Published in the Koltåget no 3/1987, a member journal for the Malmö chapter of the Swedish Tramway Society. A free translation to English.

by Eber Ohlsson


The ordinary railway carriage from Deutsche Reichsbahn [the railway company in DDR] that the Malmö chapter used at the journey home from Berlin, was couple together with a DDR government railway carriage.

The attempt to an international interchange was brought to nothing, because the door to the carriage was found locked. Even photographic reproduction of the carriage was prevented by the special police that was ordered out.

The government carriage was the first carriage at the departure from Berlin, but was the last carriage when the train according to the programme turned at the railway station in Stralsund.

This becomes a complication to the reception committee in Bergen on Rügen, when the train arrived there.

The train was very long, one carriage more than the normal train, so the last carriage got outside the platform. The party in the government carriage, that was showing to be sullen Russian dignitaries with an irritated DDR minister as host, had to step down from the carriage.

This happen when the extremely servile reception committee, at the beginning wrongly was standing at the first carriage, hastens to meet them. They become at last conscious that the foremost shall be the last (at least in Bergen).

The railway station in Bergen on Rügen, two years before the remarkable journey.