Diaries of traveler in Schleswig-Holstein

[Alex_dn]

Hi friends,

In this thread, I would like to spread a word about something not related directly to Z scale, but that could be also interesting. Like to many people, traveling for me was always one of the best ways of spending free time. Some years ago, I lived in Finland during a certain period. During that time, and also in other years I actively explored Scandinavia and Northern Europe with my former family and later solely with my children.

I had a luck to visit all countries around Baltic Sea. My first acquaintance with Germany occurred many years ago in Bavaria, where my old school friend lives. But my second visit to Germany took place 10 years ago in exactly the opposite part of the country – in Lübeck, one of my favorite cities in Germany, where we traveled from Helsinki, Finland by ferry operated by Finnish carrier Finnlines. We arrived to Scandinavian Terminal in Travemünde and later had a very pleasant trip that started in Lübeck and stretched across whole Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Land, including such beautiful cities as Schwerin, Rostock, Stralsund, Greifswald, Wismar and Güstrow.

Later, we visited Germany by the same ferry from Finland several times too. Each time we arrived to Germany, I was deeply impressed by the fascinating atmosphere of small, but very beautiful and charming town Travemünde visible from above from the sun deck of big Finnlines ferry. And I was always dreaming of traveling here by land and staying in Travemünde for some days. This town lays far away from my usual traveling routes, so such a journey was constantly postponed.

This summer, when both I and my children finally slightly recovered from the disaster that unfortunately still going on in my native country, I decided to use an opportunity and to fulfill my old dream. Luckily, Dortmund where we live now is not so far away from the north coast of the country, so we could not wait for the summer holidays to flee away to the northern sea.

I had a big luck to rent a very comfortable apartment right in the resort area at the sea coast in Travemünde for more than affordable price. The weather was warm and sunny – later it turned out to be a very good decision that we have not postponed our journey to the end of holidays, when it was raining all days long.

However, no trip considered complete without exploring the local railways for the true fan! I liked very much to explore abandoned and less used railways back in my childhood in Ukraine, and it was not a question for me to look at Lübeck–Travemünde Strand railway with my own eyes and to have a railway trip across it during our stay in Travemünde.

Luckily, significant part of this short line is accessible by feet in Travemünde – that’s what we started from together with my son Sergey who is also a big railway fan. One day, after spending a good time at the beach, we went by feet to the Travemünde Strandbahnhof. It is located very close to the sea. Upon arrival, we saw an old classic building from the red brick. The main hall was closed; left annex looked a bit dirty and occupied by a bike rental shop:

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Travemünde Strand is a terminal station. It counts only one track at the moment. In the past, there were as much as 4 tracks – apparently to serve quite a dense traffic. Overall look of the train station brings impression as if it is almost abandoned or at least very rarely used. Nevertheless, passenger traffic and number of everyday trains are relatively high here, according to the schedule, especially during high season in summer.

According to the information from Internet, the station building has been sold in 2015 by DB to a private owner. The whole facility was already in a very poor condition at that moment. New owner planned to renovate the station building and to preserve it as a historical area, but as it can be seen nowadays, unfortunately, nothing of this happened, and everything continues deteriorating inevitably at the moment. The second platform is overgrown now almost completely and suffers from the strong erosion:

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The second track has been dismantled, but it is at least visible where it was in the past. It is very difficult to find any signs of another two tracks which were here in the past. Only barely visible embankment is visible through the dense vegetation behind the platform:

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Although Lübeck–Travemünde railway was diesel-powered during the major period of its history, it was electrified not so long ago – in 2008. It was so unusual to see modern bi-level Stadler KISS electric train arriving to such a desolated station:

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[Alex_dn]

What a satisfying view – modern train slowly runs an old single track until disappears completely in the deep green jungle:

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According to the historical information found at Stellwerke.info, Lübeck–Travemünde was longer in the past – it continued to Niendorf, the next sea resort to the west from Travemünde. I found a number of very interesting historical photos. This is how the railway branching near the Travemünde Strand station looked, the last track goes to Niendorf:

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Image source: https://stellwerke.info/stw/stw.php?id=4446


Now everything looks completely different here at this place. It is even hard to find any evidences of the former railway junction that was there. And here is how Niendorf (Ostsee) station looked in the past, when it existed:

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Image source: https://stellwerke.info/stw/stw.php?id=15634

Unfortunately, the route between Lübeck-Travemünde Hafen and Niendorf was closed in 1974 and later dismantled completely.

After exploring the end station Travemünde Strand, we walked on feet across the line through the small forest until we approached the level crossing near Travemünde Hafen station – the next stop in Lübeck direction. Here are some nice views from this point:

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[Alex_dn]

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The second track coming from Travemünde Hafen station continued here through the crossing in the past:



Image source: https://stellwerke.info/stw/stw.php?id=480

Before electrification, 218’s were in service here:

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Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbe ... nd_railway


I discovered a very interesting place behind the crossing – with a blue passenger car of unknown type standing still off the tracks:

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Later we proceeded to the Travemünde Hafen station. The main building undergoes renovation at the moment:

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[Alex_dn]

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Station area contains one more building – apparently, a former warehouse for storing goods unloaded from the freight cars. Although no any signs left, it looks like a sideline track was here in the past:

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Once again, a typical desolation view can be seen from the platform:

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Travemünde Hafen counted two tracks for passenger trains in the past. Now only overgrown platform with a rusty skeleton of the tent reminds about this…

At this point, we were already very tired after several hours of wandering across this very interesting historical railway line, and we decided to see off the train to Lübeck that just arrived to Travemünde Hafen station and to return back to our apartment located on another side of the harbor:

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On the next day, we decided to make a trip to our favorite city Lübeck and booked tickets for this small but cozy ship:

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We have discovered many interesting and beautiful sites during this 1.5-hour sailing across Trave River, until our ship brought us right to the Old Town pier in the city center:

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Like in almost every old city with harbor, many abandoned railway tracks can be seen here across the pier in Lübeck too:

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[Alex_dn]

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We were so happy to visit places we have known for a long time once again! We visited an observation tower of St. Petri Church. Luckily, the weather was wonderful:

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After a very pleasant promenade across the Old Town, we decided to return back to Travemünde by the train and went to the Hauptbahnhof – also a very familiar place to us:

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After a while, we boarded already mentioned bi-level Stadler KISS train and started our short, but very interesting journey across Lübeck–Travemünde Strand railway:

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[Alex_dn]

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The line comes through the very beautiful places, often very close to the waterfront:

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Although it was better to exit on Travemünde Hafen station, we decided to continue our journey to the end station – Travemünde Strand. I managed to take some more pictures en route:

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Another view of that unknown blue passenger car near the level crossing:

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Finally, we arrived to Travemünde Strand and returned back to our apartment on feet:

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Both I and my children were very satisfied with our visit to the northern land of Schleswig-Holstein, and we had a lot of fun there. Now I clearly know where we will definitely spend some part of summer holidays next year – I would like to visit this beautiful Baltic Sea coast once again and to discover more places there.

It also looks to me like the railway played much more important (or at least different) role here in Germany in the past other than nowadays. Just like it was in many other countries in Europe in the same historical period, for example, in the UK. If you compare railways maps of Europe in the first half of XX century with modern map, you will obviously see a huge difference. It looks like the railway network penetrated almost into every small backyard here in Germany in the past. Unfortunately, many of historical railway lines have been already dismantled nowadays, and it is often difficult to determine where exactly they existed.

Of course, there are obvious reasons for this – other means of transportation received huge development – such as automotive industry and aviation. Most people now have own cars, which also plays a huge role. Nevertheless, it is always important for the friends of railways to preserve this beautiful heritage for the future.

Here are some useful links for additional information:

Lübeck–Travemünde Strand railway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbe ... nd_railway

Lübeck-Travemünde Strand station:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbe ... nd_station

Lübeck-Travemünde Hafen station:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbe ... en_station

At the end, I would also like to add some beautiful pictures I took during our stay in Travemünde:

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[Alex_dn]

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[Alex_dn]

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And finally, here is this Finnlines ferry on which we have arrived to Travemünde for the first time 10 years ago. It looks older now, after 10 years passed:

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Best regards,
Alex

[Axel Hempelmann]

Hello Alex,
thank you for your detailed and very interesting travel report! When looking at the great pictures, I would like to go on vacation in northern Germany myself.

I discovered a very interesting place behind the crossing – with a blue passenger car of unknown type standing still off the tracks:

Some information about the blue car at the "Eisenbahner-Hochsee-Sportfischer-Verein" in Travemünde:
it is part of the express railcar DRG SVT 137 851, (later DB VT 06 106). The power car was converted into a saloon car. You can book compartments there for overnight stays:

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Source: https://www.ferienhausmiete.de/9333.htm#description

There are also 360 degree pictures from the inside of the car here:
https://cp360pano.com/ehsfv-salonwagen-in-360-grad/

A short video is also available on YouTube:


By the way, the larger part of the train is in Konstanz:
http://www.bahn-express.de/archiv/78462-01.htm

[Alex_dn]

I decided to dig for the information about Lübeck-Travemünde railway deeper and found a number of interesting photos. In 2007, the station looked much better. Although two tracks have been already removed, one more unused track still could be found:

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The second platform was also in better condition:

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Before the line was electrified, 928's were in service there:

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In 2009, after electrification, regional express trains in DB livery pulled by BR 146 appeared:

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Source for the images:
https://www.bahninfo.de/sonderseiten/fo ... index.html
https://www.hl-live.de/text.php?id=155093
https://www.bahninfo-forum.de/read.php?27,252572

Here is also some historical information about Lübeck-Travemünde railway:
https://www.g-v-t.de/travemuende-geschi ... avemuende/

Greetings,
Alex