The Minden Museum Railway (German: ''Museumseisenbahn Minden'') or MEM was founded in 1977 as a society. Its aim was to preserve historic railway vehicles and operate them on the Minden District Railway (''Mindener Kreisbahn'' or ''MKB''). It was not long before the first museum train worked the line. The museum's vehicles were initially housed in the coach hall of the MKB's old locomotive depot (''

Bahnbetriebswerk A ''Bahnbetriebswerk'' is the equivalent of a locomotive depot (or motive power depot) on the German and Austrian railways. It is an installation that carries out the maintenance, minor repairs, refuelling and cleaning of locomotives and other ...

'') at

Minden Minden () is a middle-sized town in the very north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the greatest town between Bielefeld and Hanover. It is the capital of the district (''Kreis'') of Minden-Lübbecke, which is part of the region of Detm ...

Stadt station. In the same year the MEM gained its first locomotives: The MEM's steam engines ''Mevissen 4'' and the

Prussian T 13 The Prussian T 13 was a series of tank locomotives built in large numbers for the various German state railways, notably the Prussian state railways, and the Deutsche Reichsbahn during the early part of the 20th century. T 13 The physically i ...

, ''STETTIN 7906'' (formerly DRG no. 92 638) were taken over from the VEB Erfurt Industrial Railway. At the same time during that first year, locomotives were inspected and repaired on behalf of other museum railways. The museum's trains run on the lines owned by the Minden District Railway and Wittlage District Railway. Later the MKB's lines were gradually taken over by the MEM. The society had to move its HQ to Oberstadt station, because its old location and depot at Minden Stadt station was closed and sold. At Minden-Oberstadt station a new shed will be built, around which a large depot can be established with workshops etc.

Network

The MEM could not prevent the dismantling of lines. Of the 80 or so km of narrow gauge network only about 40 km remains, mostly comprising the core routes to

Kleinenbremen Porta Westfalica () is a town in the district of Minden-Lübbecke, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The name "''Porta Westfalica''" is Latin and means "gate to Westphalia". Coming from the north, the gorge is the entry to the region of West ...

and Hille.

Sources

* Ingrid Schütte; Werner Schütte: ''Die Mindener Kreisbahnen''. Uhle & Kleimann, Lübbecke 1990. * Gerd Wolff: ''Deutsche Klein- und Privatbahnen. Band 6: Nordrhein-Westfalen (Nordöstlicher Teil)''. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2000, * ''Bau und Kunstdenkmäler von Westfalen, Band 50: Stadt Minden'', bearbeitet von Fred Kaspar und Ulf Dietrich Korn, Teil V: ''Minden ausserhalb der Stadtmauern'', Teilband 2, S. 1721–1744, Hrsg: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Klartext Verlag, Essen 1998,

External links

Minden District Railways (MKB)

Minden Museum Railway (MEM)

1944 DR timetable

{{Coord, 52.3005, N, 8.9130, E , type:landmark_region:DE-NW , display=title , format=dms Heritage railways in Germany Metre gauge railways in Germany Minden Organizations established in 1977 Lübbecke