So what they say about East German officials is true. It must be the years of practice at bureaucracy, but the only person who scrutinized my InterRail card on the trip was the ticket collector on the narrow- gauge steam-hauled service from Radebeul Ost to Radeburg. There were some collectors on ordinary trains elsewhere in Europe who glanced at the ticket, or who checked that it was within its period of validity, before clipping it. This chap, though, although also the fireman and the person responsible for uncoupling the carriages from the loco and recoupling it after turning the train around, was exaggeratedly hammy about it. He stood with legs slightly apart for stability, with head slightly back to see under the peak of his cap, and held the ticket a few inches in front of his face, and he stared at it dramatically for a good half minute.
Perhaps he does not see InterRail cards all that often, but it was quite unsettling. Well and serve them right: if the Reichsbahn are going to run narrow-gauge steam-hauled services over mountains as a part of the state railway network, they must expect that people use InterRail tickets on them. Not all that often, of course, especially if the services do not go to anywhere much.
Radeburg, let me tell you, is a half-horse town. It consists of some farms and the rest of the paraphernalia of a village grouped around a market, and a railway station which is the terminus of a narrow-gauge line from Dresden, most of an hour away. It has been blessed with at least one Famous Son, one Heinrich Zille (born Radeburg 1853 and died Berlin 1929). There is a standing stone in the park near the station which bears a plaque to that effect. Maybe there was a second famous son, because there is a second stone, from which the plaque has gone. So much for fame. So much for Radeburg.
There is that to be said for trains: they do take you to places about whose very existence you might never otherwise have known. The train to Radeburg was also the one that caught fire. It is so long since I had travelled on a badly maintained everyday stream train, as opposed to one lovingly maintained by armies of volunteer enthusiasts, that I had quite forgotten that they do that from time to time. Sparks from the engine and old, dry wood and all that.
At first, when I noticed that the rest of the carriage was looking at me, I assumed that it would be on account either of my odd appearance or of the badly broken German I was using to talk to the six-year old sitting next to me. Only gradually did it dawn on me that it was the smoke billowing out of the window-frame behind me. Ah. Yes. Smoke. Fire. The young hiker sitting opposite came over with the remains of his beer to try to put the fire out, but it flared up again. Then at the next stop we went up to the engine and got the fireman, collector and uncoupler-and-coupler to come and look at it. And when he saw it he was quite concerned. He stood with legs slightly apart, head back and a couple of inches from the offending window-frame, and he stared at it. When that was over he sprinted back up to the engine and came galloping back with water in a cylindrical enamel bucket (the like of which I have not seen for twenty years). Water was liberally applied to everything that seemed to be burning, and to anyone who was within splashing distance. Then he did the staring routine again.
At the next couple of stops he came trotting back to our carriage for a quick stare at the window. It was quite comical, but still just as threatening. I really would not want to be started at like that if I had an even slightly guilty conscience.