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| by John Craft | ||
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| Heavy freight trains powered by THREE 2-10-0s. Express trains powered by Pacifics running long distances at 80mph. Branchline trains tiptoeing over stone arch bridges. Engine terminals alive with steam power. Welcome to Plandampf. "Plandampf" is a German "combi-word" meaning "Scheduled Steam," and was coined to describe the use of Deutsche Reichsbahn (in the former East Germany) steam locomotives on regularly-scheduled Deutsche Reichsbahn trains, both passenger and freight. The concept originated shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when in late 1990 events were scheduled coincidentally by Robin Garn and Klaus Wilmsmeyer. Plandampfs require payments to the railroad to offset the additional cost of moving, stabling, and running steam locomotives. The payment to the railroad is raised by disclosing schedules to rail enthusiasts who pay a "Participation Fee." If enough money to pay for the event is not collected, the event is either canceled or curtailed. If a surplus is collected, then additional locomotives and trains are scheduled. Schedules are released to participants shortly before the event so that the rider or photographer will be able to plan his movements. Larger events draw 300-500 fans from all over Europe and the US. The appeal of a plandampf is very different from an excursion or a photo charter. After paying your fee, you may photograph from lineside; buy a ticket on a scheduled, steam-hauled passenger train; or just stand on a station platform and watch steam-powered trains pass all day. The thrill of chasing an excursion pales in comparison. But a plandampf comes with a built-in dilemma for the photographer. Just as in steam days, there are multiple movements occurring simultaneously, and you have decisions to make. Do you shoot the passenger train moving westward, or the freight moving east at the same time? Photograph all trains from one great location, or move around? Is there time to get from location A to location B? There's only one way to plan for the best balance of photos: pay the Participation Fee, get the day's timetable, and carefully plan your movements in advance. At German plandampfs, sitting in "headquarters" (usually a buffet car parked in an accessible location near the roundhouse) over a beer, getting tips on photo locations, and working out the options with newfound friends is part of the fun. In 1998, as part of the modernization of Deutsche Bahn, DB Cargo (the freight business unit) stopped participating in plandampfs, so freight trains during plandampfs since have been demonstration freights. Most Eastern passenger regions still participate to some level, but authentic coaches are getting rarer as Eastern equipment is replaced with more modern stock. And while Plandampf started as a big event with multiple trains and locomotives, it is possible to find the concept applied to one-off days, typically freights on low-density lines. (Imagine Ohio Central 2-8-0 13 being used on the Zanesville local, and you get the idea.) The glory days of Plandampf are over, but there are still tremendous opportunities for excellent photos, video, and memories if you choose to attend one. | ||
Travel Tips On Line Resources Photo Locations Non-Rail Tips Personal Recommendations | ||
| The Trains | ||
| This page will be, by need, somewhat more vague than the other pages found here. Plandampfs have been planned in many parts of the former East Germany, and so advice on specific hotels and distances will not be found here. | ||
| Download an information packet including this page's text and timetables for German Narrow Gauge lines and Plandampf | ||
| Travel Tips | ||
| When To Go: Most plandampfs are scheduled during the fall, winter and spring months, and run in the later part of the week (Thursday - Saturday is a common schedule). Most fans coming from outside the country plan a visit to one or more narrow-gauge lines during their visit. | ||
| The Language: Knowing some German helps. German is a very common second language for Europeans, so outside the places frequented by Americans, English is not common. | ||
| The Weather: Moderate. Temperatures tend to hover in the low 30s during the day in winter, dipping below freezing at night. Fall and Spring can be cool by US standards, but summer can be as hot as anything found there. | ||
| Maps: Excellent maps are usually available at any petrol station convenience store in the area, and you can probably find them in other places as well. (If you happen to be in London, Stanford's (on Long Acre near St. Martin's Lane in the West End) stocks an excellent selection of German maps and guidebooks.) | ||
| Getting There: You're most likely to fly into Frankfurt or Berlin. By changing planes at a major European hub, you can also fly into Dresden, Hannover, Hamburg, or Leipzig. Most larger rail stations have at least one rental car company, and most have several. | ||
| Lodging:Hotels are much more common in the former East now than even five years ago. You should, however, try to get reservations in the area if you are attending a plandampf, as the influx of hundreds of fans will often overwhelm what is usually a rural area. | ||
| Food: Since most events are held in towns not on the tourist path, ethnic restaurants and linen tablecloths are going to be rare. Local restaurants tend to be small, the food and beer good, and the locals will get a kick out of entertaining a foreigner. (I spent a pleasant evening during one plandampf talking (through a translator) to a German WWII soldier held prisoner in the American West. He had very fond memories of his treatment and of being transported via train around the country between camps.) | ||
| Money & Prices: Forget the traveller's checks or large wads of cash. BY FAR the safest, simplest and least expensive way to get cash overseas is your plain old ATM card. You'll find ATMs in even the smaller towns these days. | ||
| Hotels tend to run about $60-$100 for a business hotel. "Gasthofs" (guest houses, or bed-and-breakfasts) can be very inexpensive - look for a small sign announcing "Zimmer Frei" (room available). Petrol (gasoline) is $4-5 per gallon. Food is moderatly priced. | ||
| Online Resources | ||
| Use the following links to plan your trip to Germany: | ||
| http://www.ringhotels.de/englisch/indexE.htm - Ringhotels - a German hotel chain worth considering for your visit. Locations all over Germany. | ||
| http://www.mapquest.com - MapQuest - order maps online. | ||
| http://www.omnimap.com - Omnimap - order maps online. A word on ordering Kompass Wanderkartes: while searching for these maps, it became apparent that OmniMap's web site leaves a bit to be desired. When looking for the Kompass maps, the direct link to the Kompass page from the Germany page did not work. Believe it or not, the only way to order these maps online that I found was as follows: from the "International Maps" page, click on "Italy" in the Country and Regional Listings, then "Itemized Listing of Kompass Hiking maps." | ||
| http://www.xe.net/currency - Universal Currency Convertor - self-explanatory. | ||
| http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/db.s98/detect.exe/bin/db.s98/query.exe/e? - Deutsche Bahn (German State Railways) - Look up schedules for trains all over Europe. This is the English-language page. | ||
| http://www.mastercard.com/cgi-bin/atm - MasterCard ATM Locator - Find a MasterCard or Cirrus ATM. | ||
| (Links are provided as a convenience and do not imply any endorsement of products or services offered on the linked sites.) | ||
| Photo Locations | |
| Obviously I can't advise on specific lines here. What follows is a collection of photos from plandampfs in 1995 and 1998, to give you an idea of what sort of photos you might get on a typical plandampf. | |
 | In February 1995 Klaus Wilmsmeyer organized one of his annual Winter Plandampfs, with five locomotives operating out of Saalfeld. Local passenger and freight trains, and regular shuttles to a steel plant, were steam-hauled. |
 | Saalfeld can be compared to Roanoke, VA, in the USA - one of the last major steam terminals, with trains facing a stiff grade heading east. |
 | On the map, the line didn't look too promising - but maps were deceiving in this case. |
 | The engine terminal was open to photographers for the event, and late afternoon light made for some excellent views. |
 | Most engines made two round-trips daily between Saalfeld and Gera, with occasional sidetrips down an electrified line to an East-West border crossing at Probstzella. |
 | The freights often ran as fast as the passenger trains, especially when the almost-deaf engineer of 44.1093 had his way. |
 | In February 1998 Uwe Knoblauch organized a terrific three-day event between Eisenach and Meiningen. While local passenger trains were operated with steam, the main draw was freight. Three times daily, solid unit trains from a potash plant at Vacha, near the East-West border, were transferred over the hilly line to Eisenach by as many as three 2-10-0s. Imagine standing trackside as a 2-8-2 on a local passenger trains thunders by at 60mph. A freight whistles off in the distance, following right behind the passenger schedule, and passes by less than 15 minutes later with two 2-10-0s on the point, and a third pushing, at 40mph. |
 | The climb from Eisenach to Fortha featured a tunnel, and one photo location where one could frame Wartburg castle (famous for, among many other event, being the hiding place of Martin Luther for many years) in the background. The video shooters came off better than still shooters there, as the huge smoke plumes tended to obscure the background. |
 | Also scheduled through the area on Saturday and Sunday was a two-day railtour from Stuttgart to Wernigerode (overnight), a ride to Nordhausen on the Harz Mountain Railway, and return to Stuttgart. Five different mainline locomotives were used during the trip. |
 | An unusual pair of railcars, closely resembling trolleys, was the regular stock for this Bad Salzungen-Vacha shuttle operation, but today 2-10-0 52.8075 and two authentic coaches make up the train. |
 | As the light fades, "Kriegslok" 52.8075 waits to depart Bad Salzungen, junction point for the branch to Vacha, for Eisenach with a local freight. This train picked up a helper at Oberrohn, just a few miles up the line. |
| Non-Rail Tips | |
| This is a little tough since a plandampf could occur anywhere in the former East. But it's no exaggeration to say that the heart of Germany was in the former East - the cultural centers of Berlin, Weimar, and Leipzig were all behind the Iron Curtain for many years. And with the excellent transportation infrastructure, getting anywhere in Germnay is simple and fast. Don't miss seeing more of the country than railroad tracks and trains. | |
| Personal Recommendations | |
| First, let me explain how I travel, so you can adjust my recommendations as you need to. I don't often travel alone - either my wife comes with me, or I join forces with one or two friends. I'm not willing to suffer to conserve money, so I'm not looking for the cheapest hotel or restaurant. Nor do I seek out American touchstones like McDonalds and Holiday Inn; being in a non-English-speaking environment doesn't intimidate me at all. Finally, I don't exclude a little tourism once a few nice photos are in the bag. | |
| Cars & Hotels: There's really not much to say about cars. You'll find picking one up almost identical to getting a car in the US. NOTE: In the winter, bedcovers in most German hotels tend to be a heavy comforter exactly the width of the mattress - period. If you have to have wool blankets that fall over the side, or flannel sheets, better bring 'em yourself. | |
| Food: Breakfast is typically a cold buffet at the hotel, where you can get the standard pastries as well as sliced meats, cereal and yogurt. Hot breakfasts aren't typically German. Lunch is usually a "wurst" with a roll, mustard, and beer gotten at a roadside stand. (You can go into town and eat at a restaurant, of course.) Depending on where you are, you may find dinner options to be varied or rare. But most towns have at least one restaurant, and our most enjoyable meal during the 1998 Plandampf was at a restaurant hidden in the community center at Dorndorf, with a three-engine freight being made up for its trip over the mountains to Eisenach just a few miles away. | |
| Trip Strategy: Plandampfs tend to be scheduled for Friday-Saturday, with Thursday being the most common third day. Sundays aren't all that commonly scheduled, which makes taking a Sunday flight home less disappointing. I'd plan to spend a few days bdfore the event shooting the narrow gauge, and devote the day before the Plandampf to extensive scouting of the line. The schedule you receive by paying your Participation Fee is essential to getting good photos. You will constantly find yourself in the wrong place if you don't get one and spend a few hours going over it. During your scouting trip, make notes about times between photo locations, sun angles, etc. Map out a strategy that can be deviated from, but do have a plan. During some Plandampfs the second day will repeat the most interesting trains of the first day, to allow you to get a second crack at that classic location if you or the weather fouled up the first day. But even then, there will be deviations on others. Above all, spend some time hanging around "Headquarters" getting to know some of the other fans. You'll probably get some good photo tips in the process. | |
| Download an information packet including this page's text and timetables for German Narrow Gauge lines | |
| Enjoy Your Trip! Add your comments to this page | |
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