My day of inspiration at the “Waldeisenbahn Muskau”

Hi folks,

I like to share my latest day of inspiration with you. We were on holiday in Saxonia the last week and we also visited my good friend Sven in Dresden. He invited me to join him for a day at the “Waldeisenbahn Muskau”. I’ve to mention, that Sven is working as an engineer on this well-known narrow gauge railroad and I was able to spend a full day with him, working on the railroad.

When we arrived in the morning, loco 99 3312 “Diana” was already steamed up the fireman for todays charter train for a swiss tourist group. Sven took over the engine and we made her ready for the day by oiling all bearings, checking the injector and water gauge and so on. We made up our consist by picking up the cars from several spur tracks at Weisswasser Teichstraße. At 11am, we start the journey down to Bad Muskau where we picked up the passengers after lunch. Meanwhile, we took on water and checked the rods and valve gear again.

I could ride inside the cab all the way through and I learned some new details on that trip.

Back in Weisswasser, the tourist group had a walk to the museum while we made the train ready for the second trip to Kromlau. This is a short branch with less grades as the mainline to Bad Muskau and I was asked to assist Sven as fireman on this trip. It was a great feeling to be part of a steam locomotive crew. Well, I was very excited and finally, I missed to start the injector correctly when being in the grade, but Sven had everything under control all the time. I got my lesson on that and later on, I got the injector handled quite perfect as well as the coaling for the fire box.

Back from this trip, we stored the cars back to the spur tracks, filled up water and coal and after cleaning the firebox and smokebox, the loco was placed into the shed for the next operation.

Well, I’ve always been addicted to live steam and steam locomotives at all as well as logging railroads like the Waldeisenbahn Muskau once was. But this day will remain in my mind and was a great inspiration for me to get back to my roots and model logging railroads, if possible with live steam locos.

Cheers, Gerd