News

17.07.2025: News from the Museum

Today we start our current newsletter with the area outside our museum. Below we show some pictures of the design of the area around our museum track, which leads from our signal box Wm to the railway station. It is the last remaining track of the former Magdeburg railway station side.
As part of the redesign of the green spaces and in preparation for the State Garden Show, which will be organised in Wittenberge in the summer of 2027, the platform next to this track has been redesigned. In future, it will be integrated into the green space that is being created along the street "Am Bahnhof". We are very pleased about this, as it will also make our guests' journey from the station more pleasant when they arrive by train from early summer 2026.




We are also looking forward to the actual State Garden Show, which will be held in the large green spaces in the centre of Wittenberge. We recommend taking a look at the horticultural show website https://www.laga-wittenberge.de/, which already gives a promising impression of this event. Incidentally, a visit to the show and our museum can be wonderfully combined.
While we were talking about travelling to Wittenberge by train: You may already be aware that Deutsche Bahn will be completely renovating the Hamburg-Berlin line in the coming months. Not only will the tracks on this extremely important line be renewed, but Wittenberge station will also be remodelled. A new platform will be built to increase the capacity of the station for passenger transport.
There will also be additional tracks for freight transport. The tracks of the sidings to the harbour have already been electrified. As part of the future construction work, a new track connection will also be created between the sidings and the main railway towards Berlin.
The connection of the museum and its neighbours to the tracks of Wittenberge station will also be rebuilt, so that we will be separated from the Deutsche Bahn track network in the short term.
And now for the downer: during the work between August 2025 and spring 2026, there will be no passenger train services in Wittenberge according to current plans, not even from Stendal or Perleberg. If you would like to reach us by public transport during this time, travelling will unfortunately be more difficult. However, Deutsche Bahn will be organising replacement bus services so that Wittenberge will generally be accessible without a car during the construction work. You can find more information about the construction work and replacement services on the Deutsche Bahn website: https://hamburg-berlin.deutschebahn.com/home.html.
Now let's move on to the activities in the museum and its vehicles. During the last event, some visitors asked where our diesel locomotive 118 748 was. The answer is that it is still in a contractor's workshop where a general inspection is being carried out. The relevant work is almost complete, the locomotive is back on its own wheels and the engines are running. Remaining work is currently being carried out, such as the installation of a modern radio system. This is a prerequisite for using the locomotive on public tracks.



Some guests also asked about the locomotive boiler, which has recently been stored on a trolley in the museum grounds. Today we want to reveal the secret. It is a boiler like the ones used on our class 50 steam locomotives. The boilers currently fitted to the locomotives will reach their operational limits in the foreseeable future or will require extensive work to keep them running. In the event that one of the existing boilers requires too much investment, we were able to acquire this replacement boiler in good condition. True to the motto "Better to have than to need", it will now be preserved and stored in the museum grounds before a decision is made on its future use.
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