Narrow-gauge railways in Saxony

At first, it was primarily created to connect the small towns and villages in Saxony – which had formed a viable industry in the 19th century – to already established standard-gauge railways.

However, to connect the small towns and villages in the deep and narrow Ore Mountain valleys with their diverse industry, standard-gauge tracks were only feasible with an enormous amount of technical and financial investment.

Many additional narrow-gauge railways, such as the Thumer Netz, were built in short order, almost all of them using a standardized 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) track gauge.

However, it was soon evident that piggy-backing standard-gauge freight cars onto the narrow-gauge tracks did not meet the initial goals of operating the narrow-gauge railways on a very small budget: The railways needed large investments to reinforce the tracks, increase the structure gauge to accommodate a larger loading gauge and to acquire stronger steam locomotives.

In addition, the Reichspost had started a bus service, which for marginally higher cost was faster and hence was drawing passengers away from the railway.

The Deutsche Reichsbahn tried to counter that trend with more modern passenger cars, higher-powered locomotives and more trains.

Vacuum brakes and Scharfenberg couplers were introduced across the board, and superheated locomotives like the Saxon VI K were brought into service.

The Kipsdorf and Oberwiesenthal stations were rebuilt and extended; the Weißeritztalbahn and the Fichtelberg Railway could now accommodate over-length trains with up to 56 axles.

After the unconditional surrender of Germany on 8 May 1945, operations of the Saxon narrow-gauge railways started back up in relative short time.

Problems were primarily caused by the relatively desolate condition of the rolling stock, which was compounded by the largely destroyed Ausbesserungswerk in Chemnitz no longer being in a position to repair narrow-gauge locomotives.

This situation grew worse as part of the more modern and powerful rolling stock had to be surrendered to the Soviet Union as war reparations.

In addition, traffic increased enormously[clarification needed] for some railways in the Ore Mountains when the SDAG Wismut started mining uranium and thousands of miners required transportation on shift change.

It would not last long, as history repeated itself when newly created bus services again drew passengers from the railway.

In addition, a part of the rolling stock, especially the Saxon IV K locomotives, were then at the end of their service life.

This study found that only if a complete overhaul of the tracks and rolling stock were to take place would it make sense to keep the narrow-gauge railways operational.

By 1970, protests started against the shutdown of the Bimmelbahn railways, with the result that no or only very short official notice was given when a rail section was shut down and there were no more celebrations.

The remaining operations at the Thumer Netz ceased at the end of 1975, and passenger service was also terminated between Oschatz and Mügeln.

A complete change in direction came in 1981, when the Soviet Union cut their oil exports to East Germany.

With oil (and hence diesel) in high demand, the direction was changed to move all freight and passenger transports back to rail service.

German reunification in 1990 placed the narrow-gauge railways in Saxony, which were at that point still operated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn, into a new situation.

Without government regulations holding them back, a group of enthusiasts formed in 1990 with the goal of rebuilding the upper part of the Pressnitz Valley Railway as fast as possible.