Germany's Most Beautiful Railways


Die Schönsten Bahnstrecken Deutschlands was a regular night-time feature on Germany's ARD television channel which ran from 3 September 1995 to 28 October 2013.
The programme was a real-time, mostly uninterrupted, recording of railway journeys as viewed from the driver's cab. There was no commentary or music, but the sounds of the recording were retained for broadcast. Small interruptions did occur if the train was traversing a tunnel or sat at a station, usually cutting away to view some of the cab's controls. The camera did not pan to take in scenery, being fixed in the forward position for the duration of the journey.
External shots of the train and the station building, and occasionally the wider town, were included at the route termini. A simple map of the route was displayed on screen at the beginning of the programme, and whilst the train was stationary in a station, the name of that station was also displayed. No supplementary information was provided.
The programme was used to fill the time between other programmes and as such was often cut short without explanation, so the following programme could start as scheduled.
Broadly considered a successful programme, there were two spin-offs: Die Schönsten Bahnstrecken Europas and Die Schönsten Bahnstrecken der Welt. These followed the same format and went to picturesque routes such as Glasgow to Mallaig, which was recorded on 8 September 1997.
Many of the journeys were released on VHS and DVD.

Europe's Most Beautiful Railways

The following are journeys included in the European version of the series, which included some German railways.
CountryLineTerminiDate of journey
West Highland LineGlasgow - Mallaig8 September 1997
Black Forest RailwayOffenburg - Konstanz7 November 1997
Riviera of PonenteSanremo - Genoa12 November 1997
Train of WondersCuneo - Sanremo15 November 1997
Gornergrat RailwayZermatt - Gornergrat17 July 1999
Lötschberg lineBrig - Bern23 July 2001
Tauern RailwaySalzburg - Villach6 October 2001
GoldenPass LineMontreux - Interlaken13 May 2002
Mariazell RailwaySt. Pölten - Mariazell24 July 2002