In 9-29 I rode over to the Schoeneweide roundhouse and shops in East Berlin. They had advertised a RR party with live steamers, so I was hoping to see as many as five in steam. They turned out to have at least 15 in steam, around 20 total steamers! Ten of these were 50- or 52-class 2-10-0´s. One of the Pacifics was the one-of-the-kind 02 201 with something like 88” drivers. She is officially still allowed to run at 180 km, or 120 mph. She had arrived with a special from Dresden. They even had a fireless cooker running, kept hot by one of the 2-10-0´s.

The biggest show was a parade, coming past the onlookers a good number of times in ones, twos and fives. Smoke and steam were flying in the dark, rainy weather and when the engineers pulled back on the throttle and the brakes, too, the sound show was impressive. A lot of turntable action afterwood as the engines were put into the roundhouse for the night.

These locos were virtually all from East Germany. The surviving maintenance shops all seem to have their own steam mascot or two. Represented were for ex. Halle, Cottbus, Nossen, Dresden, Eisenach, Stassfurt, Meiningen. These enginres are run and kept up mostly by professional or pensioned railroaders working during their free-time. There are annual parades or shows also in Dresden, Stassfurt, Meiningen and not far away in Wolsztyn, Poland. No worries about an over-density of preservation steam here!

How is all this possible? Regular, standard-guage steam ended long-ago in West Germany in 1977, in East Germany exactly 10 years later. Perhaps two major factors: 1) the railroads co-operate with the hobbyists. 2) Britain and Germany still have a culture of heavy steel and metal engineering. Walk into most any newsstand in Germany and you will find a wealth of magazines on the railroads, including model ones. Many shops even carry magazines on garden-size live steam.

I didn`t make any photos, but have a look at www.dampflokfreunde-berlin.com or www.berlin-macht-dampf.com.

Bill Yoder in Berlin