There was a time I didn’t think I’d be a fan of trains. I’m glad I was wrong, helped in large part to living and visiting Germany over much of the last 25 years.
Nuremberg’s Transport Museum includes the Deutsche Bahn (DB) Museum and the Museum of Communication. I spent the better part of Friday afternoon, learning and gathering bits and pieces on German rail.
Nuremberg’s Verkehrsmuseum, including Bahn (rail) and Post (mail).
With North at the bottom of the map, Johann Georg Kuppler drew this map of the Ludwigseisenbahn (Ludwig Railway) between Nuremberg (left) and Fürth (right) in 1835.
Replica of the “Adler” steam locomotive engine, next to an ICE-3 model.
Established between Nuremberg and the nearby city of Fürth, the Ludwigseisenbahn began operation as Germany’s 1st railroad on 7 December 1835. A replica of the engine car, the Adler from the very first journey is in the museum proper (above).
Built in 1835, this lemon-yellow “car number 8” is the only remaining surviving passenger car from the Ludwigseisenbahn, and is Germany’s oldest railway vehicle.
In 1896, the Skladanowsky brothers produced short-films of Berlin city-life for the first time. This image is a snippet of one of their films showing the comings and goings, including city rail above street-level, at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz.
Train ticket in 2nd class, from Berlin to Wiesbaden, on 15 May 1901.
Train ticket in 3rd class, from Munich-Obermenzing to Regensburg, on 22 June 1946.
Left to right, respectively: West Germany’s Deutsche Bundesbahn logo in 1955; East Germany boundary stele at the inner German boundary, c. 1967; East Germany’s Deutsche Reichsbahn logo, c. 1960.
1974 map showing routes for the Trans-Europe-Express. By present-day standards, Berlin, Prague, and Warsaw are conspicuous by their absence.
1984 1:10 model of VT11.5 (601) locomotive for the Trans Europe Express. Cue up the Kraftwerk song …
1976 advertisement for Deutsche Bundesbahn’s Intercity trains running every 2-hours inside West Germany; note Berlin’s exclusion.
The modern DB logo.
I received neither support nor compensation for the present piece. I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 1 August 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.
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