[PRCo] Fwd: a new interurban

[Fred Schneider]

This will be another picture that encarta will strip.   I hope it  
will not enlarge it all out of proportion like it did the last one.
Dan tells us that Chemnitz is the former Karl Marx Stadt.   I'm going  
to add a post script to that and tell you that the German's simply  
restored the original name that the communists took away.   When I  
first went there it was named after Karl Marx.   Shiny brand new road  
signs were up the next time I went there proclaiming that it was now  
again Chemnitz.

The first time I visited, a month before currency unification and not  
too long before complete reunification of both nations, I still  
needed to have a complete approved itinerary in order to visit the  
DDR.    You could only do it through selected travel agencies that  
had approval from the Communist regime.   But once we got in you  
could tell the end was rapidly approaching.

I recall buying a wurst from a street vendor for lunch.   I was all  
out of Kleingeld (small change) from the eastern currency so I handed  
the vendor western Detuschmarks.   He looked skeptically and handed  
them back.   I smiled and explained in German that they were West  
Marks.   Oh, my God did that change his attitude.   He had never seen  
any but he knew that a month later he would receive one of them for  
every two east Marks in his bank account.  He quickly reach for them  
again.   He apologized for not having western change.   I told him it  
didn't matter.  If nothing else, souvenirs would be nice.   As I  
walked away I glanced over my shoulder and watched him take them back  
out of the boss's take and put them in his pocket and replace them  
with East Marks from his pocket.   Dumb he was not.

The hotel we had in Chemnitz was a monumental communist era round  
structure in the middle of town, a block from the square where all  
the trolleys arrived and departed.   The system had been a mix of  
meter and standard (1435mm) gauge and the meter gauge system with its  
ancient cars had been abandoned but there were some rails still in  
the streets.   Tatra PCCs were being used on the standard gauge lines.

When I first went there, any one who had an automobile drove a  
Trabant (Trabi for short) or a Wartburg.   The party faithful, who  
could get permission to export hard currency, might be seen driving a  
Volvo.   But most people ... and it might have only been one in  
ten ... drove those plastic bodied Trabis with two cycle engines.    
The air was absolutely polluted.   They were not totally reliable.    
When our rental Ford broke down in a suburb of East Berlin a local  
native looked at me and quipped, "Es ist kaput und es ist nicht nur  
ein Trabi?"  He was saying, "It's broken down and it isn't even a  
Trabi?"   I think both the Trabant and Wolfburg plants closed within  
three or four months after the unification.   A flood of quality used  
cars came into the East.   And the East German manufacturers were  
calling up their customers who had ordered Trabants saying, "You car  
is ready," only to be told, "Forget it."   A year after unification I  
made an inventory of cars in a parking lot in Chemnitz and counted  
something like ten different marks of cars out of 30 or 40 cars and I  
think only two or three autos were indigenous to to the DDR.   If I  
had a month to look through this pit I could probably find that  
notebook.

What you are seeing in this picture was not there when I was there  
and I guess it is something worth going back to see.





Begin forwarded message:

>
> In Chemnitz, Germany (formerly Karl Marx Stadt)
> CityBahn Chemnitz uses diesel rail cars from Karsdofer
> Eisenbahn to operate over 3 ex diesel Deutsche Bahn
> lines.  In December, 2002 the line from Chemnitz to
> Stollber was electrified and the interurban trams
> entered the city on the tracks of the strassenbahn
> system.
>
> Dan
>
> Daniel Joseph
> 1510 Greenwood St.
> Evanston. IL 60201-4055
> 847-869-7582

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