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Welcome to Part 2 of Drivers Eye View - Nordhausen Nord to Drei Annen Hohne. Our locomotive can be heard working hard as it lifts its train higher into the mountains, recent tree felling has changed the landscape, with no leaves on the remaining trees the views are uninterrupted, I’d guess that it’s been 40 or more years since such views were last seen. With the wind blowing and wet sleet falling on the wild hillsides this ride had all the authentic atmosphere one would expect from a 365 days a year working railway, although it was freezing cold on the carriage balconies, the coal fired stove inside the carriage kept passengers warm. The Harz Narrow Gauge Railways (German: Harzer Schmalspurbahnen or HSB) is a railway company operating a metre gauge (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) network in the Harz mountains, located in Central Germany (formerly East Germany). The company was formed after the Second World War with the merger of the Gernrode-Harzgerode Railway Company and the Nordhausen-Wernigerode Railway Company, the entire network fell within the Soviet Zone of Occupation, later East Germany. After the compulsory acquisition of the line in 1949, the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn ran it until 1993. On 1 February 1993 the private railway company Harzer Schmalspurbahnen GmbH (HSB) took over the rolling stock and the daily running of the system from the Deutsche Reichsbahn, since then it has acted as both the railway operating company (EVU) and railway infrastructure company (EIU). HSB owns about 140 kilometres (86 miles) of track, connecting the principal towns of Wernigerode, Nordhausen and Quedlinburg. Much of the network is steeply graded and picturesque, with the most popular destination being the Brocken, the highest mountain in the region. The company runs a significant number of its trains with steam haulage, mostly employing 1950s vintage 2-10-2 tank locomotives, hauling traditional open-platform bogie carriages. The company is mainly owned by the various local authorities whose territories it serves. On the day of our visit to the line we were booked to travel from Nordhausen to the Brocken, sadly Mother Nature stepped in to change our literary with winds rumoured to be well over 100mph preventing trains from running to the Brocken, instead we could either travel to Wernigerode or to Wernigerode - Hochschule Harz for a works visit. In this video we travel between Bahnhof Eisfelder Talmühle and Drei Annen Hohne. To book your own trip, please click on this link – For more information about the railway, please click on any of these links - Map - 00:36 - Google maps Harz Railways Map - 00:43 - Page URL: File URL: Attribution - : Bamsederivative work: Liesel, CC BY-SA 3.0 This visit was part of a rail tour arranged by the “Railway Touring Company” - if it’s something you’d like to know more about, please clock on this link -
