Erich Preuß (1940–2014)

A detailed study of the 750mm gauge network of lines in Saxony, which non-German enthusiasts only discovered in its dying days after re-unification with five lines remaining in operation. (A couple of preservation schemes have been added since then.)

The book details the history of the network, its organisation, the construction of the lines (with details of the civil engineering), the locomotives and rolling stock and technical details of the couplings and braking technology, both of which were peculiar to these lines.

Given that photography of railways was supposed to be forbidden in the days of the DDR, the book is well illustrated with colour pictures from the later years of the Communist era. However, there is something of a gap in the photographs, as the period between the wars seems to be poorly represented (despite plenty of photographs being available). I suspect this may be a policy of the publisher's intended to maximise the amount of colour pictures used.

All in all, though, a good single-volume study of a fascinating group of railways, which the visitor to Saxony can still experience.… (más)

Reasonably useful description of the Bayerische Zugspitzbahn and its history up to 1995. More interesting on the planning of the line than its actual construction - there is a good bit about the high-level tunnel works, but we could have done with more. There are plenty of impressive photos, as one would expect from a book of this sort, and a reasonable, if not exactly generous, number of maps and technical diagrams.

One oddity, possibly related to the author's note that the book was written with the full co-operation of the BZB company, is the absence of any mention of the political events of the 1930s. Difficult to imagine that a line to Germany's highest summit, opened in 1929, didn't play an important part in Nazi propaganda...

[I can't help wondering how a book about such a quintessentially Bavarian subject gets to be written by a man named Preuß who lives in Berlin!]… (más)