Heeresfeldbahnübung 1909, Military railway construction site in Saxony, Germany.
Heeresfeldbahnübung 1909 was a military field-railway exercise held in Saxony in 1909, not a preserved site: the 36.7 km, 600 mm-gauge line from Schänitz to Seeligstadt was dismantled between 9 and 22 September 1909. The photograph shows a wooden framework with a plank deck and gabled roof frame, two ladders leaning against its front bays, and red lettering reading "enbahn truppen. Bau einer Feldbahnbrücke."
The site was used in 1909 to test field railways for military supply lines. These drills helped the army refine its transport capacity before the First World War.
The exercise left no permanent track: the line from Schänitz to Seeligstadt was dismantled between 9 and 22 September 1909. Its memory is kept by reenactments; for the centenary on 27–30 August 2009, about 600 m of track with five switches, a bridge and a locomotive shed were laid along the Gallenbach in Seeligstadt, where the Krauss steam locomotive No. 7790 ran with a medical car and two field railway wagons.
The 1909 line ran 36.7 km from Schänitz to Seeligstadt, with a pontoon bridge over the Elbe at Nünchritz and a 280 m wooden viaduct over the Triebisch valley near Luga. Nothing of the track survives; the 2009 reenactment laid about 600 m of rail on a meadow along the Gallenbach in Seeligstadt.
The 1909 exercise was inspected by Saxon King Friedrich August III and Prussian chief of staff Helmuth von Moltke, and Kaiser Wilhelm II sent a congratulatory telegram. A century later, on 27–30 August 2009, about 600 m of track were relaid along the Gallenbach in Seeligstadt, with five switches, a bridge and a locomotive shed, and the Krauss steam locomotive No. 7790 hauled a medical car and two field railway cars.
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