Translation is a bit rough, but here is some information on the Young Pioneer railways in the former East Germany, plus links to other park railways in Today's Germany.

http://216.239.37.104/translate_c?hl=en ... REAL-tb%3F

In the days of Communism, the Young Pioneer railways were used to train young persons for future railway jobs. They were usually set up in public parks and utilized mostly narrow gauge equipment rather than minature trains.

My father grew up on a cotton farm Near Athens, GA in the 1930s and 1940s (we talked of the town a few threads back--Winder, it has GM 2-10-0 No. 208 on display). When I was a boy, we would visit my Grandmother in the old farmhouse. There were a few old children's books in the house that must have belonged to Dad and his brothers. One that I loved was a book of true-life boy's adventure short stories that must have been published between 1942 and 1945 or so.

There were exciting stories about smoke jumpers putting our fires in the west and all sorts of other things, but the story I remember most was about a Young Pioneers Railway in the Soviet Union. The plot involved the German invasion of Russia. The Russians civilians were fleeing ahead of the Germans, blowing up all the factories and infrastructure behind them. The Young Pioneers railway was to be destroyed as well, but the children loved it so much that they disassembled it and packed it out in carts and on their backs and took it with them as they fled.

I loved this story when I was a boy becuase it had to do with trains, and because I thought it was so neat that there was a railway run by children. Looking back on it from cynical middle age, I know the book must have been published during WWII, because 1. it was obviously after Operation Barbarossa, and 2. it had to be during that brief window when tales of heroism about our then-ally Soviet Russia were considered acceptable fare for red-blooded American boys.

Sad to say the book itself got lost when my Grandmother moved out of the old house, which was then demolished. I sure wish I had any idea of the title--I would love to see it again if I had any idea how to find it.