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Peat railway in Northern Germany


railroadbill
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Came across this peat carrying operation last summer. It is situated on the 495 in Northern Germany going west from the Elbe ferry.  Having spotted it I just had to stop to take some pictures. It was obviously used but nothing was happening then.  There was no-one about to ask about the operation unfortunately and this was as close as I could get. 

Just sorting some pictures out and as a minimalist railway thought I should post it.

 

 

 

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rod drive 0-4-0 diesel in good condition, but I couldn't see any makers plates.

 

 

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The wagons have a very short wheelbase.

 

 

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A line of wagons on a ramp up to the conveyor belt.

 

 

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Conveyor in loading yard.

 

 

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They seem to have a lot of track stored there. Couldn't get close enough to measure the gauge.

 

 

 

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This is the landscape the other side of the main road.  There were a couple of very large tractors hauling trailers with peat rolls on them that we passed on the road so this looks like an area for peat extraction.

 

 

 

 

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satellite view from Google Earth.

 

 

Location:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.7434787,9.275274,152m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

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  • RMweb Gold

Very interesting find, I've tracked down some further inf here

 

http://www.entlang-der-gleise.de/Feldbahnen/TorfWolfsbruchermoor.html

 

This site records the gauge of the line as 60cm

 

 

http://achristo.homepage.t-online.de/Ex2006.htm

 

 

Cheers,

 

Keith

Edited by tractionman
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Thanks, Keith, very informative web sites,  particularly the details of the locos they use.  Google translate did make it easier for me....

A bigger operation than I realised.  The loco I saw seemed to have better  paint than the ones on the web site.

 

I noticed this on our outward trip, it's hard to see because of the buildings when you're driving along, but I just spotted a few ng wagons.  We did stop  on the return journey though.

Could be a good minimalist ng model - very uneven track required. :-)

 

I've now found a web site for Euflor who are the company removing and processing the peat. Some details of the ecological issues and how they intend to restore the landscape to a wet moorland afterwards.

 

http://www.euflor.de/Product-Range_13_1.html

 

 

Cheers,

Bill

Edited by railroadbill
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If you are into this sort of thing, the "Feldbahnen" series of books, published by Zeunert, are exceedingly good.

 

You might also want to google "bord na mona railway", to get the lowdown on the Irish equivalents. I'm surprised that the BnM lines are so seldom modelled, because they are seriously interesting, and very easy to see from public places.

 

The German ones get more modelling attention, particularly since Busch started making r-t-r models in H0f.

 

Kevin

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Thanks for that, Kevin. Hadn't realised how much peat was used in RoI, particularly  in power stations.  I think Oliver Bulleid designed a peat burning loco back in the 50s.  There must be a lot of area of former peat  bog to be reclaimed, the wikipedia article I turned up said that most bogs were now depleted.

 

It also said that portable track temporarily  laid alongside peat diggings was known as peco!

 

How is the track laid/relaid, tractor with crane arm perhaps?

 

There also seem to be some really substantial lines feeding power stations, all 3' gauge, quite a network.

Very interesting.

Cheers,

Bill

 

ps  just clocked your outdoor layout thread, excellent!   Also excellent are the coarse O gauge layouts, another story...

Edited by railroadbill
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Bill,

 

There is a very solid link between German and Irish peat railways, in that a good deal of the expertise behind exploitation of the bogs for electricity production in Ireland during the 1930s came from one particular company in Germany. Some of the 3ft (possibly actually 900mm initially) gauge locos used in this period were from German makers, and turf digging machines are still known as "baggers", not because they put anything into bags, but because that is what they are called in German (the same word is used for "excavator" in German).

 

This relationship turned out to have a very peculiar side to it, though .........

 

"Heinz Mecking (1931), who worked as an expert adviser to the Turf Development Board (the forerunner of Bord na Móna) from 1936 to 1939. He took over as NSDAP chief in Dublin when Mahr left for Berlin in July 1939. When war broke out, Mecking joined the German army and later oversaw turf production for the Russian winter campaigns of 1941 and 1942. He died of starvation and hypothermia while a prisoner of the Red Army in December 1945."

 

Photo of track laying below,, using a wide-tracked excavator, fitted with a panel-lifter. I took this one about ten years ago. In the 1940s, BnM had a great contraption mounted on rails for doing the job, copied from a Soviet design (as were wagon designs for some lines in the 1950s).

 

Kevin

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Edited by Nearholmer
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Very interesting piece of history. Presumably both countries had a lot of peat bogs available for extraction.

 

Thanks for the pic showing how the track is moved, thought it would have to be something like that. I found this link via your layout thread showing a Hiunslet loco used in Ireland.

http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/22/Wagonmaster.htm

 

When we stopped by the peat railway in Germany the stock seemed in well maintained condition so must have some money spent on it. There were some large tractors pulling trailers with peat bales on them driving around which looked pretty new so it must be a profitable business.

Edited by railroadbill
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Hello there !

 

Thank you for showing the pictures.

 

Additionally to the mentioned Feldbahn serie by Zeunert (http://www.zeunert.de/epages/73779.mobile?ClassicView=1) I would like to recommend this book (it's about german peat railways only):

http://www.drehscheibe-online.de/lieferprogramm/liefer.php?DS=3&set_page=2

(The third offer 'Torfbahnen in Deutschland')

 

Cheers

Dirk

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Hi Dirk,

Thanks for that. Until we saw the peat operation as we drove past, I had no knowledge of these lines at all.  In fact I would have thought that peat extraction would be a form of agriculture that used tractors and trailers or off road trucks in the fields, then trucks to transport the peat elsewhere.  So this has been very interesting in revealing the extent to which ng railways are still of commercial use.

 

The route we took was just an experiment to go cross country. We were going up into Denmark through Schleswig-Holstein so we came off the A28 at Westerstede and went across to the Elbe ferry which avoided the autobahn from Oldenburg to Hamburg and then north.  Some very nice countryside that we would otherwise have missed.

 

I shall look out for torfbahn on any future trips.

 

danke vielmals

Bill

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I should have mentioned this sooner: Steve Thomason's website http://www.ingr.co.uk

 

He posts regular updates about lines all over Europe, and has produced some excellent DVDs about German torfbahnen ...... you can work out from what he publishes where it is worth diverting your journey in order to see something interesting.

 

And, the early spring sunshine today has tempted the little 1:20 scale chaps who live in my garden to go down to the moor to collect turf.

 

Kevin

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Edited by Nearholmer
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Steve Thomason's web site looks very interesting, Kevin.  I've followed some links from it thanks to Google maps and indeed there are several operations still going that could be sought out on a future trip. I found a couple near the Dutch border. One area also has a museum of old moors industry,  at Emsland.

 

Their  web site has some  pics including a train that is fairly similar to your very nice  model.  What is your loco, is it  LGB?

 

 

Full size preserved stock at Emsland moorland museum here:

 

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Emsland+Moormuseum/@52.62232,7.18428,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1s-CS2nrduNUew%2FWBZFkaPXbfI%2FAAAAAAAATFo%2FkY_NiFPYsLoJqgg74NcY5i5iye_YEeQVgCLIB!2e4!3e12!6s%2F%2Flh6.googleusercontent.com%2F-CS2nrduNUew%2FWBZFkaPXbfI%2FAAAAAAAATFo%2FkY_NiFPYsLoJqgg74NcY5i5iye_YEeQVgCLIB%2Fs203-k-no%2F!7i2816!8i2112!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x47b78e6880a8176d:0xe43afd43378f6620!2sGro%C3%9F+Hesepe,+49744+Geeste,+Germany!3b1!8m2!3d52.6255108!4d7.2314203!3m4!1s0x47b78dc865854a75:0x8bab68d4bb266174!8m2!3d52.62232!4d7.18428!6m1!1e1?hl=en

Edited by railroadbill
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The entire train is LGB, but:

 

- loco has new couplers, changes to the cab roof, and a repaint;

 

- mess and tool van consists of parts from two different LGB vehicles, plus repaint, new couplers and wheels; and,

 

- turf wagons have had end-platforms removed, new couplers, and are in process of being repainted to look like weathered wood and rusty iron.

 

The idea has been to take the commercial models, and make them look much more like the real thing. I've got another of these locos, which has been under conversion to a BnM one, like the ones below, for ...... oooh ...... longer than I care to remember! Maybe I'll actually finish it this year.

 

K

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  • 5 months later...

Well, a year after I last saw this 60cm gauge peat operation, we drove past it again.

 

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Loco on the ramp to the loader. Not sure what's in the box on the wagon.

 

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This was on a Sunday so nothing happening.

 

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They seem to be just digging up large piles of peat now rather than the rolled up turfs being taken away by tractor and trailer we saw the first time we went past.

 

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Coming back nearly 3 weeks later, on a Friday, there was some activity with a truck under the loader.  Still no-one around, must have been lunch time. There's a couple of full wagons behind the conveyor.

 

The area they are working is still fenced off, so difficult to see how much longer they will be able to work this.

 

One great thing about travelling out on a Sunday was that there were no trucks waiting to use the Elbe ferry from Wischafen to Gluckstadt and we drove straight up to the barrier and got on the next one going.  [There are 3 or sometimes 4 vessels operating at any one time but weekdays can still involve long queues if you're unlucky].

Edited by railroadbill
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