Railyard H.

This was another location on a rather patchy tour together with Nordgriller Urban Exploration which had its ups and downs as well in the weather as in the locations.
This one had looked really promising on Google Earth - a pretty large area, lots of buildings and even photos of some old locomotives could be found.
When we go there, the weather started clearing up, and the place looked just as promising as during the research......until we saw the signs that most of the place was being used by a local railway company for storage and repairs.
But still, there were a bunch of buildings left, so we didn't let us get discouraged by this minor let-down. So we found a way over the fence and found...a lot of locked doors and bolted windows.
There was hardly anything to explore; there was no access whatsoever.

When we were lamost on the way back to the car, we found two pretty unspectacular buildings open, so we at least didn't leave the palce empty-handed.

To find some historical information about the railyard, head over to my website!

Engine House D.

That grey day at the beginning of march took my friend Nordgriller Urban Exploration and myself not only to the train control station at the former border, but also led us to a place where we hoped to gain access to a nice little neo-gothic mansion.
Unfortunately, not only weren't the weather gods in our favor, but neither were the neighbors. The only possible access route to the place seemed to be either right from the front or through a small path that led right along the porch of a neighbor's house, and this neighbor was outside watching the entire time. So we skipped this endeavor and were on our way back when we discovered a little place n the middle of the village.

The interesting thing about the estate that this building is on (and that later became the village is) that it was the first in the region at the time, which had its own electricity, irrigation and drainage for the entire village.
On one side of the building you can see big insulators, therefore it can be assumed that this was the power station and housed a steam engine and / or generator.
Because of the rain there is no outdoor photos.
The interiors are very sparse, since the power station has apparently been used by the villagers for the disposal of garbage for several years.
Judging by the large bottles, maybe a couple of villagers even disitlled their "moonshine" in there...

Border Train Station K.

If you're going urban exploring in Germany, sooner or later you are bound to find objects that are remnants either of the cold war or the German separation in one way or the other.
When the Berlin Wall finally fell in 1989, I was just 14 years old, so I hand't really had the chance to know anything about the time of the cold war.
So when I took up the hobby of urban exploring, I became much more arware of this period in German history, and it never seizes to amaze me how many relicts of that time are still all around us, slowly decaying into oblivion...

This place is an abandoned control station for freight trains going from East Germany to West Germany.
It lies about 15 kilometers from the nearest inner-German border checkpoint, at which only the passenger trains were checked during the time of the German separation.
To also check the freight trains there seemed too much of a security risc for the authorities at the time, so they searched for an existing alternative train station and expanded this small station that had originally been built in 1906.

Well outside the village, new office buildings emerged, new terminal buildings, facilites for the border veterinarian, labs for the Deutrans (an East-German-Russian trucking company, working areas for the railway and of course customs offices.
Every freight train had to stop here and was searched more than thoroughly for "fugitives of the republic".

From what is known, the controls were conducted according to specific pattern.
After the train rolled into the station, the locomotive was uncoupled. Then came the so-called "Customs Demonstrators", railroaders that removed the seals from the freight cars.
The customs official then sent in the dog into the cart to search for blind passengers.
Coal wagons were searched by climbing on top of the load and thrusting long metal rods into the load, beacuse it was aaumed that fugitives might be hiding under the coal.

According to some accounts, there were trip wires next to the tracks to prevent people from jumping the driving trains, and a bridge across the tracks which enabled soldiers to check the trains from above.
At night, the trains could be floodlighted with high performance lights.

To check out the full gallery, please visit my website!