The Brocken Railway () is one of three tourist metre gauge railways which together with the Harz Railway and Selke Valley Railway form the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways railway network in the Harz mountain range of Germany. It runs from the station of Drei Annen Hohne at , where it joins the Harz Railway, via Schierke and the Bode River valley to the summit of the Brocken the highest mountain of the Harz at and part of the Harz National Park. Route The Brocken Railway leaves Drei Annen Hohne station (), like the Harz Railway, in a southwesterly direction. As it leaves the station, however, it crosses the road to Schierke/Elend and then enters the Harz National Park. It then heads west to Schierke station (688 m), where until 1963, there was a siding to Knaupsholz granite quarry at about the half-way point. The line then runs for some distance along the valley of the Cold Bode, which lies south and far below the line. Next the 971 m high mountain, the Wurmberg, appears on the left, and the train crosses the Brocken Road for the first time. After a tight left hand bend before the Eckerloch Bridge and another right-hander, the line reaches Goetheweg station (956 m), which is now only used as a locomotive depot. Then the line runs directly to the Brocken, encircling it in a spiral 1 ½ times, during which it crosses the Brocken Road again, and then finally ends after 18.9 km at Brocken station (1,125 m). History As early as 1869 there was a design for the construction of a railway to the Brocken, but it was turned down. A resubmission in 1895 succeeded, however, and, on 30 May 1896, the construction permit was issued once Prince Otto of Stolberg-Wernigerode had allocated the requisite land. The first section of the Brocken Railway, from Drei Annen Hohne to Schierke, was opened on 20 June 1898 and construction work for the remaining section up to the Brocken was begun on 4 October 1898. Initially services to the Brocken only ran between 30 April to 15 October; during the winter trains terminated at Schierke station. At the end of the Second World War significant damage occurred to the track, mainly through bombs and artillery shells, in the course of fighting in the Harz, which had been declared a fortress. The section to the Brocken was only