Precision work for the island railway

Now, in the fall, Wangerooge comes alive once again. The fall break brings vacationers to the island, ferries dock at the harbor, luggage is unloaded, and the nostalgic island railway sets off toward the island village. This opening act alone is part of the vacation experience on Wangerooge. But for the island, the train is much more than that: it is one of its most important lifelines. This makes a well-maintained track all the more crucial. This is exactly where Vossloh comes in.

The day is drawing to a close, and the last passengers are getting off the island train. Calm is slowly returning to Wangerooge. But for the Vossloh team, the work is just beginning.

The milling truck is already in the harbor. The island train must be running again the next morning. In between, there are only a few hours during which the tracks can be worked on.

What sounds like a routine job on the mainland was, on Wangerooge, a project with an unusually high number of variables: tides, ferry schedules, nature conservation, fall weather, and an island without car traffic all had to come together perfectly.

Detailed planning

Even the Vossloh team’s journey to the island for the roughly one-week assignment in October 2023 was part of the task. The milling truck and another truck were transported to Wangerooge via a cargo ferry. The tide determined when the ferry would depart. Where vehicles and containers for the resulting milled material could be parked in the harbor had to be coordinated with the harbor master. Added to this were the necessary permits, including a special exemption from the municipality of Wangerooge.

“On Wangerooge, everything had to be organized with pinpoint precision. From the crossing to the logistics in the harbor to the permits, every step had to be planned in advance,” said Steffen Riedel, Technical Sales Manager at Vossloh, who oversaw the project from the site inspection through organization and construction supervision to final acceptance.

Flexibility was also required on the island itself: Since Wangerooge is car-free, Vossloh employees used e-bikes to travel between their accommodations, the port, and the construction site.

“On Wangerooge, planning involves more than just machinery and personnel. Tides, weather, and nature conservation are just as much a part of the construction process. That’s what makes a project like this challenging—and, at the same time, extraordinary.”

Steffen Riedel, Technical Sales Manager at Vossloh

Nature sets the pace

The island railway line runs through the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park. Work therefore had to take place outside of bird breeding seasons. Weather conditions also imposed limitations: Conditions that were too warm and dry would have increased the risk to the vegetation. At the same time, the project could not take place too late in the fall, as autumn storms and storm surges could quickly make the work impossible. In fact, the harbor was flooded by high tides just one week after the project was completed. The time window was correspondingly tight.

1,000 millimeters between the harbor and the village

From a technical standpoint, a special route awaited the milling truck. The Wangerooge Island Railway operates on a track gauge of 1,000 millimeters, making it Deutsche Bahn’s last remaining narrow-gauge line. The island railway has connected the harbor and the island village since 1897. To this day, in addition to passenger service, it handles important transport tasks for the car-free island. Approximately 200,000 passengers use it annually.

For the rails themselves, the operation was also a special moment: the rails between the harbor and the village, which are about five decades old, were machined for the first time. The work was intended to upgrade the infrastructure ahead of the planned renovations of the sluice bridges, contribute to a more comfortable ride, and ultimately extend the service life of the rails.

The Vossloh milling truck is not limited to a specific track gauge. The SF02, a highly mobile dual-mode milling truck, can be used on track gauges ranging from 1,000 to 1,520 millimeters and can therefore operate on narrow-gauge, standard-gauge, and broad-gauge tracks alike. On Wangerooge, the machine was therefore a perfect fit for the project.

Once the last train had passed

Work was carried out at night. After the end of service of the island railway, the milling truck was railed into the harbor area. As the lights went out on the island, the Vossloh teams’ actual shift began.

On the approximately 3.4-kilometer-long, heavily worn track, rail defects were repaired and the rail profiles were restored to the desired geometry. Over the years, the formerly electrically welded 15-meter rails had caused increasingly loud noises when trains passed over them. Milling selectively removes material and enables precise reprofiling of the rail. The integrated re-grinding process then ensures an acoustically optimized surface quality.

However, the milling truck could not process every section of the track. For areas with special geometries and hard-to-reach spots, the mobile Flexis system was therefore also deployed. The hand-guided and track-guided machines can operate even where a large machine cannot proceed due to design constraints—such as in critical switch areas, like switch points, or on special track sections, such as the storm surge barrier gate.

In this way, the two technologies complemented each other perfectly: The milling truck handled the track work, while Flexis tackled the areas requiring special precision and maneuverability.

Six nights for many years

The milling truck was in operation on the track for three night shifts, while the Flexis team worked six additional night shifts. Then the track work was completed. For most people on Wangerooge, the operation went unnoticed. The next morning, the island railway was running again—as usual, between the harbor, the salt marshes, and the village. And yet something was different: The monotonous “clack-clack, clack-clack” produced by the car bogies as they rolled over the welded joints—a sound that had become a familiar part of the island railway over the years—had suddenly disappeared. Instead, the train now rolls almost silently from the ferry terminal to the station and back.

Perhaps that is precisely what makes this project so special: On an island where nature sets the pace and logistics are subject to unique conditions, even demanding track maintenance must proceed so smoothly that, in the end, everything seems as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Even today, three years after Vossloh’s work, the island railway line remains in top condition.

“The island railway is far more than just a means of transportation for Wangerooge. It carries people, luggage, and goods from the harbor to the village, keeping the island running. The fact that we were able to use our technology to help prepare the tracks for the years ahead was something very special for us.”

Anika Oda Amort, Head of Marketing & Communications at Vossloh Rail Services, who documented the project through photography.