News

17.07.2025: News from the Museum

Today we start our current newsletter with the area outside our museum. Below we show some pictures of the design of the area around our museum track, which leads from our signal box Wm to the railway station. It is the last remaining track of the former Magdeburg railway station side.
As part of the redesign of the green spaces and in preparation for the State Garden Show, which will be organised in Wittenberge in the summer of 2027, the platform next to this track has been redesigned. In future, it will be integrated into the green space that is being created along the street "Am Bahnhof". We are very pleased about this, as it will also make our guests' journey from the station more pleasant when they arrive by train from early summer 2026.




We are also looking forward to the actual State Garden Show, which will be held in the large green spaces in the centre of Wittenberge. We recommend taking a look at the horticultural show website https://www.laga-wittenberge.de/, which already gives a promising impression of this event. Incidentally, a visit to the show and our museum can be wonderfully combined.
While we were talking about travelling to Wittenberge by train: You may already be aware that Deutsche Bahn will be completely renovating the Hamburg-Berlin line in the coming months. Not only will the tracks on this extremely important line be renewed, but Wittenberge station will also be remodelled. A new platform will be built to increase the capacity of the station for passenger transport.
There will also be additional tracks for freight transport. The tracks of the sidings to the harbour have already been electrified. As part of the future construction work, a new track connection will also be created between the sidings and the main railway towards Berlin.
The connection of the museum and its neighbours to the tracks of Wittenberge station will also be rebuilt, so that we will be separated from the Deutsche Bahn track network in the short term.
And now for the downer: during the work between August 2025 and spring 2026, there will be no passenger train services in Wittenberge according to current plans, not even from Stendal or Perleberg. If you would like to reach us by public transport during this time, travelling will unfortunately be more difficult. However, Deutsche Bahn will be organising replacement bus services so that Wittenberge will generally be accessible without a car during the construction work. You can find more information about the construction work and replacement services on the Deutsche Bahn website: https://hamburg-berlin.deutschebahn.com/home.html.
Now let's move on to the activities in the museum and its vehicles. During the last event, some visitors asked where our diesel locomotive 118 748 was. The answer is that it is still in a contractor's workshop where a general inspection is being carried out. The relevant work is almost complete, the locomotive is back on its own wheels and the engines are running. Remaining work is currently being carried out, such as the installation of a modern radio system. This is a prerequisite for using the locomotive on public tracks.



Some guests also asked about the locomotive boiler, which has recently been stored on a trolley in the museum grounds. Today we want to reveal the secret. It is a boiler like the ones used on our class 50 steam locomotives. The boilers currently fitted to the locomotives will reach their operational limits in the foreseeable future or will require extensive work to keep them running. In the event that one of the existing boilers requires too much investment, we were able to acquire this replacement boiler in good condition. True to the motto "Better to have than to need", it will now be preserved and stored in the museum grounds before a decision is made on its future use.

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09.07.2025: Review of the past event

We look back on our "Summer Steam 2025" event with great pleasure. Due to the weather, there were only a few clouds of steam emitted by a steam locomotive. Our little Emma alone made sure of that. However, a considerable number of diesel locomotives were on site and in operation, which also exuded fascination. Among the guests were the large diesel locomotives of Soviet design 232 701 and 903.


Western traction was also represented in the form of diesel locomotive 216 224. This is the little sister of our yellow diesel locomotive 320 001.


And an exotic locomotive on German rails, namely the Danish Nohab 1151, rounded off the picture with its elegant curves and the emblem of the Danish state railway.

All were presented in turn on the turntable and also took part in our parade runs shortly after midday on both days. We would once again like to thank the companies Bahnbetrieb Gera GmbH, Lok-OST and Cargo Logistic Rail Service, who let us use their locomotives for the exhibition, and their colleagues, who were happy to answer the many questions from visitors and present their locomotives.

We would also like to thank the Lüchow-Dannenberg model railway enthusiasts, who visited us with their H0 scale modular layout and also had models in use that corresponded to the originals represented here.
Historical exhibits also reached us on the road at times. On Saturday, we hosted a German-Danish motorbike club, while on Sunday the Lüneburg classic car enthusiasts paid us a visit.

We are very satisfied with the event. After all, almost 1,300 people visited us last weekend. The atmosphere was good, the technology worked and our guests and we were in a good mood.

That's how it should be and we are already looking forward to the next events this year in September and October. Until then, we will of course keep you up to date with the latest developments in and around the museum. We wish everyone who is going on holiday a good rest. And if you live further away and are perhaps going on holiday in the north, we recommend a detour to visit us. The museum is open on Saturdays between 10:00 and 17:00.

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02.07.2025: +++ Update +++ Third guest locomotive confirmed for the upcoming event +++

Following the confirmations for diesel locomotives 232 673 and 1151, we are pleased to announce the participation of diesel locomotive 232 450 at our event this coming weekend.
Like 232 673, it was built in Luhansk, now Ukraine, during the Soviet era and was used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn from 1976. After reunification, it had temporary Bulgarian owners who gave it a blue livery, which it still wears today. It was sold back to Germany in 2023 and currently operates for the company Bahnbetrieb Gera GmbH.
The following photo was taken by Maik Köhler at www.br232.com

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02.07.2025: +++ Update +++ Fourth guest locomotive confirmed for the upcoming event +++

Following the confirmations for diesel locomotives 232 450, 232 673 and 1151, we are pleased to announce the participation of diesel locomotive 232 903 from Lok-OST at our event next weekend.
Like the other two class 232 locomotives, it was built in Luhansk, now Ukraine, during the Soviet era and was used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn from 1975. After the fall of communism, it was temporarily taken to the Netherlands, where a subsidiary of DB AG used it for freight trains. After returning to Germany, it was used for the freight train division of DB AG for a few more years before being sold to the current owner in 2018. The locomotive still wears the color scheme in which it and its sisters were painted in the last years of service at DB AG, namely red with a white bib on the fronts.

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01.07.2025: +++ Update +++ Second guest locomotive confirmed for the upcoming event +++

The guest list for our event next weekend is slowly filling up. Today we received the second firm confirmation, this time from Cargo Logistik Rail Service GmbH (CLR).
We are looking forward to the visit of diesel locomotive 1151, which is rather exotic on German tracks. It was built 60 years ago by the company Nydqvist & Holm Aktiebolag in Trollhättan, Sweden, for the Danish state railroad and was used by our northern neighbors for a long time. Since 1999, it has mainly been in service in Germany. The CLR has now been using it in front of freight and construction trains for more than twelve years, where it has proved its worth. The owners have restored it to its original color scheme of dark red with golden yellow decorative elements, just as it used to be in Denmark. Two large winged wheel symbols adorn the front of the locomotive.


We are still trying to secure further exhibits for the event, including a class 155 electric locomotive, although its appearance is not yet one hundred percent guaranteed because its operating schedule for next week has not yet been fully clarified. We will inform you as soon as we have more concrete information.

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