspur station, the base of narrow-gauge railway. A steam locomotive pulled up to the platform to be connected to the carriages, gleaming black and red in the sunshine. As if to say hello, it emitted a belch of black smoke followed by a puff of white steam. Mrs Mother’s Friend glared at it over her spectacles.

They had a car, she reminded me. Her husband disappeared to take more photographs of the locomotive. My mother arrived and pretended polite interest, because she loves me. Mrs Mother’s Friend pointed at the webcam view of the summit over the ticket booth, which showed grey figures huddled against the wind and gusting snow. I pointed out that I didn’t mind going alone.

She gave in gracefully. If I wasn’t willing to give up on this idea, then only possible option was for everyone to accompany me on a train trip through Harz. Mr Mother’s Friend, who had carefully remained silent throughout the discussion, was smiling as he arranged tickets for the following morning.

The Harz Schmalspurbahn consists of 25 steam locomotives, 12 diesel locomotives and 137 carriages which which it covers a network of 140 kilometers. Our morning train would travel through Wernigerode and then to Drei Annen Hohne, the start of the Brockenbahn, for a trip through the Harz National Park to the top of Brocken.

The ancient forests had been predominantly hardwood trees, beech mixed with maple, birch and ash. People spoke of going in die Harten, into the hardwood forest, leading the area to become known as Harz. Initially, very few people actually lived there: the dense forests covered the uninhabited mountains and there were just a few isolated villages in the valleys. That all changed when silver ore was discovered near Goslar in 968 — probably not coincidentally, just 30 years before the village started producing the now-famous Gose beer. Over the next centuries, the Harz mountains were transformed into an important center of mining and smelting. In fact, the Upper Harz dialect isn’t regional or even related to those isolated early villages. It is part of a language family called Erzgebirgisch (literally Ore Mountain dialect) which is dotted around central Germany, following the migration of the mining folk in the 16th century. Over time, the native forests of Harz became over-exploited and destroyed. The mountains were reforested with Norwegian Spruce: fast growing and undemanding, giving a steady supply of timber to the hungry mining operations.

Einsteigen, bitte!

All Aboard!

After some discussion, we agreed to commence our journey from the Wernigerode Western Tor station, allowing for an extra twenty minutes to linger over German breakfast. A brisk walk took us to the smaller station, where Mr Mother’s Friend demonstrated an unexpected understanding of crowd dynamics, studying the waiting passengers and then quickly guiding us into a compartment exclusively for our party.

The train chugged out of the the station with a burst of the train whistle. A tinny, pre-recorded voice welcomed us aboard as the city of Wernigerode gave way to the trees of the lower forest.

Any ecosystem without biodiversity carries risk. The first mining operations had burned away the natural forests like blowing dandelions in the wind. But the fast-growing monocultures of the Norwegian Spruce left the Harz forests susceptible to pests and diseases. In 1800, a massive bark beetle outbreak followed by violent storms destroyed 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of forest — an area the size of Dublin or Philadelphia. In Harz, and other timber forests all over Northern Europe, the undemanding and fast-growing Norwegian Spruce was replanted. Soon the mountains were blanketed with trees once again.

Drei Annen Hohne

The Start of the Brockenbahn

The train whistle sounded, accompanied by the tinny voice welcoming us to Drei Annen Hohne, the first official station of the Brockenbahn, nestled under the towering Hohne Cliffs.

In 1770, a local nobleman granted permission for copper and silver mining on his land. He kept the majority of the mining shares for himself but also divvied up a portion for the three important women in his life: his mother, Princess Christiane Anne, his newborn daughter Anne, and his niece Anna Emilia. He named the operation Drei Annen after the three Annes.

The mine never turned a profit and the name might have faded into obscurity. However, a tavern appeared in its place and adopted the name of Drei Annen Hohnen. When the road to Schierke was rebuilt, Drei Annen Hohnen served as the toll house.

I suspect that the tavern did not sell the best beer or maybe a barmaid had slighted the forester, for when the railway line was built, it bypassed the tavern altogether. The train stopped a kilometre further down the track at the forester’s lodge at the Hohne Cliffs. Near the lodge was a prominent Norwegian Spruce tree, which led to the station being known as Signalfichte, “The Signal Spruce”. When a savage storm in 1901 toppled the tree, the name seemed less than helpful. The station became known as Drei Annen Hohne after the small settlement which had sprung up around the tavern.

The five-minute stop at Drei Annen Hohnen allowed passengers the opportunity to browse the local wares. A chalkboard advertised sausages in pea soup and miniature bottles of herbal liqueur.

Mr Mother’s Friend and I disembarked to quickly take some photographs of the train and then jumped back on, worried we might lose our seats or, god forbid, end up stuck here, with the two women travelling to Brocken without us. Another couple boarded our private compartment, earning a scowl from Mr Mother’s Friend.

Brockenbahn

Ascension

As the train turned west, trundling its way uphill to Schierke Station, Mrs Mother’s Friend peered out the window at the grey skies, mumbling under her breath that there would be no view and why else would anyone take a train to the top of the mountain. Mr Mother’s Friend looked pleased with himself. I realised that because we were making this trip at my insistence, anything that went wrong was officially Not His Fault, and thus he didn’t have to worry whether his wife was enjoying herself. She stopped speaking and the carriage grew quiet as the landscape changed. Bare silver-skinned trees surrounded by fallen companions covered the foothills. It was exactly how I imagined the apocalypse.

The tinny voice piped up to reassure us. “In actuality, the forest is as alive as ever.” We all stared out the windows in disbelief at the dead trees flying past.

I remember the Waldsterben panic of the 1980s when large swatches of forest suffered under pollution and acid rain before being ripped up by the roots in ferocious storms. My grandparents drove me to Odenwald but once we were there, they didn’t even bother to get out of the car, heartbroken at the scenes of devastation before us. Half of the trees of the forest lay damaged and, at the time, we believed that any efforts we made now would be too little, too late. Germany’s forests would never recover. The crisis, with 50% of Germany’s forests dead or dying, gave rise to the Green Party in Germany, who instituted laws to increase corporate responsibility, reduce pollution and protect the remaining green spaces. To everyone’s surprise, the forests all across the country began to recover.

Until now. Climate change and drought has again weakened the Norwegian Spruce and the rising temperatures allowed the bark beetle, usually kept at bay by the cold winters, to thrive. After a record-breaking heatwave in 2018, the European spruce bark beetle population exploded, attacking Norwegian Spruce all over Northern Europe.

The Norwegian Spruce defends against the bark beetle by producing more insecticidal sap to plug the beetles holes. However, the drought of the previous years left the trees unable to defend themselves. Just as in 1800, violent storms did the rest, toppling the already weakened trees.

The rangers of Harz took an unexpected stand. The forest was not simply an expected casualty of climate change and pests, they argued. It was the monoculture of the Norwegian Spruce, which comprised 80% of the forest, which made it so vulnerable. The natural Mischwald, the mixed forest, couldn’t gain a foothold against the fast-growing Spruce trees. This time, the rangers said, we should not try to save the stricken forest. We should let the trees die.

We all now stared out the windows at the stark silhouettes of the dead trees. The sun-bleached wood, the tinny voice told us, was now a food source for mushrooms and insects. The trunks offered dens for woodpeckers. As the Norwegian Spruce rots away, the voice reassured us, a new forest will grow in its place.

It will take decades. The tinny voice optimistically promised that the forest would return in thirty years, but some scientists predict that it will be our great-grandchildren who see the tangible results. Despite this, they are optimistic that the Harz mountains will once again be covered in a thriving natural forest.

Schierke

Literary Connections

The train slowed to a halt as we approached the next platform. There, a wooden cut-out of a man welcomed us to Schierke, a tiny hamlet (population 721) nestled into the base of the mountain.

Before the trainline was built, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe repeatedly hiked from Schierke to the moutain’s peak. These hikes up the mountain inspired his most famous work, Faust. The first act takes place in “the districts of Schierke and Elend” and on Walpurgis night, Mestophiles takes Faust to Brocken’s summit to join the witches in their revels.

The people of Schierke are understandably proud of their brush with literary history. The trail to the summit is now known as the Goetheweg, Goethe’s trail, although no one knows exactly where he walked. Schierke Station, perched above the village, was built in 1898 and has been in continuous use ever since. Even when the trainline was closed to the public during the occupation of East Germany, the station and trains were repurposed for military use.

Now, Brocken welcomes over a million tourists every year, descending on the mountain like locusts to hike to the summit. Twice, the Goetheweg has been moved and widened to accommodate the crowds.

The station restaurant offers a wide variety of sausages (with or without a bowl of pea soup). Next door, the ticket office doubles as a souvenir shop, offering ashtrays and keychains and Schierker Feuerstein, a local herbal liqueur. The drink was patented by a local chemist in 1924 as a digestif; the name comes from the red granite of the Feuersteinklippe, a striking rock formation nearby.

At 35% alcohol by volume (75 proof), it seemed a dangerous second breakfast. We remained in our carriage, still struck into silence by the views of the dying forest. It was March and the tourists had yet to swarm. As a gentle rain began to fall, the station looked deserted.

Goetheweg

Pedestrians Please Yield

As we steamed out of Schierke, the train tracks crossed the Goetheweg repeatedly. Small clusters of snow appeared in the shadowed mountainside. A group of hardy-looking hikers, bundled up in yellow plastic jackets, stopped to photograph our black and red locomotive as it whisked us through the valley of the Cold Bode.

On a distant mountain, the watchtower of Wurmberg came into view. The first tower on Wurmberg had been erected in 1850 for a trigonometric survey of the mountains and later, the watchtower was at the site of the inner German border. Now there are three structures at the top of Wurmberg: an observation tower, a ski jump and a restaurant.

A sharp S-bend in the tracks spurred Mr Mother’s Friend and I to step out onto the lurching open platform, eager for the opportunity of photographing our locomotive curving away before us. The biting wind stung our hands and faces. The train crossed the Goetheweg once again, but there was no one in sight.

This must be a relief to the train engineer. Before the most recent renovation of the Goetheweg, winter hikers would walk along the tracks, jumping out of the way when the trains barrelled towards them. The problem was that the trail became unpassable while a snow-moving locomotive diligently cleared the tracks every morning. The new trail was expanded to three metres across, allowing snow plough access in the winter and reducing the crush in the summer.

We retreated back into the carriage as the train spiraled around the mountain top like a corkscrew until we arrived at Brocken Station.

The Brockenbahn from Drei Annen Hohne to Brocken had taken 50 minutes to travel 19 kilometers. Brocken station, at 1140 meters altitude (3,750 feet), was the end of the line.

Endstation! Alle aussteigen!

End of the line

It was, as Mrs Mother’s Friend had predicted, completely miserable. We buttoned up our coats against the biting wind. The view from the highest peak of Harz was obscured in the thick cloud and mist. The locomotive pulled away to connect to the far end of the carriages and disappeared into the mist. The next train was in just over an hour.

We huddled together, pulling our coats tighter, and fought against the wind to the gravel path which marked the circular route around the summit.

After five minutes of negotiation about whether to go clockwise or counterclockwise, I was beginning to regret my decision to forego the Schierker Feuerstein. As we left the shelter of the station, I took my mother’s arm, worried that the fierce winds might whisk her away. Granite formations loomed in the mist, Devil’s Pulpit and Witches’ Altar which had inspired Goethe’s Faust.

A family passed us, a couple with a young girl who ran and danced along the trail as if it were a summer’s day. I searched our greyed out surroundings, wondering if we might see the famous Brocken Spectre. The sunlight against the water droplets casts shadows which are magnified and enormous, appearing as giant elongated beings with a sparkling rainbow aura. This phenomenon was first documented on Brocken in 1780 and brought an influx of tourists from the UK in the 1830s, although it could appear on any misty mountain. However, it does presuppose something resembling sunlight and on this March morning, the dark fog made it unlikely that we would see the Brocken Spectre for ourselves.

We hiked past the Wolkenhäuschen (literally the cloud hut), built in 1736 as shelter for mountaineers, complete with fireplace. It was overshadowed by a modern tower, the highest hotel in the north, which boasts 163 kilometers visibility in good weather. I was hard-pressed to even see the top of the tower. Inside, the tourist hall offered cafeteria-style food. An unexpectedly large crowd of people waited with trays for their bowl full of pea soup with a sausage nestled on top, followed by huge mugs of beer from the self-service taps. A red car emblazoned with the logo of Schierker Feuerstein was inexplicably parked in the corner of the dining room. It seemed every tourist for miles had come here at the same time as we had. The food was good and the atmosphere congenial, not to mention shelter from the bitter wind.

The original Brocken Hotel was destroyed by American bombs in 1945. The mountain’s proximity to the east/west border led to Brocken being declared a military exclusion zone in 1961; while the wall was built through Berlin, a similar three-metre high wall was erected to protect the military installations at Brocken. After the Berlin wall fell in 1989, hundreds of demonstrators entered the military out-of-bounds area of Harz, demanding access to the nature reserve. Today’s tourist information office had been a Stasi headquarters and the towering hotel was designed as a Soviet listening post, able to intercept radio traffic across Western Europe. Harz once again belongs to the public.

Auf dem Heimweg

Homeward Bound

By now, the wind was howling as we left the tourist hall. Patches of ice covered the trail on the northern side of the peak. Mrs Mother’s Friend carefully broached the idea of taking the next train back to civilisation as we seemed unlikely to make it around the circular route alive. I agreed, still frightened that my mother might get swept away in the high wind …and how would I explain that to my daughter without confirming every suspicion she’s ever had about my lack of maternal instincts?

There were still almost forty minutes until the next departure.

We lingered among the squat structures of the station. Warm light spilled from the station cafe, tempting me inside. In a brief break from tradition, I walked into the cafe without discussing the matter with the group. There was a short queue for food and drink.

Mr and Mrs Mother’s Friend approached me as I joined it. “What are you doing?”

I tried to sound nonchalant. “I’m getting a hot chocolate.”

“The train is arriving now, though.”

I glanced out the window to see the locomotive pulling the next train into the station. “Yes, but it doesn’t leave for half an hour, right?”

“Right.” A quiet pause. “But you can board the train now.”

“I’m just getting a hot chocolate first.”

Another pause.

I tried to diffuse the tension. “Do you want to get on the train now and I’ll meet you there?”

“No, no. It’s fine. There’s still half an hour.”

“OK.”

“It’s just… all the best seats will be taken.”

I took a deep breath and looked at the queue, just two people ahead of me now. “I’ll get my hot chocolate to go, so that I can drink it on the train.”

Both nodded, happy that we had come to a compromise. I grabbed my hot chocolate and collected my mother before returning to the platform. We boarded the train 25 minutes before departure.

As the steam train pulled away from the station to take us home, we were the only ones in our compartment.

My hot chocolate was delicious …with one minor addition.