To the Highest town in Germany.

 

After some hearty German food, a few refreshing beers and a good night’s sleep, we were back out in the morning for another adventure. Two of the lines, the Fichtelbergbahn and the Weißeritztalbahn are a good distance from the city so we chose to visit those in our middle two days in Dresden.

The first to visit was the Fichtelbergbahn. We caught an eastbound regional train from Dresden Neustadt towards the city of Chemnitz. After about an hour just before Chemnitz was reached, we alighted at Flöha to change on to the branchline train to Cranzahl, another hour away and just north of the border with Chechia.

Approaching around a tight curve above the town, Cranzahl station is reached. A quiet country junction between the standard and narrow gauge with a cross platform connection.

There was a one minute booked connection and as we arrived, the narrow gauge service onwards to Oberwiesenthal, the highest town in Germany was waiting. Despite the tight connection, I only got mildly shouted at by taking a photo of the train on my way to getting on board! The line is again just over 17.3km or 10.7 miles long with a running time of about an hour.

Once again, a large 2-10-2 was at the head of our train and the carriages were almost identical to the Loßnitzgrundbahn, we soon learnt that each line has its own character and some very different scenery. Whilst the first line we visited, the Loßnitzgrundbahn was built to open out the countryside and support an expanding agricultural economy, Oberwiesenthal was mining country and the railway here was developed to improve the transport of quarried products. Nowadays, Oberwiesenthal is a ski resort

Once on the move, we dropped round the corner out of the station and soon started climbing leaving Crfanzahl behind us and entering the Fichtelberg forest. After a couple of stops, we dropped down into the Pöhlbach valley before restarting the steep climb hugging the Chechia border until Oberwiesenthal is reached at a height of 893m (2.930ft).

As we climbed higher, we encountered the last of the winter snow and the was a noticeable chill in the air at the top of the line. Thankfully, we had the benefit of steam heating on the train and one of our party used the time whilst the loco was taking on water and running round to purchase some railway themed Schnapps from the station shop.

The ski resort above Oberwiesenthal comes into view.

We were soon heading back to Cranzahl where we had an hour to wait for our train back to Flöha and onwards to Dresden. We had plenty of time to explore the station yard and part of the town, plus watch the next departure back up to Oberwiesenthal before heading on our way back to Dresden.

Train Schnapps. Cherry flavour I think, felt very medicinal in nature...

99 794 heads out of Cranzahl on its next journey to Oberwiesenthal

Contrasts at Cranzahl. Spare loco 99 786 on the right and the modern unit on the left waiting to whisk us back towards Chemnitz. We departed after a through service from Chemnitz to Chechia went through.