30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall

[Andy Kirkham]

Compared to some of the fascinating accounts above, my experience of the DDR is rather superficial - a fortnight in May 1989 when the Wall still seemed a permanent fixture. My first week was spent in Wernigerode when there was still freight traffic on the Hartzquerbahn (I presume there is no longer any).

The morning  Wernigerode freight trip, May 1989 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Wernigerode-Hasserode station. by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

The morning freight trip leaving Wernigerode-Hasserode for the Hauptbahnhof by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Harz042 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Harz055 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Harz061 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

The Hartz line ran directly along the border at one point - actually along the Death Strip, and there were signs which I think informed passengers that they risked being shot if they got of the train. A couple of times in the vicinity of the railway I encountered an armed guard and was asked to show my documents, which was scary the first time but was actually just routine and conducted with courtesy.

 

There was nothing much to do in Wernigerode in the evenings; the only places to eat were in the hotels and I think only one place - a beer garden - to get a drink.

 

I noticed a large number of young men of East Asian appearence there - I supposed these could have been Vietnamese students, but I never found out for sure.

 

Every village seemed to have the same set of shops - including a bookshop, which would seldom have been found in settlements of that size in the UK - and they all offered the same selection of books.

Placards at historical sites seemed to be trying to give the impression that Eastern Germany had been a victim of the Second World War; indeed, if you hadn't known otherwise, you might have gained the impression that the DDR had been founded in 1919 by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and then been invaded by these evil foreigners known as The Fascists (never the Nazis because that was a contraction of National Socialists)

 

In Berlin on my final day I was standing by the Wall in the vicinity of the Brandenburg Gate and an English family was standing next to me. One of them commented loud and clear: "Doesn't he look just like Bamber Gascoigne?"

Edited May 17, 2020 by Andy Kirkham

[Andy Kirkham]

An image that I feel exactly portray the look of the DDR "Zum Kartoffellagerhaus" (To The Potato Warehouse)

michael sowa: kartoffellagerhaus by tinajankulovski, on Flickr

 

More by the same artist here http://www.margarethe-illustration.com/michael-sowa.html

 

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Andy Kirkham

[Southernman46]

On 16/05/2020 at 11:31, John Tomlinson said:

I made some tourist visits to East Berlin in the '80's, and in answer to an earlier question posted some pics on my Flickr site a few days ago coincident with the end of WW2 (which per comments above wasn't!). See https://www.flickr.com/photos/51265696@N03

 

There's also some early '90's shots around Saalfeld with diesels as the Saalebahn line was being rebuilt - these are in the Album "Saale Valley, Thuringia", and some in the area in "Plandampf".

 

An example from the Saalebahn shots;

 

This is from February 1993 and is a Berlin - Munich train crossing the site of the old border point just south of Probstzella.

 

John.

 

ISTR the border was generally defined by a strip of different coloured ballast across the track ………….

 

103's - aren't they just the best ………………….. 

[John Tomlinson]

44 minutes ago, Southernman46 said:

 

ISTR the border was generally defined by a strip of different coloured ballast across the track ………….

 

103's - aren't they just the best ………………….. 

After I put this picture on Flickr, an Austrian friend commented that the Border here ran just behind the attractive building on the right. So the back of the train here is in the old DDR, the front in the old West.

 

I did like the 103's a lot, and was actually very surprised to see one up here. By this stage they were starting to be cascaded a bit to lesser duties, I think that a few years earlier this would have been a 110, before that even a 118.

 

Whether I prefer them to "Ludmillas" is a moot point, and to make the comparison here is a shot from November 1992 near Unterloquitz just the other side of the border, with the Saalebahn in course of re-building.

 

John.

[Johann Marsbar]

Some nice cobbled streets here in Potsdam in 1981....

 

 

Though the biggest surprise on my trip to the DDR in 1981 was finding trams built in the mid 1920's still in use on the narrow-gauge lines in Karl Marx Stadt...

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Johann Marsbar

[Allegheny1600]

16 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

 

The stone sets were also quite common, mainly in towns, but sometimes on main roads. The trick was to drive at speed which managed to even out the ups and downs. I remember learning this in Nordhausen when on  a trip circa.1992. My Saab 900 Turbo driven from the UK sounded awful as I crawled along, we were then overtaken by a Trabby going like hang - he knew how to do it!

 

Try cycling on them!!!

In the rain and with tram tracks to contend with too.

Several of my party came a cropper, although that was in Krakow, Poland not the DDR.

Later on my trip, I outmaneuvered a 2-stroke car going down a steep hill, he nearly lost it but I just cranked over more!

Great fun, just wish I'd been across earlier and seen working steam pre-1987-88.

Cheers,

John. 

[Calnefoxile]

 

This thread is great for me as I'm just starting to build a TT layout of the Rennstieg based around unification, so say 1990. 

 

So getting to grips with the liveries & renumbering etc. is a bit of a nightmare, I might stretch the early side of 1990 a bit if & when I can lay my hands on a reasonably priced 52 Kriegslok. I believe they were some still running about 1985ish. But looking at the photographs on here it seems that nothing really changed at all for quite a while.

 

I have visited Berlin twice in my lifetime, 1st time in 1984 when I was in the RAF. It was a flying visit to fix some fibre optic cabling at Gatow, unfortunately I neglected to take my camera with me, but peering over the wall into East Berlin was a bit of an eye opener with the flashy neon lights of West Berlin behind me looking over the wall was just like looking into a black & white photo.

 

My wife and I then visited Berlin about 3 or 4 years ago and wow!!! what a difference. We stayed in some apartments that were in the old East Berlin near the Brandenburg Gate, pretty much built on the Fuhrerbunker. 

 

I managed to drag her to the brand new Berlin Hauptbahnhof which is magnificent and we did a Segway tour of Berlin which took us from Alexanderplatz on a tour of Berlin from the Prussian times right through to more modern times.

 

Regards

 

Neal.

[APOLLO]

6 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

An image that I feel exactly portray the look of the DDR "Zum Kartoffellagerhaus" (To The Potato Warehouse)

michael sowa: kartoffellagerhaus by tinajankulovski, on Flickr

 

More by the same artist here http://www.margarethe-illustration.com/michael-sowa.html

 

 

 

Zugloks verboten from ze kartoffelllagerhaus Bahnstreke !!!!

 

 

Remember the BBC Film 1969 ?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p012d0t5/tuesday-documentary-engines-must-not-enter-the-potato-siding

 

Bit off topic !!

 

Brit15

[Oldddudders]

8 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

The Hartz line ran directly along the border at one point - actually along the Death Strip, and there were signs which I think informed passengers that they risked being shot if they got of the train. A couple of times in the vicinity of the railway I encountered an armed guard and was asked to show my documents, which was scary the first time but was actually just routine and conducted with courtesy.

This was just north of Sorge, where the SudHarz line once crossed the Harzquerbahn on a now-demolished bridge. In my pic the fence line was just to the left of where my jamjar is parked, while the metre gauge track is off to the right, between the two level crossing signs.

 

 

 

A few minutes later the midday train from Wernigerode to Eisfelder Talmühle rolled downgrade past those signs.

 

 

[Andy Kirkham]

2 hours ago, APOLLO said:

 

Zugloks verboten from ze kartoffelllagerhaus Bahnstreke !!!!

 

 

Remember the BBC Film 1969 ?

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p012d0t5/tuesday-documentary-engines-must-not-enter-the-potato-siding

 

Bit off topic !!

 

Brit15

 

Thanks  for posting that - I remember watching it when it was first broadcast - the very essence of the railway in my trainspotting days.

 

[jcredfer]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

This was just north of Sorge, where the SudHarz line once crossed the Harzquerbahn on a now-demolished bridge. In my pic the fence line was just to the left of where my jamjar is parked, while the metre gauge track is off to the right, between the two level crossing signs.

 

 

 

A few minutes later the midday train from Wernigerode to Eisfelder Talmühle rolled downgrade past those signs.

 

 

 

You were lucky to have parked your car when you did.  25 - 30 years earlier would have set off a number of anti-personnel mines, all cleared now, of course..........        of course.........   all cleared.........     honest............      

 

Julian

 

[Bernard Lamb]

9 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

 

I noticed a large number of young men of East Asian appearence there - I supposed these could have been Vietnamese students, but I never found out for sure.

 

 

They were from Vietnam. Some of them were students but many more were "guest workers". Just like in the west the east relied on cheap foreign labour. In 1989 they were generally forgotten, Nobody wanted to take responsibility for them and many did not have enough money for a flight home. If they had any home to go to.

For those unware of the details of the class 52, several of these locomotives were sent to Vietnam as foreign aid. During the Vietnam War East Germans had to pay extra in taxation as a contribution to the war effort. This measure did not meet with approval among the general population. Though of course mention of this dissent was not approved of by the authorities.

Bernard

[Bernard Lamb]

22 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

The acrid smell would have been Lignite, the "Braunkohle", mined opencast all over the DDR and northern Czech Republic. Most of the DDR mines were shut down within a few years of re-unification on environmental grounds.

 

The stone sets were also quite common, mainly in towns, but sometimes on main roads. The trick was to drive at speed which managed to even out the ups and downs. I remember learning this in Nordhausen when on  a trip circa.1992. My Saab 900 Turbo driven from the UK sounded awful as I crawled along, we were then overtaken by a Trabby going like hang - he knew how to do it!

 

John.

The lignite was in the form of briquettes for use in domestic ovens. Every house would have had such an oven and they were very much a feature of the living room and often decorated with colourful ceramic tiles.

In rural districts there were still at reunification sections of road that were cobbled on one side and dirt on the other. You drove on the paved part in either direction but moved to the right if that was the unmade side if another vehicle was approaching. These roads seem to have become fully paved in the Leipzig to Dresden area by the early 1980s going by where I used to visit but still hung on in the north near the Polish border until the 1990s.

Bernard

 

[Andy Kirkham]

2 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

 

For those unware of the details of the class 52, several of these locomotives were sent to Vietnam as foreign aid.

 

I remember reading about that at the time and thinking that it seemed like a fairly cheap gesture on the part of the DDR (as they would have had a large surplus of redundant Dampfloks) and wondering whether they were what Vietnam really wanted. Do you know if they did much work in their new home?

Edited May 17, 2020 by Andy Kirkham

[Bernard Lamb]

9 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

I remember reading about that at the time and thinking that it seemed like a fairly cheap gesture on the part of the DDR (as they would have had a large surplus of redundant Dampfloks) and wondering whether they were what Vietnam really wanted. Do you know if they did much work in their new home?

I have heard various stories about former Kriegsloks in Vietnam and all versions seem to point to them never entering service. It would seem that they were in store for various lengths of time and the last ones went for scrap around 1994. As you rightly say a cheap gesture and very much a propaganda exercise rather than an offer of real help.

Bernard

[readingtype]

On 17/05/2020 at 10:40, Andy Kirkham said:

An image that I feel exactly portray the look of the DDR "Zum Kartoffellagerhaus" (To The Potato Warehouse)

 

 

Thanks for sharing that,  it's quite a picture. Not sure I could handle having it on the wall at home though. Apart from the overwhelming twilight beige tone that gives a lot of the overt atmosphere (which I love to see in a model, more DDR layouts please), there are a lot of different, contraditory, and more or less sinister layers to it. Trains are (generally) easier, though I don't actually have any of those on the wall either. For shame! :-)

[Ian Morgan]

Just had a pleasant, unexpected and expensive surprise. The Kernow Models newsletter popped into my inbox, and there was the British Military Train in N scale from Arnold. Four blue/beige coaches with Royal Corps of Transport marking and union flags, in a special presentation box.

 

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/71840/HN4297-Arnold-The-Berliner-Royal-Corps-of-Transport-4-Coach-Pack

 

Can anyone advise me what other carriages were used. I seem to remember a Wagon Lits restaurant car, possibly maroon, and some sort of baggage car when I rode on it in the 1980's.

 

 

[jcredfer]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

Just had a pleasant, unexpected and expensive surprise. The Kernow Models newsletter popped into my inbox, and there was the British Military Train in N scale from Arnold. Four blue/beige coaches with Royal Corps of Transport marking and union flags, in a special presentation box.

 

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/71840/HN4297-Arnold-The-Berliner-Royal-Corps-of-Transport-4-Coach-Pack

 

Can anyone advise me what other carriages were used. I seem to remember a Wagon Lits restaurant car, possibly maroon, and some sort of baggage car when I rode on it in the 1980's.

 

 

 

I had the same pleasure as you, with their newsletter.  I was there in the early 80s, when there was a mix of liveries, including all blue and other colours.  There are a number of pictures, which show liveries which altered during the 80s and it might be rewarding to google them for the dates you would like.

 

[Bernard Lamb]

On 06/08/2021 at 21:40, Ian Morgan said:

Just had a pleasant, unexpected and expensive surprise. The Kernow Models newsletter popped into my inbox, and there was the British Military Train in N scale from Arnold. Four blue/beige coaches with Royal Corps of Transport marking and union flags, in a special presentation box.

 

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/71840/HN4297-Arnold-The-Berliner-Royal-Corps-of-Transport-4-Coach-Pack

 

Can anyone advise me what other carriages were used. I seem to remember a Wagon Lits restaurant car, possibly maroon, and some sort of baggage car when I rode on it in the 1980's.

 

 

I think that livery was introduced in 1985. My main interest is a rather earlier date.

You are correct about a restaurant car and a baggage van being required to make up the 6 coach set. Not sure about it being a Wagon Lit car or the colour but the Mitropa cars used on other services were maroon.

Bernard

[t-b-g]

At the time the wall fell, my boss was a German lady who had been born in Berlin in 1941. She was not known for being very emotional but when the wall came down, she wept tears of joy but she was also hugely frustrated that she was in the UK and not able to see it happen with her own eyes. It was something she had only dreamed might happen for so long and all of a sudden, the dream came true.

 

Her family was one of those scattered around Berlin with some being on the opposite side of the wall. There were aunts, uncles and cousins that she hadn't seen for many decades.

 

It was a special time and it was really nice seeing her so happy and sharing the moment with her.

 

  

[HansP]

Hi everyone,

 

Great to read through your reminiscing of that time. I was at school in Germany during the 1980s as my parents were both teachers for British Forces Schools, first in Hamm and then Dortmund. We travelled to Berlin on the military train from Braunschweig twice, the first time I must have been about 5 years old but the impressions and experiences have stuck with me ever since. 
 

For those with an interest in the British Military Train, please do have a look at my website www.british-berliner.org, where I have collected together photos and information about the service and its rolling stock in the 1980s. 
 

Best Regards, 

 

Peter

Edited January 9, 2022 by HansP

[HansP]

http://www.british-Berliner.org

[Bernard Lamb]

6 hours ago, HansP said:

Hi everyone,

 

Great to read through your reminiscing of that time. I was at school in Germany during the 1980s as my parents were both teachers for British Forces Schools, first in Hamm and then Dortmund. We travelled to Berlin on the military train from Braunschweig twice, the first time I must have been about 5 years old but the impressions and experiences have stuck with me ever since. 
 

For those with an interest in the British Military Train, please do have a look at my website www.british-berliner.org, where I have collected together photos and information about the service and its rolling stock in the 1980s. 
 

Best Regards, 

 

Peter

Good you hear from you Peter.

A very interesting web site.

I thought some pf the photos seemed familiar.

I have the set of 11 coach photos by Joachim Deppmeyer from David Carpenter.

You have written out the details but mine just have the hand written notes from Joachim.

It's a small world.

Bernard

[Bernard Lamb]

Looking through various cupboards at the weekend I found this. Our very own souvenir.

Bernard

 

[EddieB]

Got in Hemel?