Rolfs Railroad Stories E-Book

Rolf Wittig

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 510

Beschreibung

Rolf Wittig worked for four different railways in his life, as a stoker, subway driver, window cleaner and IC engineer. He recounts events from his railway experience.

Leseprobe

Table of contents

Jumped off

Escaped by tramway

Returning Soldiers

Engraver with Sauer & Sohn

Drilling in the pit

A New Age

The Green Border

Onto the Locomotive

Hit him up!

Lady Steam Engine

Hooked

Thank god it´s Friday

Stockholm Slussen

Baby is born

Adventures over the fence

Landungsbrücken (Pier Station)

Responsibilities of a stoker

Amateur Reporter

Episode in France

A Real Apartment!

To the Munich S-Bahn

Union man

Compensation and Productivity

Little Helpers

Giants in Vegas.

In my Dreams

About this book

This is the 3rd edition of Railroad Stories, which includes new colored photos, additional memories, and a lot of information about locomotives and railroads, including in different countries.

The book wants to introduce the world of railroads and the people that work for them: train engineers, firemen, barrier operators, conductors, brakemen and cleaners.

It is intended for people who are interested in how the railroads operated in the past and operate in the present; especially for the young and old rail engineers, who are still fascinated by trains, railroads and railroad stations.

On the side, the book reports on the fight for better workplaces up to the newest cockpit in German locomotives and electric rail cars.

Also included are musings about life in general. As a freight train driver you have to be patient because you wait a lot: first for the bill of lading, the brake test, the green signal, etc. While waiting, you might start to think about various things: the job, teachers, leaders, God and the world. Those commentaries are set in cursive.

Like previous editions, this edition will probably contain some errors because it is ‚handmade‘ without professional layout and review by a publishing house. Hopefully you will still enjoy this personal perspective of a life on the railroad.

Steam

When you bring water to a boil you get steam. If you do that in an enclosed container or boiler the steam creates pressure. To prevent an explosion you need to add a safety valve to let off steam. Add a pipe to the container that leads to a cylinder with a piston, and the piston will be pushed to one end of the cylinder. Now suppose the piston has a rod that is attached to a wheel, the wheel will begin to move.

But to keep the wheel moving, the steam has to be routed to the other side of the piston to push it back the other way. This problem was solved by James Watt in 1769 with the invention of a slide valve. It lets high-pressure steam act alternately on either side of the piston, pushing it back and forth. Exhaust steam, meanwhile, is vented through a chimney when the piston moves back to its original position, making the ‚choo, choo‘ sound we all know.

Over time, improvements allowed the steam engine to go much faster and pull greater loads. With ever larger boilers, pressure could be increased up to 20 bars (290 Psi), enabling engines to move up to 2,000 tons. A new control system for steam valves invented by Edmund Heusinger in 1849, additionally enabled smoother operation of the pistons and eventually speeds of up to 125 mph, provided a good fireman kept the fire going in optimal condition.

The steam engine revolutionized transportation and helped power the industrial age. People and things could now be moved in much greater numbers and at higher speed from one place to another. Steam engines were puffing in every city and town and soon reached farthest corners of the earth.

The drivers of the steam locomotive became a kind of hero, somewhat like astronauts today. And I was lucky enough to get to stokethese magnificent machines before their time was up.

The Last Trip

Light-brown puffs of smoke came in short, even hits from the chimney, trailing over the train like a gradually thinning flag. Everything was as it should be on our BR 50-154 locomotive: the fire lay right and bright in the firebox, low in front and higher in the back; the water in the water glass jiggled at half level; the water pump sighed evenly, and the hand of the steam pressure gauge at the top of the boiler stood just below the red mark. Under the running board, the massive coupling rods were whirling the iron wheels, while hissing wisps of steam escaped from the cylinders.

The engineer sat on a wobbly chair his feet somehow stowed comfortably between pipes and looking a little bored at the tracks in front. The regulator was half open and the reversing lever notched at 35%. Behind us the tender rocked to its own rhythm, causing the connecting gangway to scrape the floor of the cabin. Our empty freight train was running at approximately 50 mph, with the old 2-axle open cars dancing behind us in a long line. We were on a roll.

This was agreeable to a fireman: a well-kept engine that made steam efficiently; a tender full of glistening, fine-grained coal; and green lights all the way to Hamburg‘s main freight depot. Unless we were sidelined in Harburg or Veddel, we would finish our shift on time. I was looking out the window, my arms resting on the iron frame. The sun was setting over the heath lands of northern Germany. Small groups of black and white cattle were grazing in green pastures and a few reed-covered farms huddled under tall trees.

But I was not in a good mood. This was my last trip on a steam engine. My guest performance as a fireman was coming to an end. Tomorrow, I would resume my duty for the Hamburg S-Bahn and drive back and forth on the same tracks all day between Poppenbüttel and Blankenese, or worse, Barmbek and Altona. Up to 8 times a day, or 50 times a week, I would cross the doubtless beautiful Lombardsbrücke in my blue electric train: Dammtor station - entry clear, Sternschanze - pass slowly, Altona - final stop. Not a happy prospect.

A year prior in October 1963, I had signed up with the steam engine depot, which was short-staffed, to escape the drudgery of the S-Bahn. My colleagues did not understand and asked: “Why would you want to go back to the dirty and sweaty work on a steam engine where you have to deal with low quality coal, leaky fireboxes and possibly a conceited senior engineer.” But I knew what I was getting into. I had worked as a fireman before. While the work could be back braking and frustrating, it also demanded a lot of skill. When you understand how to set such a behemoth in motion by choreographing the interplay of fire, water and steam and the considered use of a shovel, the work is quite fulfilling and, above all, never boring.

A fireman has to think ahead. For example, he must have the engine ‚peaked‘ and ready to go when the signal turns green. At other times, he must keep the fire low and reduce steam when he suspects the engine will not need much power, which requires a kind of sixth sense. Of course, things may not always work out as expected. You might have the fire built up for departure; there is enough water in the boiler and the water in the glass is almost in the red; the engine is vibrating under pressure; but you are not getting the green light because another train has priority. Finally, the pressure in the boiler becomes too great and the safety valve releases the built up steam with a tremendous blow, drowning out all other noises in the station and making small children hold their ears.

Toil:Why do people always talk fondly of difficult times and difficult jobs? Probably for the same reason people nowadays seek out hardships, like hiking up tall mountains, riding bikes for hours or working out in fitness centers? Because man is made that way. We are destined to toil in order to achieve. No pain, no gain.

My last trip on the BR 50-154 from Bremen-Unterneuland to Hamburg-Hauptgüterhof (Hamburg‘s main freight depot) was nearly done. The iron wheels of our heavy freight train clattered over the switches of Rothenburg and past the empty station platforms. No stationmaster came out to check, as he no doubt would have, if an express train had come through. On the plus side, we were not pulled over onto a siding to let an express train pass. Our ride continued apace with only a brief halt in the Harburg switch yard. Then we crossed the bridge over the Alte Süder Elbe, (the southern branch of the Elbe river) making its steel trusses sing. At this point, I stopped adding coal to the fire so that it would be nearly burnt down when we arrived at our destination.

The men cleaning the firebox would appreciate it because it meant fewer hot coals to be raked into the ash bins.

We were rolling under the arches of the viaduct into Hamburg‘s main freight yard where a tangle of bending rails all came together. The grayish-brown smoke of the shunt engines mixed with the rising evening mists from the harbor canals of the Elbe river, covering the rails with a slippery dew. The engineer brought the long train to a stop, nice and easy, a few yards shy of the signal. Unless you have driven such a train, you may not realize that this is quite a feat because the brakes on a freight train act slowly. It was time to decouple the locomotive, shut the air valves and disconnect the break hoses.

The signal showed permission to enter the depot. The yard man had already picked up the transport papers and I had started to climb down the engine, when the engineer once more opened the regulator and drove the locomotive into the shop. We got off at the cleaning trench and turned the machine over to the maintenance staff.

Not likely I would ever mount a steam engine again. Increasingly, diesel and electric engines were pulling the trains out of Hamburg‘s main station, and overhead electric lines were on the march everywhere. It was the end of an era.

The turntable at Hamburg Rothenburgsort

Berlin

In Berlin Kreuzberg, we lived near the Hallesches Tor and the elevated train station Möhrenbrücke next to the Landwehr canal. The famous Anhalter Bahnhof was around the corner. At Hallesches Tor, commuters emerged from the subway tunnel to swarm up the steps to the ‚El‘, while streetcars rumbled over the canal bridge, one after another. Across the street from the department store Hertie was a bus station where double-decker buses frequently stopped. Hertie‘s gleaming shop windows reflected the ‚Litfaßsäulen‘ (advertising pillars) and green trees along the street. Crowds of people milled around the streetcar stop Belle-Alliance Strasse, where stunted shrubs surrounded the rails set in loose gravel. Yellow streetcars with woodblock numbers and pantographs siphoning power from the overhead lines left for the suburbs of Tempelhof or Lichterfelde-Ost every few minutes: the No. 1, No. 3, No. 96, No. 99 and No. 199. The trolleys usually comprised two cars stuffed with people, sometimes spilling onto the steps and holding fast to the handlebars. Only the No. 96 had modern cars with a lowered entrance in the middle and sliding doors. Inside, passengers vied for the black leather seats while the driver was ensconced in his cabin.

Anhalter Bahnhof

Very close to us was the great station Anhalter Bahnhof, from where the express trains to Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna and Rome started. We boys often went there. That was the big world for us.

The „Flying Hamburger“ the first Diesel Express Train, startet 1936 there. (Vmax 160 km/h, power 604 kW, weight 94 t) At that time, the steam engine was slowly coming to an end, and the diesel engineers came out on top But the steam people resisted again. They put the Henschel-Wegmann train on the rails. With a BR 61 streamlined locomotive for 160 km/h. The push-pull train ran between Berlin and Dresden from 1936 to 1939.

The Anhalter Station was Berlin‘s door to the world. There regional, national and international trains departed: local trains to Potsdam, express trains to Leipzig, Dresden, Frankfurt and Munich, with international connections to Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Marseilles, Milan, Rome, Venice, Athens, and beyond to the Orient and Africa. Inside the great booming hall, travelers with suitcases hurried to the platforms while porters pushed their luggage purposefully through the crowds. People lined up at the ticket gates to have their tickets punched. On the platforms, throngs were clustered around open train windows to take leave of friends and family while the big engines emitting hissing steam from many pipes were waiting for departure.

As a child, the railroads had a magical attraction for me, perhaps because they represented distant places to be explored. On board a train, I always felt comfortable: the monotonous rat-tat-tat of the wheels rolling on the iron rails was soothing. I loved the smell of smoke laced with sparks from the glowing coals coming in through cracked train windows, the telegraph poles wooshing past, their wires moving up and down in ever-repeating waves. I well remember the s-shaped, slatted oak benches, the luggage nets made from sisal rope, the caution signs at the windows ‚Nicht Hinauslehnen‘ (Do not Lean Out), and the brass door handles shaped like half moons. The railroad was the medium through which my yearning for faraway places was stilled.

Beneath the Anhalter was an S-Bahn station where every 10 minutes a special train left for Wannsee, a popular swimming beach near Potsdam. My family went there every Sunday, no matter the tightly packed trains. The U-Bahn (subway) also ran beneath the Anhalter marked by a big blue ‚U‘ sign. Once you had descended the sparkly, anthracite-colored stairs to the lower level, you would be enveloped by the tunnel‘s peculiar smell: musty from brake dust.

We often took the U-Bahn to go shopping in the Karstadt department store at Herrmanplatz. When a U-Bahn, nicknamed ‚tunnel owl‘ because of its oval front windows, rolled into the station, it would announce itself with a rush of that warm musty air.

Later, living in Hamburg, I would encounter that smell again when descending the narrow stairs to the U-Bahn station Mönkebergstrasse. This subway was very similar to Berlin‘s, but it had something Berlin‘s subway did not have: a stretch of track along the Hamburg harbor that was elevated and afforded an incomparable panorama: below on the wide Elbe river small launches bustled about, white banana ships and black freighters labored upstream, and on the other side huge ocean-going vessels were serviced in the wharfs. When I saw this scene for the first time, I was so taken that I rode back and forth several times between the stations Baumwall and Landungsbrücken. Mmonths later, I sat in the cockpit of a U-Bahn myself and drove the screeching train up the steep curve from the tunnel to the viaduct at Rödingsmark

People are shaped by their environment. Someone who grows up in Greetsiel on the North Sea coast as the son of a shrimp fisher, will always love flat, green lands: a wide, gray sky, salty ocean winds and the cries of seagulls. On the other hand, memories of home of an Alpine farmer‘s son will be roused by cows grazing on stony mountain meadows and the smell of myrrh in old chapels. I spent my childhood in the court yards of the tenement houses in Berlin Kreuzberg surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the capital city. That was in the 1930s and men in uniforms, marching music and noises of war were everywhere.

Jumping Off

I had a childhood nightmare that originated with the U-Bahn. Growing up in a big city, us kids were always in search of a new adventure. Sometimes we sneaked into the cellar of a neighboring tenement home, and felt our way through the labyrinthine tunnels, always wary of encountering the “Pupe” (caretaker), who was reportedly handing out painful cuffs to the ear for doing things you were not supposed to do.

U-Bahn to Pankow

Close at hand, the U-Bahn, was inviting to all kinds of adventures. Once you got through the ticket gates at any station, you could practically ride the entire subway system for 30 cents. Ticket controls on the trains were extremely rare.

So, as an 8 year old, I often rode the U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor, and went back to Gleisdreieck on the return train. My face glued to the window, I studied the city-scape rushing past: the busy streets, the yellow trucks gathered at Post

At the point where the U-Bahn crossed the tracks of the long-distance trains you could see the barges chugging up the canal. Above the canal stretched the rails by which trains left the Anhalter. On the other side, horse-drawn wagons were being loaded with sacks and casks on the cobbled streets of the Anhalter freight yard. And just past Gleisdreieck, the U-Bahn went right through a house. The yellow train approached the wall, then disappeared inside the house, and re-emerged on the other side. Very cool.

When an U-Bahn pulled into a station, young men were in the habit of jumping off the still moving train near the stairway. In those days, the doors closed automatically when the train left the platform, but were not locked then during the ride. I was impressed when young men got off with an elegant hop, hat in hand, although the train might be moving at considerable speed. One day, I screwed up my courage and tried it, too. When my train entered Möckernbrücke, I pulled open the door and jumped. Man, I don‘t know what happened. I hit the platform hard, tumbled over backwards a couple of times and came to rest whimpering and with my head spinning. Two elderly ladies hurried over and asked worriedly if I needed help. “Na, thanks,” I said lamely and went home defeated. Luckily, I had only suffered some nasty scrapes.

What had happened is that I jumped off in the opposite direction in which the train was traveling. I had ignored the caution signs posted at every door: “ Attention! Place left hand on left handle when exiting train!“. The warning was meant to ensure that passengers jumped off in the same direction in which the train was moving to avoid a fall. Lesson learned the hard way.

Like many a boy, I craved owning a Märklin model train set. But my parents did not have enough money for that. Instead, I received a cheap windup toy locomotive with two wagons and a small circle of track as a Christmas present.

It resembled the real thing about as much as a teddy bear resembles a Grizzly.

With a baleful eye, I took note of train set‘s many shortcomings. When Christmas was over, I set to work taking the toy train apart to figure out how it worked. I pried open the metal seams of the engine housing and took off the cabin. Thus butchered, the locomotive‘s big spiral spring that constituted the drive train was exposed. Aha, the spring needed winding with the key to power the little engine to go round the track. I also deconstructed the wagons, finding that simple metal pins served as the axles. Now I knew the secrets of the poor, little train. My parents were not amused and showed little understanding for my curiosity when they saw what I had done.

Curiosity: is the origin of knowledge, and indeed, the bedrock of scientific discovery. It also motivates people to travel and explore.

Escape by Streetcar

Berlin Potsdamer Platz

The ‚Electric‘, as streetcars were called in the vernacular, ran along the tree-lined Großbeerenstraße around the corner from our house. My kindergarten was located a few hundred yards down that street. Oft told was the story of my running away from that school one day. I had long begged my parents to take a ride on the streetcar, but was always rebuffed with: “it‘s not worth it for the couple of stops back to Kreuzberg.” So one day, when the kindergarten teacher was not paying attention, I sneaked out to fulfill my little heart‘s desire.

I waited excitedly at the stop under the chestnut trees for a streetcar to come up from Möckernbrücke. When it stopped, I grabbed the handlebars, pulled myself up to the front platform and planted myself next to the driver clad in a long coat and his official cap. I watched closely how he cranked the handle to the right to accelerate and to the left to slow down, while operating the foot pedal to sound the warning bell: “Ding! Ding!” A long pole was fastened on the outside of the car with which the driver could operate the switches. At each stop, the ticket examiner in the trailing cars rang the bell by pulling the overhead cable running front to back to give the ‚all clear‘ for starting up again.

It was cold. Streetcars were not enclosed in those days and you could see the cobbled streets underneath. I remained on my post until the final stop. I wanted to see what the end of the line looked like. Well, the line ended without much fanfare in a patch of grassy cobblestones surrounded by a few apartment blocks. The terminal comprised two switches, the station sign on a slightly leaning post, and a big board advertising laundry soap...

The driver turned the train around by driving the decoupled motorcar over a switch, exiting and manually pulling the pantograph to the other side with the help of a special sisal rope. Then he got back on and drove the car to the other end of the trailer to re-couple it. Having completed this maneuver, he made himself comfortable on one of the passenger benches and ate his lunch. He gave me part of his sandwich and asked where my parents were and if I shouldn‘t get back home. When it was time to head back, he took me with him and dropped me off where I had started. I calmly went back into the kindergarten. The teachers and my mother, who had been anxiously conferring about my inexplicable disappearance, were very surprised to see me and of course relieved. But I for one had decided that I wanted to become a streetcar driver.

Wartime

The children in my neighborhood often played on the wide sidewalks along the street.

Sometimes we pushed marbles into the gaps of the pavement. Sometimes we all linked up to play ‚train‘, the first in line pretending to be the locomotive by moving bent arms and balled fists back and forth and making puffing sounds.

Our house was by luck not not destroyed by the war.

We also enjoyed watching the passersby and identified them by their uniforms. Everyone was in uniform then: the engine drivers, the postal carriers, and above all the many soldiers. There were the ‚Feetwalkers‘, the infantry men in green attire, the marines in blue, and the tank soldiers in black with their black berets. Our favorites were the aviators in their elegant, gray uniforms with the badge of the flying eagle on the chest and gray cap worn at an angle. We pointed out officers, who wore a peaked cap, especially if they were decorated. “Mensch, kiek ma, da kommt eena mit‘n Ritterkreuz!” (Look, here comes one with a Knight‘s Cross)

Yes, an air force lieutenant in white shirt and tie and a neck decoration was most impressive. Our heads turned admiringly for such a one. We might have even stood to attention and greeted with ‚Heil Hitler‘, which, whittled down from constant use, came out more like ‚Heilitla‘. It was a common greeting in those days, like wishing someone a good day. I was eager to join the Hitler Youth, so that I could wear their black uniform with the broad leather belt that held a sheath knife. “You wait,” my dad shouted angrily, “you will have to wear a uniform soon enough.”

Uniform magic:Uniforms can have a democratizing effect because they put the poor day laborer on the same footing with the wealthy merchant. That is why the lower classes are often enamored with uniforms. It lends them status that they might otherwise achieve only by great effort.

Every tenement house in Berlin had an “LSK,” short for Luftschutzkeller (air raid shelter). Its presence was marked on the exterior walls in big letters. Inside bright arrows indicated the stairs on which to descend to reach it, so anyone on the street who might not be familiar with the house could find it, too. Fifty years later, when I visited my old home, the markings were still visible. By a miracle, our house had survived the many nights of bombing during the war undamaged, including the prewar plaster.

Gleisdreieck: Traffic that faszinated me, Over the Boat on the Cannel the Bridge of the State Railway, and on top crossed the Elevated U-Bahn

Sirens every night

Sometimes the sirens started to howl soon after we had gone to bed. Then we jumped back up, quickly put something on, grabbed the prepacked LSK suitcase and hurried downstairs. On the stairs there often was a crush of people as everyone wanted to get down into the basement at the same time. Once in the basement, the grownups sat on long benches with heads bent. Their faces grew worried when somewhere in the distance bombs could be heard falling and in between the rattling of anti-aircraft guns.

Occasionally, the lights would flicker and a little plaster rain down. We children were not afraid we failed to understand the seriousness of the situation. We thought it was exciting. When the ‚all clear‘sirene signal sounded, we ran out to check if a house nearby had been hit or was on fire. Early in the war, the British dropped mostly incendiary bombs and a lot of them. So we scrounged for the shell fragments and brought them to school the next day to show off.

Who had the largest fragment? Who wanted to trade? Three shell splinters for one bomb fragment?

Sundays at Wannsee

Many a Sunday, when the weather was nice, my family took the S-Bahn to Wannsee, Berlin‘s main swimming and recreational destination. The Wannsee train departed from an underground station at Potsdamer Platz. Although the trains departed every five minutes, they were often so crowd ed you could only find standing room. These special trains usually went without stopping directly to the terminus at Nikolassee. Upon leaving the station the stuffed, red and yellow trains emerged groaning from the tunnel at Papenstrasse, affording a view of the backsides of Berlin‘s gray tenement houses, Eventually, more greenery appeared between houses, then small villas and finally the blinking waters of the lake between tall pines.

From Nikolassee station a seemingly unending mass of people rolled towards the lake, but the sandy beaches were so wide that there was room for everyone. The happy cries of children were everywhere. Once a spot to spread one‘s blanket was found, the kids went to work building sandcastles, mothers unpacked cake and uncorked thermos bottles with coffee, mostly Kathreiners Malzkaffee (coffee made from an infusion of barley malt), while the white ships of the Havel fleet passed by on the water. I asked: “Papa, why don‘t we ever take the ship?” “Perhaps we will one day, son,” he answered.

The S-Bahn Express to Wannsee

My dad was a good swimmer. Sometimes he went out so far that you could no longer see his head bobbing up and down. He offered to take me with him on his back but I was too scared. Mom was fine with that. She couldn‘t swim and regarded all water sports with great skepticism. Like most women, she was content to sit on the beach in her beige underwear. “No, no, water has no planks to walk on) she used to say.

Although the Wannsee was great fun, I longed to see some of the other places the underground trains went to: Mueggelsee, Pankow-Vinetastrasse, and most of all Krumme Lanke, which had long stirred my imagination. My dad assured me that there was nothing much to see. But he finally did take me there, perhaps to demonstrate that he was right. What we did find at Krumme Lanke was a dark, muddy pond surrounded by a thicket, not exactly an inviting place to swim. The trip was not a total loss, however, as we got to ride the ‚Amanullah‘ train, so called in honor of King Amanullah of Afghanistan. These A-2 type electric trains were taken into service when the King visited Berlin in 1927. His Majesty is said to have even driven the train himself for a short distance.

Visiting Grandma in Thuringia

The old Fasttrains

The highlight of the year was our visit with grandma in Thuringia. She lived in a small farming village in the Werra valley. The Werra river stretches along the foothills of the Thüringer Wald and waters the fertile fields of the valley. To this day, the small villages and towns, many dating back to the Middle Ages, remain largely undeveloped. Around every other river bend, an old castle or castle ruin sits on an outcropping against the backdrop of the deep forests of the Thuringian hills.

Our trip started at Anhalter station, whence we took an express train to Erfurt.

We had tickets for a 3rd class cabin. These were equipped with long wooden benches and fully openable windows. Once our luggage was stowed in the overhead nets, I dragged my dad to the front of the train to check out the locomotive. I studied the huge wheels powered by mighty conrods and watched the fireman, oilcan in hand, give the wheel bearings a once over. I looked up to the engineer, who casually surveyed the goings-on from atop the engine. Who wouldn‘t want to have his job? My dad had to yank my arm firmly to pull me away and return to our seats.

In Erfurt we switched to a local train to Meiningen. The Prussian-made, 3-axle cars still had running boards on the side and could be accessed through any of its numerous doors. Past Arnstadt, the train began to climb ever more slowly up the steep ramps to the ridge of the Thüringer Wald. In Plaue, there was a brief stop to add a locomotive to help push us up through the long Bandleite Tunnel to the top. When the train emerged from the tunnel, enveloped by a big gray cloud of smoke, we had reached Obersdorf. From there it was all downhill and the train more of less rolled via Zella Mehlis down to Meiningen.

2-axle cars had open platforms at each end, which were enclosed by iron safety fencing and connected with the platform of the next car by a swaying footbridge. You could stand outside during the ride to let the wind blow in your face, or look down through the buffers at the track ballast racing underneath the train. My mom would not allow it, though. Too dangerous, she thought.

After eight hours on the train, we had reached our destination, Schwallungen.

We got off at the small station located on the north side of the town near the woods. Crowing roosters and barking dogs welcomed us. It smelled of cow dung and freshly cut wood.

One of my cartoons for our „Münchner Schiene“

“It's an IC engineer on the way to the toilet”

Schwallungen

Grandaddys Farm

My grandparent‘s farm in Schwallungen would become our new home after we fled the increasingly dangerous, war-torn Berlin. This pretty little 1325 year old village of approximately 1,500 inhabitants had one church, a school, 4 taverns, and a sawmill. The most important institution, however, was the dairy processing center, where you could get your butter, cheese and curd.

Life on the farm took time getting used to as we were all expected to chip in.

Farm work is hard, yet interesting labor. My grandfather had all kinds of animals. Colorful cackling chickens and jabbering white geese roamed the yard.

The gander was a scary creature who approached in a flying attack as soon as one opened the gate. I learned to subdue him by grabbing him by the back of the neck and tossing him away. After that he modified his attack to a threatening hiss but stopped short of biting. In the back of our yard, was a kitchen garden where red currants and gooseberries grew in summer and apples and plums dropped into the grass in fall.

The stable housed several pigs slobbering noisily at the troughs, as well as three gentle cows and two goats. The goats were tricky and might poke you with their horns if you were not careful. Swallows flew in and out of the open barn door to tend their nests. When grandma milked the cows, she used to settle on a 3-legged stool with a bucket between her feet. Then she expertly pulled at the cow‘s teats to extract steady streams of steaming milk. I was dispatched to get hay from the barn next door to feed the cows. They were already expecting me and started to chump on the hay, saliva dripping from their wet muzzles, before I had dumped it into their crib. I learned not get caught standing around idle. If you were spotted, someone was sure to call on you and give you a job: “Boy, come and sweep the yard or clean out the goats‘ stable.” The work never stopped.

The hay loft made a great playground. To get up there, you had to climb an old ladder, its wooden rungs polished from long use. From atop the loft you could jump down into a soft pile of hay, if you had the spunk. You could also dig tunnels and build nests, or play hide and seek among the stacked bales. The gable window looked out over the village‘s tiled rooftops.

In one corner of the yard was a wood shed, where fire wood and bundled brush was kept. Chickens would sometimes lay their eggs in it. If the cats found them they were gone because they liked eggs, too. Grandma‘s kitchen smelled wonderfully of bacon and baked cake. Every Friday, she baked bread as well as cake. For this purpose she tied a black scarf around her hair and put on wooden shoes. The kids brought in the brush and wood to heat the brick oven.

After 1 ½ hours, when the bricks were sufficiently hot, round loaves of bread were placed in the back of the oven with a long-handled, wooden spade.

Large cakes covered with seasonal fruit were placed in front. Us kids hung around waiting for the cakes to be done because they tasted best fresh from the oven.

Aunt Minnas cows

On a hot summer day, the women of our family, hair covered by colorful scarves, might set out for the fields to turn the hay.

They brought their wooden rakes and grandma carried a pack basket with provisions on her back. The women lined up in a row and flipped the dry fragrant grass in the air so it could dry from all sides. If a storm threatened, grandpa had me quickly harness the cows to the wagons to bring in the hay before it rained. It was all hands on deck. In the field, Aunt Minna stood on top of the wagon and accepted the bundles of hay handed to her on long forks where she stacked them skillfully into a tight load. In no time, the field was cleared. Then the two wagons were hitched together, two slim beams laid over the top of the load and tied down front and back to keep everything together.

On the way back, us youngsters sat on top of the soft, swaying load and tried to pick apples from the trees we passed. They were not ripe yet but stolen apples taste good anyway.

Farm life:I think a farm is a great place for kids to grow up. They learn to work towards a goal and treat the animals entrusted to them responsibly. This promotes a healthy self-confidence but also modesty as they are assigned a set of duties to support the farm. They understand early on that the world does not revolve around them but rather that they part of a greater whole.

On a Farm you should not stand and look around, soon someone would give an order, to do this or that. Indeed, everyone had their duties on our farm. The children did not have to work as hard as the grown-ups, but had a role to play nonetheless. My cousins had to take care of the goats - feeding them and cleaning their stall. I, the city slicker, had to weed the garden, take the big milk can to the dairy in the evening, and sweep the street every Saturday morning, painstakingly, stroke by stroke. During harvest time, everyone had to help in the fields. “ Many hands get the work done quickly“ my good grandma used to say.

The Rhythm of life

The trains gave the time

Our days were measured by the coming and going of the trains. When we worked in the fields cutting grass or setting potatoes and heard the 9:30 am train whistle in the distance, it signaled breakfast time. We would take a break and settle along a dead furrow and eat a hearty snack that Grandma had brought, usually consisting of thick slices of farmers‘ bread, knockwurst and malt coffee. From afar, we saw a locomotive release a small white cloud of steam from its whistle when approaching the barriers, but the sound took another few seconds to reach us from the other side of the Werra, an object lesson in the relatively low speed of sound. When the noon train came through, it was time for lunch. People returned home from the fields and from school to eat.

The 2:30 pm train came up the valley from Eisenach (site of the Wartburg where Martin Luther translated the Bible), momentarily setting a white flag of steam in front of the dark green forests before it dissolved. A locomotive of type 62 with the rare designation ‚St‘ for ‚Schnellzug-Tenderlokomotive‘ (Rapid train-tender locomotive) with eight platform wagons pulled up. It came to a screeching halt at Schwallungen station, releasing a flood of people returning from work or errand, who streamed onto the Bahnhofsstraße (Railroad Avenue). Then the red and white barriers opened again.

The Gate Keeper

The gate keeper‘s house at ‚Post 47‘ was located a short way up the road to Schwarzbach, where the Werra almost touched the railroad embankment. It was a place of some interest for us boys. When a train was coming, a bell started to chime “tsing, tsing” prompting the gate keeper to step out of his house. Dressed in his official uniform, he was a person that commanded respect. With an air of importance, he approached the crank and first lowered the barrier for the crossing at the rendering plant, 500 yards up the track. This caused the wires strung along the embankment to whir, followed by a slow dropping of the barriers.

Next, the gate keeper lowered the barriers for his crossing, accompanied by the chiming of another bell. He then stood attentively waiting until the train roared past and saluted the engineer, who did the same. After the train had passed, he opened the gates and went back into his house, where a pot of coffee might be bubbling on the stove. Alternatively, he turned his attention to his little garden where pansies and tulips were in bloom. A rake and broom were always at the ready.You might think that a gate keeper leads a tranquil life. He does not have to work very hard, has a secure position and gets the benefit of free train travel everywhere in the country (one of the perks of working for the German railroad). But I think the gate keeper has one of worst paid positions at the railroad because he or she had tremendous responsibilities. Imagine if he fell asleep in the little house and the barriers remained open while a car was in the crossing. A resulting accident would be his fault alone. There was no technical fail-safe, such as there is for an engineer, that stops the train automatically if he looses consciousness. The gate keeper only gets one notification via the train signaling system when a train leaves the previous station. If he does not react, the crossing‘s barriers remain wide open

Gatekeepers house

The Village School

When I started attending the village school, kids initially made fun of the stranger from the big city and the girls with their long braids called me names.

Every morning I strapped a leather satchel on my back and headed out to school. A sponge for wiping the slate on which we wrote was dangling from its side. On the way, I had to cross the bridge over the rushing Werra, where barbels darted in the long river grass, then climb the stairs to the old church on the hill to reach the school located next to it. I was often late because I had lingered over my breakfast too long: buttered bread with marmalade. Yum.

Somehow, a pattern was set at that time. Being punctual was a lifelong challenge.

In school, we did our work on a slate. One side was for writing, the other for arithmetic. After each exercise, the slate was wiped with a sponge and readied for new use. A fragile slate pencil served as writing implement. The pencils were kept in a longish wooden box with a sliding lid and rattled noisily in the pack. The pencil box was placed at the top of our angled wooden desks, which bore the carvings and inscriptions of generations of students. The desks had flip-up seats, and when the class rose to greet the teacher, they snapped up in a brief, clattering concert. Upper class students switched to writing in copybooks with an ink pen. For that purpose the desks had a built-in inkwell into which the pens were dipped. This entailed occasional splatters on the white pages that were then torn out for neatness. Upperclassmen no longer used a satchel but carried their supplies in a leather briefcase under their arms. This was a matter of some pride because it identified you as member of a more respected group of people.

During the war, the school day began with a roll call to salute the colors. Once all grades were assembled in the school yard, the flag was raised and a happy propaganda song struck up. We enjoyed singing such gems as: “Und die Morgenfrühe das ist unsere Zeit, wenn die Winde um die Berge singen...” (The early morning is our time when the winds whistle around the mountains). Our singing echoed over the village. Our senior teacher liked this song especially as it reminded everyone that the country was at war.

The village school was quite different from the one I had attended in Berlin. There I had a teacher who was kind and made learning fun. I had been a good student. In Schwallungen, on the other hand, the school day usually began with chastisements. Stern old Fräulein E. would bark at her students: “all who have not completed their school work, step forward.” The sinners were made to stand in front of the class and stretch their hands out. Fräulein E.‘s cane came whistling down on their fingers, which was quite painful. Other teachers also used corporal punishment. But usually they told the offending students to bend down and applied the cane to their rear. That was not nearly as bad.

Corporal punishment:I don‘t think the caning we received in school helped our performance much. After a few days, many of us would forget to do tour homework again while playing outdoors or doing our chores. But it may have had the salutary effect of toughening us up for setbacks later in life and made us more resilient than children who were shielded from everything unpleasant.

After school, us kids often struck out into the woods on discovery. For me these outings couldn‘t be far enough. I wanted to go to the end of the valley where the creek had its origin and a rivulet sprang from the mossy ground. You could walk for hours in the Thuringian forests before you came to an opening from where you could see the roofs of a small neighboring village. In summer, the women and children of our family would head into these woods with baskets and cans to pick the plentiful blueberries. Grandma always carried the pack basket with the provisions for a picnic.

Later, I attended a middle school in Meiningen, a larger city and local administrative center, located approximately 10 miles north of Schwallungen.

The best thing about it was that I could take the train there by myself. On the way home, I and several friends usually took a slow train back. In summer we liked to sit outside on the open platforms, with fencing flipped up, and our feet resting on the wooden running board. We enjoyed the cool breeze while watching the silvery Werra river wind its way through the valley. The conductor wouldn‘t have it though and always chased us up.

Hitler Youth Service

Thursdays marching an singing

Upon turning 10 years old, I finally got to join the Hitler Youth (H.J.) and wear its spiffy ‚Jungvolk‘ uniform: black shorts with wide belt and shiny buckle, brown shirt and black cap with a diamond-shaped ‚Hakenkreuz‘

(Swastika) emblem. Our troop met for training every Tuesday on the village sports field. There, us ‚Pimpfe‘, in the official language, assembled to play soldier: “Attention! Right Face! Left Face!” our troop leader bellowed. He looked sharp in his black winter uniform with the green shoulder cord. He put us through our paces nearly as hard as new recruits in the army: “Down! Up!

March!” he ordered and had us run around the track in the cold November rain. If we did not keep equal step afterwards we received a good dressing down.

Despite my enthusiasm for the H.J., I was a terrible marcher. Instead of swinging my arms naturally in opposition to the forward stepping leg, I swung them in unison, thus breaking the symmetry of the marching line. The troop leader yelled: “Wittig, step up! Show us how to march. Hop, hop!” Then commenting sarcastically on my performance: “Check out that Pimpf Wittig.”

All laughed and I felt keen sense of shame.

As part of the drills, we often marched through the village and loudly sang: “Vorwärts, Vorwärts schmettern die hellen Fanfaren. Deutschand du wirst leuchtend stehn, werden wir auch untergehn... wir marschieren für Führer durch Nacht und Not... ja, die Fahne ist mehr als der Tod.” (Forward, forward the trumpet calls. Germany, you will remain even if we die. We march for the Führer by day and night. The flag is greater than death.)

Sometimes our troop would go camping far from home. We sang songs around the camp fire and played games such as capture the flag. Occasionally, a boy might sustain a nasty beating from the opposing team. I didn‘t care for that but remained committed to the troop and, by extension, the fatherland. As Hitler said, German youth should become ‚hard as steel and tough as leather‘.

Pied pipers:The Nazis were pied pipers, who knew how to rally the youth for nation, flag and battle with high-minded slogans and organized activities. They also proved that we could be made to believe in something greater than the self, the community, the fatherland, and to act in support of it. Of course, the youngsters, and even adults, did not always understand that this was preparation for fighting in the war. Soon, the communists would deploy the same methods in seeking to win us for their cause.

You may be interested to hear my opinion about Adolf Hitler. Well, I don‘t believe he was the devil incarnate or a madman, although he did suffer from an increasingly unhealthy megalomania. Nonetheless, he was a charismatic leader who through his rhetorical skills could move crowds to follow him. Unfortunately, his charisma was not paired with sound character.

Hitler was not unique in this respect. Leaders such as the Persian Xerxes, the Mongolian Genghis Khan, and the French Napoleon Bonaparte were similar types, who by force of personality unified their people, conquered huge swaths of territory, and caused untold deaths and suffering. The difference was that Hitler had weapons at his disposal that were much more deadly and could easily kill many more people. I would not be surprised, if sometime in the future Hitler was placed on the same level with these men. History does not carefully differentiate between good and bad great aders.

Low Flyers

The british Spitfire

In the final months of World War II, trains had two flak cars attached in the back. On those were mounted a couple of bogies with four-barreled anti aircraft guns to defend against potential low-flying enemy aircraft. The Brits usually came up the Werra valley in their double bodied Lightning fighter aircraft, hunting for anything that moved on the ground. They would attack not only cars and trains but even individual farmers in the field. But if the trains had flak cars, they tended to leave them alone.

Once we did have to make a quick exit, though: “Fighter attack, run for the ditches!” someone yelled. We had hardly fled the train, when 3 of these aircraft streaked low over the fields and loosed several rounds of machine gun fire on it. Luckily, no one was hurt. We boys thought this was exciting, but soon after our rides to school in Meiningen stopped. It was too dangerous .

Prophet of Air Attacks

In middle school, air attacks were a thing we looked forward to because it interrupted our Mathematics lesson. I earned a reputation as someone who could predict whether an attack was going to happen on any given day. This was a matter of some importance as it meant that one either had to quickly finish one‘s homework or forget about it. If someone asked me whether an attack was imminent, I would raise my pointer finger into the air, sniff it, and then say ‚yeah‘ or ‚nay‘. Strangely, I was almost always right. Once I responded “I don‘t know.” But I don‘t recall ever having ever made a wrong prediction.

If an air-attack did occur, several lessons might be canceled. So, when the sirens started to howl, our class yelled ‚hooray‘ and we ran out to the park to see how large the bomber squadron might be. Like so many silvery dots, the enemy aircraft buzzed across the sky, leaving behind mighty vapor trails. “Man, I don‘t want to be where they are unloading,” someone said. But we felt pretty safe in our little, strategically unimportant town and mostly we were passed over.

One day, I and a group of schoolmates had climbed up the Herrenberg hill to the Dietzhäuschen, where you had a wonderful view of the city of Meiningen.

Another bomber squadron was passing overhead, but suddenly two aircraft - I believe British Bristol-Blenheim bombers - turned around. Then the bombs whistled, followed shortly thereafter by several explosions near the train station. Three or four bombs had been dropped. One had hit the train station, another city hall and the rest had landed in the park ‚Englischer Garten‘. When the ‚all clear‘ sounded, we raced down to check out the damage. We were impressed by the hole in the roof of the train station and the sizable craters in the park. Well, this for once was a wartime event to remember. ‚Just wait, you Brits, when the Führer‘s new miracle bomb is ready for use, you will rue the day‘, we thought.

The Emergency Brake

‚Misuse of the emergency break carries a 150 Mark fine‘ read the small ceramic sign attached to an ornate box from which a sealed emergency break handle protruded. This mysterious contraption had long stirred my boyhood fantasies. I imagined that pulling the break would produce a big jolt. The wheels would screech, the suitcases would fall out of the luggage nets, and people that were standing would topple. That‘s why you were only supposed to pull the break if there was a serious emergency, such as a fire or crime occurring on the train. The train not stopping at a station where you needed to get off presumably would not be in that category. After all, it would mean that you had taken the wrong train by mistake. But that is what happened to me one day.

That evening, the 10:30 pm train was waiting as usual on track 1 of Meiningen station. The locomotive was ready to leave and the conductor was watching the big station clock for the moment when he would blow the whistle to signal departure. It was a cold winter night, so I quickly jumped inside one of its warm cars. I was a little surprised when the train left right away. I thought there were perhaps 5 minutes left before departure. But so what, we were moving in the right direction. Or were we? The train went right past Walldorf station, where it normally stopped. So I asked one of the well dressed passengers whether this was not unusual. “No,” they informed me, “this is the Theater Train to Schmalkalden. It doesn‘t stop anywhere.” My heart sank.

There would be no return train from Schmalkalden tonight. I would be stuck there and spend the night in ice and snow on a bench at the station. I decided this was the kind of situation that called for the use of the emergency break, albeit not one recognized as such by railroad personnel. I calculated where I would need to pull the handle for the train to come to a stop near Schwallungen station and waited trembling for the right moment to act.

When I pulled the brake handle, the effect was somewhat underwhelming. The train came to a stop in a measured way, but quite a distance from our little station at the edge of the forest. No matter. I jumped into the knee-deep snow and ran into woods, which I knew like the back of my hand. By the time the train‘s personnel had figured out why the train had stopped, I was already among the dark pines. For a while I could hear them call and curse. It took a while to get the train moving again even though I had told the passengers in my compartment that I was going to pull the break and to inform the conductor. Eventually, the engine whistled and the Theater Train resumed its trip. No one in Schwallungen had seen me that night and no one on the train knew me, yet somehow people in our village soon began to whisper that the young Wittig had committed the deed. Naturally, I denied everything.

Later, when I was driving suburban S-Bahn trains in Munich, something similar happened to me, but I was in the opposite role. While stopped in München-Pasing, I was about to start up an already delayed S-Bahn, when I heard a loud hissing noise. All air in the break line was suddenly gone. Damn. This could only be the emergency break. On the platform a group of school kids was trolling around. Angrily I seized the microphone and made an announcement: “ Attention please. The train will unfortunately be delayed for a while because some asshole has pulled the emergency break.Yes, I really said that because someone who does such a thing is an idiot, including my youthful self.

In this case, however, I had been in error. A young lady appeared at my driver‘s cabin and said it was she who had activated the break because she had not been able to get out. Someone had apparently locked all the doors. I apologized profusely, but she was understanding. Following this conversation, I had considerable difficulty resealing the open brake line because the o-ring of the Ackermann valve was missing. I had to leave the affected part of the train at the station and drove off with the remainder, after asking the passengers to switch cars.

The Americans are Coming

All of a sudden in spring of 1945, the war was over.

A wave of relief went through the land. It was warm and sunny. Although the German armed forces had detonated Schwallungen‘s recently renovated bridge over the Werra to block the approach of U.S. troops, nothing terrible happened to our village, nor to myself. For that I thank my mother, who stopped me, after a rather forceful confrontation, from following the Führer‘s last summons to sign up with the armed forces to save the fatherland. I was ready to go, and already pictured myself in a foxhole at the entrance of our village launching grenades at American tanks.

Because of mothers such as mine, the American troops rolled into the village without meeting any resistance. The ruined bridge did not delay them. They drove their tanks right through the shallow river next to the bridge. The tanks were followed by columns of jeeps steered by soldiers who casually dangled one leg out the door and smoked Lucky Strikes. Their radios played Jazz music.

Large military trucks were parked in front of our house where soldiers cooked their eggs and pancakes. I was watching them curiously from behind a window.

One of the soldiers waved to me amicably and invited me to share his food. My mom said: “For God‘s sake, no.” She was not about to let me out by myself to fraternize with these strangers.

A little later, me and my cousin Helmut sneaked out anyway and went to the nearby village square. And what did we see? Our Hitler Youth troop leader was chatting away with the Americans - in English no less, which he spoke well enough - and laughed genially. That was like having a bucket of cold water poured over my head. The man acted as if nothing could be more natural and he had not exhorted us just a few days earlier to fight for the fatherland until the end. A few months later, the same man transformed himself into a dyed-in-the-wool communist when the Russians took over from the Americans. He eventually held a high position in East Germany‘s communist bureaucracy and then drew a good pension from capitalist West Germany after reunification.

Yes sir.

Justice:We should write off the notion that justice will be served on this earth. The most shameless turncoats and useless loafers often get to live high on the hog, while those that go to work everyday and always pay their bills are left empty-handed. A few of our former Nazi and communist party bosses were put on trial. But most got away and spent the rest of their lives living in fine villas, getting high pensions and driving expensive cars.

After the War

Coming home

Calm had returned to the land and spring was in the air. Teenage girls in light dresses walked arm in arm down the empty village streets in groups of five or six singing “Marianka, komm laß Dich küssän. Du mußt wissän, daß ich Dich von Herzen liebä.” (Marianka let me kiss you. You have to know that I love you with all my heart) But there were few men around to fulfill their desires. Only a jeep with American soldiers would occasionally hum by.

Meanwhile, us boys were busy fishing cans out of the Werra. We had noticed that American soldiers would dump food rations into the river because they had too much. So, we tied a magnet to a string and pulled the little round cans out of the water. They were filled with such delicacies as deviled ham, sausage, or chocolate.