Britta's Letters from her life divided between city-life in German's capital Berlin and life in a Bavarian village

Sunday 10 November 2013

For Tetchan: 'Molly', the Steam Railway in Heiligendamm

Britta Huegel

When I read Sapphire's lovely post about 'Cosmos flowers and the Kururi Line', I promised in my comment to show a few photographs of 'Molly', which I took in Heiligendamm.
Tetchan, I learned from Sapphire, are Japanese rail fans.
In 1886 Friedrich Franz III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, granted a concession to build a narrow-gauged rail, which run from Bad Doberan to Heiligendamm, first only in summer. Later they enlarged the route and even added freight traffic to Rostock, which was not a success because of its narrowness, so they gave that up in 1969. 13 trains a day were driving.
Today it is still used, in high season at hourly intervals, otherwise every two hours, driving between Bad Doberan via Baltic Spa Heiligendamm (where it became famous at the G8 summit, being the only medium of transport for the journalists) to the Baltic Spa Kühlungsborn.
It is called 'Molli' now (but the gender is male, it is surprisingly 'der Molli', a HIM).

Britta Huegel


Britta Huegel





2 comments:

  1. Interesting, now when I think of trains in any setting, I am always reminded of our wish to ride through the German countryside in one together.

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  2. Dear Suze,
    we will! But: we'll take an ICE - more comfortable, quicker, and: no smoke!

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