Exberliner Issue 167, January 2018

TRAINS
Meet Snowflake
Graham Anderson rides Berlin
macht Dampf’s flagship steam train
from Berlin to the Polish border.
Snowflake is 74 years old, smokes like Krakatoa,
drinks like a whale, has undergone several facelifts,
stands 4.5 metres tall, is almost 23 metres wide and
tips the scales at 140 tonnes. Behind her, the old
locomotive hauls 10 Deutsche Reichsbahn carriages
packed with 400 German “steam fans” who’ve paid
€79 for their three-hour, 112km ride east to the Uckermark
village of Tantow. Once there, coach buses
will take them the remaining 22km to the winter
markets of Szczcecin. “Snowflake doesn’t live up to
Polish railway’s safe-operating standards,” explains
Berlin macht Dampf organiser Katrin Rohne.
Snowflake’s real name is Kriegslok 52 8131-6. She’s
one of 7000 Series 52 locomotives commissioned
by Hitler to haul 1200-tonne war trains over long
distances to the Eastern Front. “She’s a war locomotive
built in times of acute metal shortages. Steel
replaced copper fittings wherever possible. All handfired.
Nothing fancy,” explains snowy-haired conductor
Klaus Winter in his gold-buttoned, Prussian Blue
uniform and peaked Deutsche Reichsbahn cap.
Inside, first-class dog boxes rattle along next to
cattle-class wooden seats. Clouds of steam hissing
from leaking heating pipes reduce visibility to zero
between carriages. “Raucher” and “Nichtraucher”
carriages recall the good old days of cigarette haze
stinging passengers’ eyes, while the dining car’s
crisp, white tablecloths and gold-plated lamps
come straight out of the 1930s. Steam connoisseurs
flock to devour beef goulash, red cabbage
and mashed potatoes for €12.90 as musicians in
Santa Claus outfits knock back Schnapps.
As Snowflake hisses, spits and chugs into Tantow,
a six-truck fire brigade lines up to welcome the train
into the 763-inhabitant border village. She’s thirsty
and hungry. Tantow’s fire brigade refills her tank with
15,000 litres of water as fireman Frank Rust helps
heave two tonnes of coal into her 10-tonne tender
with a metre-long scoop. During the day, he and
driver Sven Hesse drive Deutsche Bahn freight trains.
But for now, they’re helping “Berlin Makes Steam”
live up to its name. With clouds and clouds of it.
This historic express train experience will set
you back €24-79 depending on route; book
at www.berlin-macht-dampf.com or over the
phone (030 6789 7340). After a winter break,
their journeys continue from March 17.
Wassen CC BY 3.0
Dampflokfreunde’s depot in Schöneweide.
over puddles and hike up our jackets.
“We’re very lucky though, because
we’ve been designated a historical
landmark by the city, so we’re here
to stay,” he says with a smile. “Newcomers
won’t be able to say, ‘Hey,
stop making all that steam with your
trains!’” As we’re speaking a modern
train is flying by, honking its horn.
“That must be one of our guys,” Jens
says nonchalantly. You currently have
drivers out on the tracks, in real life? I
ask. “Oh yeah, all the time.”
When he opens the door to the
roundhouse, I understand why the
city of Berlin has decided to leave the
Dampflokfreunde alone. It’s a giant,
cavernous building, with tracks intersecting
in the middle where the engines
and wagons can enter and leave
the roundhouse and connect with the
normal railways we all use around
Berlin. DampflokfreundeBerlin began
in 1993, four years before Jens joined
the club, with the purchase of their
first steam locomotive from the
German Rail Museum. Today, the
club offers two main attractions: an
open house they hold a few times a
year at the roundhouse, and “Berlin
macht Dampf” (Berlin Makes Steam),
a travel programme that sees the club
take paying passengers on antique
train trips all around Germany (see
sidebar). Those trips, while being a
focal point of the club’s activities, also
serve as fundraisers for the maintenance
of their vintage engines.
“Last Christmas, we had around
1000 people on our steam locomotive
journey, which was difficult to
manage but extremely fun.” The train
in question, the Dampflok Class 52
model, is the club’s crown jewel, and
they currently have three in circulation.
Jens walks me over to one in the
main shed of the roundhouse, and
it’s absolutely gobsmacking: a shiny
black and red monster that looks as
dangerous as it is fascinating. I can
only imagine what it must feel like to
ride in one of these things, let alone
drive them – which not everyone can
do, since the train is from 1944 and
takes real skill to maneuver. “There
are very strict protocols to operating
a steam train,” says Jens. “I have the
certifications to tend to the boiler
and maintain the engine’s heat, but
not to stoke the engine or take her
out on the tracks.”
Every train Jens takes me to on our
afternoon tour is like stepping out of a
time machine: there’s a caboose from
1899, a pre-WWII Deutsche Reichsbahn
diesel engine and the impressive
mid-century dining car they use on
club journeys. Jens is so full of information
I can barely keep up. By the
time we leave, I’m so well-versed in
train trivia, I find myself gazing at the
passing carriages, wondering if I can
differentiate the models and classes
I’ve been hearing about all week. At
the station, as Jens’ train pulls in, a
bright red ICE blares past on the other
track and Jens glares at it in bemused
disdain. “So ugly!” he laughs as he
boards his good ol’ trusty S-Bahn,
leaving me on the platform with a sort
of borrowed nostalgia, almost wishing
that something as crazy and unusual
as his steam engines would arrive to
take me all the way home. n
Christian Vagt
EXBERLINER 167