European Railroad Discussion > Unique Tram Gauge in Braunschweig, April 27 2016 Denied!

One reason for an extended stop at Wolfenbuttel was that Braunschweig would be a much shorter stop than originally planned. Paul sleeps with the radio on low and on the Tuesday night I heard the news, although given in German I could still understand Werkstrike and Braunschweig (Brunswick in English). As we drove into Braunschweig we saw no trams. It became more obvious that I had picked up a little bit of German enough to know that the transit system was on a 24 hour strike! We had escaped Stuttgart and Düsseldorf both of which had 24 strikes of their own during our trip. So a short but somewhat productive stop was made in Braunschweig.
1 & 2) Some kind of steam locomotive outside the Hauptbahnhof, may as well take pictures of it since there were not trams operating.
3) The Hauptbahnhof.

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4) Lots of Bicycles. Unknown if this was normal or due to the transit workers strike?
5) Digital sign, that's Wednesday April 27 2016.
6) Digital sign now telling about the workstrike.

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With no trams to be concerned about I brought out my measuring stick I had bought in Düsseldorf. You see Braunsweig has a unique tram gauge of 1100 cm. Worth taking a look at but it would have been better to ride a tram on the odd gauge.
7) Braunschweig had even considered converting to standard gauge but gave up. The standard gauge rail is still in at the Hauptbahnhof.
8) I was able to measure without those pesky trams. Kind of misses the point of a unique tram system? Oh well gives me a reason to come back!

Thank You for looking!

Jim

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That steamer is an oil burner of which the DB had a handful. It is a rebuild from an earlier class of engine. Class 01, heavy pacific.
There were also some east german rebuilds class 05  that burned oil. Some class 03's, light pacifics and class 41/42 2-8-2's
were also converted to oil. The DB was quite generous after steam was phased out and you can find many engines on display.
Some of the historical societies have complete roundhouses full of loks. On the weekends you can find many pulled out of their
stalls.

Excellent series of photos, thanks for posting. Germany is on my bucket list, can't wait to see some of this stuff.

The HSB is a wonderful railway full of real working steam doing the job it was originally designed to do. Credit to them also for keeping most of their equipment free of advertising or a stupid new name emblazoned on each carriages as is the case with the steam lines in Saxony.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> The HSB is a wonderful railway full of real
> working steam doing the job it was originally
> designed to do.

For which we have to thank the authorities of the German Democratic Republic for saving for posterity.

Note 01 1063's condition even though it is standing outside, uncovered and unfenced.  The white objects on the ground are floodlight housings.  Those, plus the fact that it sits outside the main railway station, no doubt help to deter vandals. I'm curious whether it is maintained by the city or by DB.

Gordon

gbmott Wrote:
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> Note 01 1063's condition even though it is
> standing outside, uncovered and unfenced.  The
> white objects on the ground are floodlight
> housings.  Those, plus the fact that it sits
> outside the main railway station, no doubt help to
> deter vandals. I'm curious whether it is
> maintained by the city or by DB.


I asked my friend Joern Pachl, the railway professor at the Braunschweig Technical University. The engine is owned and maintained by the DB Museum.

TAW

86235 Wrote:
...
>
> For which we have to thank the authorities of the
> German Democratic Republic for saving for
> posterity.

Sure not. They were not nostalgic. The reason is they had no money for modern streets and no diesel fuel for trucks.

Erwin from Austria

spandfecerwin Wrote:

> Sure not. They were not nostalgic. The reason is
> they had no money for modern streets and no diesel
> fuel for trucks.
>
> Erwin from Austria

That's the whole point - good things can happen for other reasons. Nostalgia is just one reason why things get preserved, another is that they can have a value. There is a wonderful irony in the story of fabulous narrow gauge railway systems surviving an appalling totalitarian regime which just shows that things are not black and white. East German small towns like Wernigerode became benighted backwaters after the division of Germany and yet also managed to avoid the commercially driven vandalism and destruction of many similar west German towns. Of course they are now recognised as the most exquisite gems.

I am not trying to defend the DDR, but simply to suggest that the world is more complex than we might wish it to be.
 

spflow Wrote:
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> spandfecerwin Wrote:
>
> > Sure not. They were not nostalgic. The reason
> is
> > they had no money for modern streets and no
> diesel
> > fuel for trucks.
> >
> > Erwin from Austria
>
> That's the whole point - good things can happen
> for other reasons.

A friend from the East told me that they developed axle counters (which are quite sophisticated) for train detection because they couldn't afford track circuits.

TAW