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Nordhausen

Our next stop was the small town of Nordhausen with 2+1 tram lines...

... with the "plus 1" being route 10, which incorporates sections of the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen, a narrow-gauge railway network with diesel and steam traction. For this line, the city bough so-called "DuoCombino" cars that have a diesel aggregate producing current on the railway lines, which lack an overhead wire. Here you can see one of the DuoCombinos, although running as an "ordinary" tram on an "ordinary" tramline.

A normal Combino on the same line.

The small tram network features ascents up to 8-9%, so it's no wonder that they have bought a few Esslingen GT4 cars from Stuttgart, which were designed for such circumstances.

"Sommer car" number 100 was a guest from Gmunden, Austria. Last year Nordhausen leased a Combino to Gmunden, and in return, Gmunden leased this ex-Pöstlingbergbahn (Linz, Austria) tramcar to them.

The double-track tram station in front of the railway station is an interesting one, because it's connected to the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen network. Until a few months ago diesel railcars of the narrow-gauge railway came here into the city, nowadays the "wireless" section is oeprated with the DuoCombinos. And here, we can already see one, coming towards as - note the lowered current collector, and the lack of an overhead wire!

We have had to try this tram running without a pantograph! The line to Ilfeld, Neanderklinik is very nice, as it runs through hills, fields, and small villages. One strange thing for me was that the BMW diesel engine powering the generator was constantly spinning up and down instead of being driven at a constant rev. I'm sure this has its reasons, and it wasn't really annoying, since it wasn't really noisy. BTW, this stop was not the end of the railway line, but the tram service terminated here.
 

Magdeburg

Originally we would've only changed trains here, but somehow we managed to "strand" in Magdeburg for a few hours.

Magdeburg still had some marks of the communist era, although we haven't seen any Tatra trams, only these strange-looking partly-low-floor cars from ABB-DWA-Bautzen.

The tram network features some rather winding parts...

Interesting vehicles, but judging by its looks, I think I know why it didn't became a best-seller - IIRC only Darmstadt has similar trams.
 

Berlin

We arrived to Berlin late in the evening. Originally we wanted to continue our way right to Potsdam in the morning, but I talked the other guys into taking a peek at some trams around Alexanderplatz.

Low-floor ADtranz GT6N car - similar to the R2.2 of Munich and the GT6M of Ausburg.

A double-set of modernised Tatra KT4D trams.

GT6N's can also run coupled. And there's also a bidirectional version of the type, but we didn't see those this time.
 

Woltersdorf

After taking a few photos under unfavorable lighting conditions in Berlin, we took the S-Bahn to Rahnsdorf, because...

... that's where the one-track shuttle line to Woltersdorf starts. This service is operated with nicely renewed 2-axle trams of the Gotha T57 type.

There are also trailer cars there for the rush hours.

The first section of the line runs through a forest...

... until it reaches the streets of Woltersdorf. This is the passing loop at Thaelmannplatz, near the depot..

The terminus at Woltersdorf Schleuse.

We loved this romantic street-running service with these nice old cars!

In fact, we loved it so much, that we spent most of the day here, and did not have time to see the neighbouring shuttle tram service to Schöneiche. Instead we cought a train to Potsdam, because we were running out of our timeplan!

Next page: Potsdam, Dortmund, Krefeld