ROAD RUNNER

Bad Doberan: Germany’s steam-hauled railway-cross-tramway

Ding, ding, ding…’ The faintest, most distant of sounds. A regular weekday occurrence – even during the coronavirus crisis. But what you’re about to see happens only here.

Around half a mile away, a 2-8-2T is slowing, curving away from fields and avenues of rustling trees… It should surely stop there, perhaps in a little station on the edge of town. But no – ‘Molli’ carries on, straight down the street… in a few moments it will squeeze past drinkers and dog walkers, people getting a new hair do, or popping out for a paper. Bad luck too for car drivers who don’t hark its clanging bell.

‘Molli’ – a nickname probably owed to the German word for ‘a tubby lady’ – has been edging its bulk through here for over 130 years. When it’s not doing so, you’ll find a couple of steel lines set in granite setts, a few rudimentary signs and benches at stops… and that’s about it. Such an operation “really does only exist here with us”, the Bad Doberan line’s marketing manager explains. What is this remarkable railway? Around ten miles of single track, rails an unusual 900mm (almost 3ft) apart, connecting Bad Doberan with Heiligendamm and Kühlungsborn along the Mecklenburg coast. It started as a tram – no surprise there – only as far as Germany’s first seaside resort in 1886. Then, with the extension further west from Heiligendamm to Kühlungsborn West (known at that point as Arendsee), in 1910 it became a railway. It just still ran through the streets.

Rural openness, tourist spots, a shopping street… does any other steam line have quite so much variety in such a small area…? Few, for sure. Perhaps that’s one

reason why passenger numbers are regularly around half a million per year (SR505).

There have been tough times. It could have closed in the 1970s before being declared a technical monument by East Germany; after reunification in 1990 the state railway showed little interest. The solution was a new communal company that took over in 1995.

Even this year has been far from normal: the summer season hourly service with two engines started weeks late in May owing to the coronavirus pandemic – before that just a single-train timetable kept going to maintain key connections. ‘Molli’ is still part of the transport network – and few tourists would be up for the weekdays (holidays excepted) 6.40am from Ostseebad Kühlungsborn West to Bad Doberan…

Right now there are still restrictions when you use it: face masks, no buffet car (‘Salonwagen’), no special events. Trains have also been lengthened earlier in the season than normal to help social distancing. But the 2-8-2Ts are running as usual, wafting their breath across Bad Doberan’s villas and houses twice an hour.

A complete lost season? Not here…

ALL: TONY STREETER Keep clear! Bell ringing, 2009-built No. 99.2324 and its train advance up the tightest section of Bad Doberan’s Mollistrasse on October 29 2015. The road is now named after the railway – and in summer this sight is repeated up to 11 times a day… Faces have been pixellated to comply with German privacy law.

She’ll be coming round the corner… hardly a normal sight on a residential road, as No. 99.2322 curves along the Dammchaussee road in 2014.

Overleaf: Where else could this be? In October 2015 No. 99.2324 sets away from Stadtmitte. Leaving the ‘high street’ behind, the 2-8-2T heads across grand Alexandrinnenplatz on its way to the final stop, Bad Doberan’s main line station.

Although all the lines in the former East Germany could now be described as attractions, the ‘Molli’ shares the former Deutsche Reichsbahn tourist colours of red and cream with only one other system – the Harz. On October 29 2015 No. 99.2324 has left Heiligendamm behind and is heading for Bad Doberan.