Zittau railway 2015

Описание: Views from our 2015 visit to the line, including the fantastic 1930s railcar as well as the L45H.

The railcar was one of four built by Busch of Bautzen for Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1938. They were all sent to the Zittau system and are recorded as running on all the lines out of Zittau which included, at that time, the line to what is now Bogatynia in Poland. In 1943 they were to be sent to the Poznan area but it seems that VT 137 322 derailed when being loaded onto a standard gauge wagon and was therefore left at Zittau. The other three are believed to have initially been used as coaches at Krosniewice until in the early 1950s they were fitted with engines again and used on the Wroclawska Kolej Waskotorowa, though after rebuild they didn't have coupling rods so only one axle was driven. The last one was withdrawn in 1974 and stood at Trzebnica for several years awaiting a decision as to whether it would go to the railway museum, but was finally scrapped around 1980.

VT 137 322, meanwhile, ran at Zittau until 1964 when it was parked up due to engine failure (I think problems with the timing chain). It was stored at Bertsdorf and ownership transferred to the Dresden Transport Museum in 1980, but it remained at Bertsdorf. In 2007 it returned to service with a replacement engine and torque converter.