If you drive through the German railway country today, you will discover many things to the left and right of the tracks that point to the past. There are routes where this is more the case and those where it is less the case. And: With each passing year, the traces of the old are becoming more and more blurred. Who cares what rushes by out there when we whiz from one city to another at 200 km/h and faster. I would like to invite you to take a closer look along the Berlin – Leipzig route.
Our add-on deliberately keeps the traces of the past alive, even if things gradually disappear in the real world. You can't pin such an add-on down to one day. Things disappear in a very short time, what was yesterday is gone today. Let's think of all the signal boxes: In the past, they shaped the image of a line, were the spirit and soul of railway operations, before electronics turned them into relics liberated from content.
In Berlin - Leipzig we still find them to the left and right of the tracks. The add-on is set between 2006 and 2015. Today, things that still existed in 2006 have already disappeared. More on this now:
In Berlin, the line once began at Anhalter Bahnhof at Askanischer Platz with its large, majestic station hall. The Second World War and the resulting political conditions destroyed this building and made the tracks useless. The destruction by World War II bombs was followed by the demolition in 1959, during which the portal, which has been preserved to this day, remained as a sad memento of its former splendour. Today, our trains run west past the former Anhalter station.
The large round shed of the Anhalter Bahnhof serves the German Museum of Technology as a storage and presentation facility for its historical treasures. Next to the shed is a steel water tower, which we can see when we leave the north-south tunnel and look out of the window on the left.
The railway site of the Anhalter Bahnhof stretched all the way to the southern area on Priesterweg, of which a water tower, also steel, bears witness to a distance. We pass it when we have left Berlin Südkreuz, just before the junction to the Dresdner Bahn.
The Anhalter Bahn had been idle since the Wall was built in 1961 at the latest, only the S-Bahn ran to Lichterfelde Süd. Immediately south of it, the city area of Berlin is being abandoned. As far as Großbeeren, there was little rail traffic during the GDR era.
In Großbeeren we reach and cross the "Berlin Outer Ring", a railway ring that led around the divided Berlin and still leads around the reunited one. The signal box "Ghd", the central switching point for the Genshagener Heide station and the railway facilities to Ludwigsfelde, is still an empty building that bears witness to its former importance. Passenger and especially freight trains to Halle, Leipzig, Erfurt came here from Schönefeld (we can run this section of the line in the add-on at least to the Selchow junction).
On the right, we pass the Ludwigsfelde automobile factory, which stretches from the "Berliner Außenring" to Birkengrund station. Immediately afterwards we drive under the A10 motorway, the "Berliner Ring" and reach Ludwigsfelde, whose old station building, built in 1880, is now a listed building and bears witness to the earlier days of the Anhalter Bahn.
The same applies to the station building in Trebbin. At the entrance to Trebbin station you can see a modern-looking tower signal box "Tn", which regulated traffic at the station until 2006, when an electronic signal box took over its tasks. The signal box was demolished. The station, where you could still buy tickets in the 80s of the last century, the station restaurant, where you could survive some waiting times warm and dry, and the offices of the dispatcher are now deserted, partly behind bricked-up windows.
The same fate was shared by the signal box east of the Luckenwald freight yard, which once supplied the city and the surrounding area and is now a large wasteland. We commemorate this by leaving the signal box "Ld" standing.
South of Luckenwalde, the route passes through the former military area of Zinna – there used to be the Forst Zinna station and the Zinna monastery stop here. On January 19, 1988, a serious railway accident occurred at Forst Zinna station, in which the D716 with 211 006 at the front drove at 120 km/h unbraked into a tank that had broken down on the tracks. There were 6 dead, including two train drivers in the driver's cab of the 211 and 33 injured. We remember the barracks area with a few ruins and watchtowers. At the place where the "sinking" watchtower stands, the train accident occurred.
When we enter Jüterbog, the remains of the old railway depot – round shed, social building and water tower – can be seen on the left, which was not needed in the course of the German Unity 8 transport project – to which the Anhalter Bahn belongs – and disappeared. In Jüterbog we also see old signal boxes: the tower signal box "Jb" and the signal box "B3", both no longer in operation.
The next old railway buildings will only come into view again in Lutherstadt Wittenberg. The large station building was demolished in 2015 to make room for the relocation of the platform of the Falkenberg – Roßlau line. This is intended to improve the transfer arrangements, and a new station building is being built on the side of the bus station.
Rather inconspicuous is the branch line in Pratau behind the Elbe bridge. It once led to Torgau and in Pretzsch there was a branch to Eilenburg. A beautiful route that led first through the Elbe floodplains and then through the Düben Heath via Bad Schmiedeberg, Bad Düben, which the author himself used for several years. Today, the line branch to Pretzsch ekes out a rather sad existence, passenger traffic has been suspended.
Also not visible, at best recognizable by the course of the line: Behind Pratau, a test track of the Deutsche Reichsbahn once began. Since the route here runs dead straight for 23 km, it was suitable for high-speed tests. On 11 October 1972, steam locomotive 18 201 reached 182.5 km/h and has since been the fastest operational steam locomotive in the world (today 02 201).
Apparently old things we encounter again in Bergwitz: first the old block station, then the newly renovated post 107, which was a signal box and barrier post and on the left hand side of the old briquette factory.
The station buildings of the following stations, with the exception of Burgkemnitz, lead a sad existence today; unused and smeared, they wait for reuse or the wrecking ball. An inconspicuous old house to the right of the route in Gräfenhainichen was once the signal box "Ghn" for the station.
The station building in Burgkemnitz was renovated in 2009 and has since housed ticket sales, a bistro and commercial offices.
In Muldenstein we see three large chimneys to the left of the railway line. They were once part of the first German power plant to generate electricity exclusively for the electric traction of the railway. The chimneys fell in 2010 and are supposed to stand as a proud monument, at least in the add-on.
In the past, if you got to Bitterfeld, the eye noticed the huge chemical combine west of the railway line. Chlorine chemistry was mainly used here. In front of the chemical plant was a large freight station. The first thing you heard was the typical Bitterfeld smell. When the air was very humid, the green tear-off sparks of the electric locomotives were noticeable. The copper of the overhead lines reacted with the chlorine in the air to form copper chloride, which was responsible for these green sparks.
Today, the freight station is a solar power plant, and a huge industrial park remains of the chemical plant. The air is clear again, the tear-off sparks bluish.
Behind Bitterfeld we leave the Anhalter Bahn, which continues to Halle/Saale and continue on the Dessau – Leipzig line. In Delitzsch, behind the lower station – located to the southwest – the station building of the upper station on the Cottbus – Halle/Saale line stands out. This beautiful old building is used for cultural purposes and will thus be preserved - renovated and listed.
When we get to Leipzig, the first thing we are greeted by is the old Neuwiederitzsch signal box. At Leipzig - Mockau station, the signal boxes "B1" and "W2" are still in service. At the entrance to Leipzig Central Station, behind the Berlin Bridge, we are greeted by the disused command signal box "B10", followed by the marshalling signal box "R9" and the disused Leipzig West depot. Directly behind the Leipzig West depot stood the large tower signal box "B3", which dominated the station. This fell victim to the construction of the Leipzig City Tunnel, it was simply in the way of the new roads.
Equally striking and well-known is the building of the station dispatcher on platform 12/13. It was demolished in 2014 because it stood in the way of the extension of the ICE platform as part of the German Unity 8 transport project. At the time, I asked the Forum rail-sim.de whether the building should be preserved and followed the decision. If it bothers you, you can also remove it with the help of the track editor.
Now we have reached Leipzig Hbf. A historic station hall from 1905, once Europe's largest terminus, divided into Prussian and Saxon stations, but surpassed by the stations Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Paris Est (in terms of the number of tracks) due to the dismantling since 1995.
Msts Protrain 25 Koblenz - Giessen