Exberliner Issue 167, January 2018

TRAINS
Railway romance never rusts
It’s the most-watched show about trains in the world, with over
a million Germans tuning in 12 times a week. And even two
years after the retirement of its cult presenter Hagen von Ortloff,
Eisenbahn-Romantik has continued right on track. By Graham Anderson
The 99 class eight-wheeler steam
locomotive hurtles full throttle on its
750mm narrow gauge track into viewers’
living rooms. The nostalgic, jazzy tones of
Wes Brown’s “Sentimental Journey” seduce
German train lovers into another soothing
episode of their favourite show, Eisenbahn-
Romantik. Only one thing has changed in the
format of “Railway Romantic” over its 26-
year history – its founder and cult presenter
Hagen von Ortloff hung up his conductor’s
cap in 2015 upon turning 65. Eisenbahn-
Romantik now runs on autopilot, without its
guru’s polished Prussian dome and baritone
High German nursing its million-plus train
freaks through their daily iron horse “trips”.
Forty years ago, Von Ortloff filmed his
first railroad, as a TV journalist for the
children’s programme Durchblick. “I made a
90-second film about a model railway club
in Winnenden. It’s still there today,” says
the 68-year-old on a visit to Berlin from his
home near Stuttgart.
Encouraged by Mechthild Albus, producer
at public broadcaster SDR (nowadays called
SWR), the lifelong train enthusiast finally let
his railway genie out of its bottle in 1991. “She
challenged me to come up with a show that
would bridge a dead spot between two popular
afternoon programmes. The name Railway
Romantic was already in my head, and so was
TELEVISION
‘Sentimental Journey’. Colleagues laughed. No
one expected the show to survive. That’s something
I am a tad proud of,” says Von Ortloff.
In the first half-hour episode, Von Ortloff
portrayed Das sauschwänzle Bähnle (“the sow’s
lil’ tail railway”) on Germany’s Swiss border,
famous for corkscrewing over itself six times
via tunnels to gain altitude. And just like that
train, Eisenbahn-Romantik’s viewer base of German
train fanatics climbed higher and higher.
“The show’s a product of outrageous fortune.
We had no money. We used federal railway
archive footage for early episodes. And we still
outrated the programmes we were meant to
link!” says Von Ortloff. In 1993, SDR gave him
a regular weekly spot and a €200,000 budget.
“We spent the money like it was our own,” Von
Ortloff recalls. Today, the show’s budget is
€250,000. Subsequent episodes have focused
on railway repair depots, specific lines such as
the “Wonder Train” from Nice to the Maritime
Alps, locomotive types like the “Crocodile”
and model railroads. Politics aren’t avoided:
Von Ortloff made no secret of his fierce opposition
to the controversial “Stuttgart 21” project,
which converted the city’s terminus into a
run-through underground station. The former
presenter is particularly proud of the 1990s
episodes about the GDR’s Deutsche Reichsbahn.
“We focused on the closure of lines like the
one from Velgast to Tribsees in Mecklenberg-
Pavel Mezihorák
Vorpommern. That’s history now. And without
history, there’s no future. But it’s preserved in
the annals of Eisenbahn-Romantik.”
A whole industry has mushroomed around
the show: a fan club complete with an online
shop, a magazine and T-shirts; an Eisenbahn-
Romantik-themed hotel in Brandenburg;
copycat TV programmes like Arte’s Mit dem
Zug durch (By train through...). How did Von
Ortloff stop all this attention from going to his
head? He thanks the steadying ballast of his
early life in Dresden in the German Democratic
Republic. “I’m a born loser. The noble
‘von’ in my name went down like a lead balloon
in the GDR. Thank God I left in 1960 when
I was 11 years old. I quite like ‘von’ now,” he
admits. He puts his success down to luck. “I
was the right man in the right place at the right
moment. I never believed the show would be
such a success, not in my wildest dreams.”
Still, Von Ortloff doesn’t underestimate
his own appeal as a presenter. “I’m always
myself. I speak in a language that a grandma
with six years of schooling can understand.
Nothing off-colour. Above all, respect. The
show’s success is the viewers’ achievement. I
am not arrogant. Well, a little bit. But there’s
no reason to be,” Von Ortoff laughs.
He had groomed no heir apparent by the
time he retired in 2015. “I jog six times a
week. I’m as fit as a fiddle. I never missed an
episode! That’s why there’s no crown prince.
Had my son been 22 he could have taken over,
but he’s 11,” smiles Von Ortloff. And because
“two different frontmen presenting the same
programme would confuse viewers,” he was
never replaced. Longtime Eisenbahn-Romantik
narrator Joachim “Jo” Jung now gives railway
junkies their iron horse hits tucked out
of sight behind a microphone. “Jung’s a good
speaker. Better than I am,” says Von Ortloff.
In Jung’s hands, the show has continued
without a hitch. “The show runs repeat episodes
from Monday to Friday, at 8:20am and
2:50pm. New episodes appear on Saturdays
and are repeated on Sundays. That’s 12 shows
a week with a million viewers per show,” says
Von Ortloff. Who are these fans? “They’re
mainly men. Their wives are backseat spectators.
But many wives often tell me they would
be ‘all aboard’ for any train tour I guided. They
appreciate becoming part of the ‘big picture’
they would otherwise not understand.”
Where to now for the cult programme
with its guru in retirement? “It’s got
themes for the next 50 years. Railway
bridges alone could keep it going for 10
years! The railway world is big, far too
big,” Von Ortloff says. For his own part, the
ex-presenter has “projects to keep me busy
till death do us part.” He still organises the
annual “International Railway Modelling
Day” on December 2 of every year. And the
odd Eisenbahn-Romantik special tour. n
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