Time Travel Under Steam

The new film by Dresden director Sebastian Linda takes viewers on a cinematic journey through time along Saxony’s narrow-gauge railways. Thanks to the commitment of railway societies and operating companies, trains from every era of this heritage’s more than 140-year history can still be experienced today. In the film, the journey begins around 1900 with the historic I K train on the Preßnitztalbahn and with the Radebeul heritage train. The lead character, a four-year-old boy around 1900, reappears in the second era, around 1930, as a railwayman working with the historic Reichsbahn train on the Zittauer Schmalspurbahn. Promoted to engine driver in the 1960s, he travels on the period-style trains preserved on the Döllnitzbahn and the Lößnitzgrundbahn. Even at a time when traffic everywhere was moving to the roads, several narrow-gauge railways survived in Saxony. Arriving in the present day, the lead character, now an old man, passes on his enthusiasm for the steam trains, which can still be experienced every day, to the next generations.

This measure is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget adopted by the members of the Saxon State Parliament.