The Zittauer Schmalspurbahn to Oybin and Jonsdorf

In 1981 the government of East Germany decided when this railway would stop carrying passengers. The date was set for autumn 1990. The Olbersdorf lignite mine, which the line ran straight past, was to be enlarged over the top of it, and a fast tramway would take the passengers instead. Freight was to carry on until 1991, and then there would be no narrow-gauge railway in the Zittau Mountains at all.

What happened instead is that the mine went first. On 1 March 1990 the council of ministers decided to stop taking coal out of Olbersdorf, and on 30 September 1991 the last coal train left the pit. The hole it left behind was filled with water between September 1996 and March 1999, diverted in from two small streams, and it is now the Olbersdorfer See — sixty hectares of it, forty metres deep, with a beach and a campsite and a footpath round the rim. The train still runs past. It passes the lake at Olbersdorf Niederdorf and Olbersdorf Oberdorf, two stops that were named after a village rather than a mine, and it has outlived the thing that was scheduled to bury it by more than thirty years.

What the railway does now

It runs from Zittau, in the far south-east corner of Saxony where Germany, Poland and Czechia meet, sixteen kilometres up into the Zittau Mountains on a track 750 millimetres wide. Steam every day, all season. The stock is genuinely old — the class of locomotive that does most of the work arrived new in 1929 and is still in daily traffic — and the coaches have wooden seats and brass luggage racks.

The part worth knowing about in advance is what happens at Bertsdorf, 8.93 kilometres out. The line divides there. One branch climbs 3.30 kilometres to Kurort Oybin, under a sandstone mountain carrying the ruins of a monastery that Charles IV founded in 1369; the other runs 3.85 kilometres to Kurort Jonsdorf, where sandstone was quarried into millstones for three and a half centuries. Bertsdorf has an island platform with the station building standing on it, a roof put over the whole thing in 1914, and a mechanical signal box at the end.

And on the right sort of day, two trains stand on either side of that platform and leave at the same minute — 09:42, 11:42, 13:42, 15:42, and on a Saturday three more besides. Two locomotives, two whistles, two columns of smoke, running side by side for a few hundred metres before the tracks part and one goes left and the other goes right. The railway calls it the Bertsdorfer Doppelausfahrt. It is not a special event and no one sells a ticket for it; it is just what the timetable produces when there are enough trains in traffic to produce it.

Trains start from a bay beside the main-line station at Zittau, alongside the platforms used by the regional services to Dresden, Cottbus, Liberec and Varnsdorf. The narrow gauge then works its way out of the town at walking pace through three more stops — Zittau Haltepunkt, Zittau Süd, Zittau Vorstadt — which between them cover about two kilometres. Zittau Süd, at 232 metres, is the lowest point on the whole railway.

Past the lake

After Zittau Vorstadt the line comes out into open country and reaches Olbersdorf. This is the part of the journey that carries the history. The two Olbersdorf stops sit beside what was, until 1991, an opencast lignite mine: pits had been dug here since 1908, a bucket-chain excavator and two steam locomotives arrived to strip the overburden in the early years, bucket-wheel excavators took over in 1968, and 21.5 million tonnes of coal came out before it ended. The railway was part of it. A 2.4-kilometre connecting line was laid from the pit to Olbersdorf Oberdorf station and brought into use in 1949, so for four decades this narrow-gauge tourist line was also a coal railway.

The mine is a lake now, and from the train you see water where the workings were. One of the bucket-wheels stands on the shore as a monument, ten metres across with its cutting teeth still on it.

Bertsdorf, and the moment the train divides

Bertsdorf arrives 31 minutes out of Zittau. It is a small place with a large railway: four platform tracks, two sidings, a locomotive shed that has been there since the line opened, two water cranes from the 1890s, and a station building that was the head office of the Zittau–Oybin–Jonsdorf Railway Company when the line was privately owned. The whole ensemble is a protected monument, and once a month it opens as a museum station.

The Zittau train stops on one side of the island platform. On the other side there is usually already a second train, which has been waiting — the first working of the day comes up from Zittau at 08:43, gets to Bertsdorf at 09:13, and stands there for twenty-nine minutes. Passengers for the other valley cross the platform. Then both trains leave together.

The two valleys

Towards Oybin the line climbs through woods for eleven minutes, calling at Kurort Oybin-Niederdorf and at a halt named Teufelsmühle, and finishes at 389 metres under the Oybin rock itself. The terminus building is a long two-storey house in yellow brick with the station name painted across it, and the mountain with its ruins stands directly behind.

Towards Jonsdorf it is twelve minutes, one intermediate halt, and a terminus whose reception building has been a guesthouse since the early 2000s. The millstone quarries begin a short walk beyond the platform.

The two branches never meet again. What connects them is the shuttle that works back and forth across Bertsdorf all day, alternating valleys — Jonsdorf to Bertsdorf, Bertsdorf to Oybin, Oybin to Bertsdorf, Bertsdorf to Jonsdorf — so that from either terminus you can reach the other with one change, and the change is timed.

The train itself

From May to October, in fine weather, every steam train carries an open observation coach with a roof and no sides. Every steam train also carries a wheelchair coach; the operator asks for a day's notice. The historic sets that run at weekends between early April and the start of November — billed as the Reichsbahnzug and the Sachsenzug — are the exception, and have no wheelchair coach. There is a dining car every day in the main season, and Friday to Sunday out of it.

The operator does not describe its service by frequency. It describes it by how many trains are out on the line at once, and the printed calendar colours every day of the year accordingly: three trains on Sundays, public holidays, Saturdays and bridging days; two trains on ordinary main-season weekdays; one train in the off-season. That number is what decides whether you see two locomotives leave Bertsdorf together, so it is worth choosing before you choose a date.

All times below are as of August 2026, taken from the operator's published timetable and calendar for 2026 and checked against live schedule data for specific dates.

Main season — 28 March to 1 November 2026

Two trains (Monday to Friday). From Zittau at 08:43, 09:05, 11:05, 13:05 and 15:05. Every one of them runs to Bertsdorf in 31 minutes; the 08:43 gets there at 09:13 and then waits.

From Bertsdorf the departures to Kurort Oybin are 09:42, 10:49, 11:42, 12:49, 13:42, 14:49, 15:42 and 16:51, arriving 11 minutes later. Departures to Kurort Jonsdorf are 09:42, 11:42, 13:42 and 15:42, arriving 12 minutes later. The four times that appear in both lists are the four double departures of a weekday.

Coming back on a weekday, from Kurort Oybin at 10:02, 11:11, 12:02, 13:11, 14:02, 15:11, 16:02 and 17:24; the last of those reaches Zittau at 18:06. From Kurort Jonsdorf at 10:04, 12:04, 14:04 and 16:04. The 14:04 connects through to Zittau at 16:45. The 16:04 is the last of the day and it involves a long stand at Bertsdorf — it reaches Zittau at 18:06, a little over two hours after leaving Jonsdorf.

Three trains (Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays). Four more departures from Zittau are added, at 10:16, 12:16, 14:16 and 16:16, and the Jonsdorf branch gains a second set. Bertsdorf then sends trains into both valleys at 09:42, 10:49, 11:42, 12:49, 13:42, 14:49 and 15:42 — seven simultaneous departures in a day rather than four. Late afternoon breaks the pattern: 16:49 to Jonsdorf and 16:51 to Oybin leave two minutes apart, and there is a final 17:38 to Oybin. Last trains back are 17:11 from Jonsdorf (Zittau 18:10) and 18:00 from Oybin (Zittau 18:41).

The four weeks with no trains at all

From 2 to 27 November 2026 there is no service on any part of the line, for engineering work. The operator prints this across four rows of its calendar, and a search for a train at Bertsdorf on those dates returns nothing while the main-line station in Zittau carries its usual seventy-odd departures. No replacement bus is advertised.

Off season — 28 November to 18 December 2026

One train works the whole railway, and the double departure does not happen at all. Two round trips from Zittau, at 09:07 and 13:07, reaching Oybin at 09:49 and 13:49.

Between them the single set shuttles across Bertsdorf: to Oybin at 09:38, 11:35, 13:38 and 15:35, back from Oybin at 09:59, 11:56, 13:59 and 15:56; to Jonsdorf at 10:39 and 14:39, back from Jonsdorf at 11:01 and 15:01. Returns to Zittau leave Bertsdorf at 12:08 and 16:08, arriving 12:37 and 16:37.

A new timetable for 2026/27 takes effect on 13 December 2026, and the operator runs Advent trains with coffee and Stollen through December, Father Christmas trains to both termini on 24 December with nothing running after 15:00, and a New Year's Eve train — which for 2026 is already advertised as sold out. Those dates sit outside the two published seasonal timetables, so the operator's own calendar is the thing to check for them.

Connections at Zittau

Zittau is on the regional network, and the narrow-gauge timetable is printed with the main-line arrivals beside it. Trains reach Zittau from Dresden at 07:52, 08:55, 09:52, 10:55, 11:52, 12:55, 13:52, 14:55 and 15:52, from Cottbus at five minutes to each hour, from Liberec in Czechia at two minutes to each hour from 07:58, and from Varnsdorf at 59 minutes past. Going home, departures for Dresden leave at 11:03, 12:05, 13:03, 14:05, 15:03, 16:05, 17:03 and 19:03.

Timetables, the year calendar and the current PDF are published by the operator at zittauer-schmalspurbahn.de (opens in a new tab).

Fares are charged by how many stations you pass rather than by kilometre, in four bands, under a tariff that took effect on 28 March 2026. Zittau to either terminus is the top band: €14.00 single, €20.00 return, with reduced rates for 15- to 17-year-olds, apprentices and students. Children up to 14 travel free with a ticket-holding adult. A single is valid all day and you may break the journey as often as you like, which matters here — the interesting places are spread across Olbersdorf, Bertsdorf, Oybin and Jonsdorf rather than gathered at one end.

Anyone meaning to see both valleys is past the price of a return before lunch, so the €26.00 day ticket — valid across the whole ZVON network — is usually the sensible purchase. A Deutschlandticket does not carry you here, but it entitles you to buy the historic-railway supplement at €12.00 for the day, which does the same job for half the money.

No rail pass carries you on the Zittauer Schmalspurbahn by itself. The line is worked by a private company, the Sächsisch-Oberlausitzer Eisenbahngesellschaft, and it charges a historic-railway supplement on top of every network product rather than accepting them outright. Knowing that in advance saves an awkward conversation with a conductor.

Interrail and Eurail

An Interrail or Eurail pass is not valid here, and there is no pass-holder discount. Interrail settles that itself: its coverage table for Germany sends anything it does not name to a closed list of the German companies a pass is valid on, and the Sächsisch-Oberlausitzer Eisenbahngesellschaft is not on it. What a pass does usefully cover is the journey to the start: Zittau has regional trains from Dresden roughly hourly, from Cottbus, and from Liberec across the Czech border, and all of those are ordinary services on which a pass works normally. Arriving on a pass and then buying a €14.00 single or a €26.00 day ticket for the narrow gauge is the straightforward arrangement.

The Deutschlandticket

The €63 monthly Deutschlandticket is the pass most visitors will actually be holding, and it behaves the same way: not valid, but it entitles the holder to the Historik-Zuschlag at €12.00 a day (€8.00 reduced), or €36.00 for a week. Because the day ticket costs €26.00, the supplement is the cheaper route onto the railway for anyone who already has the Deutschlandticket for other reasons — and it also gets you to Zittau from anywhere in Germany on regional trains at no extra cost.

Is a pass worth buying for this journey?

For this railway alone, no. Sixteen kilometres of 750-millimetre track does not repay a rail pass, and the operator's own day ticket is both cheaper and valid across the surrounding ZVON network for the same day.

The case changes if the Zittau line is one stop on a Saxon narrow-gauge trip. Saxony still has an unusual number of these railways in daily steam operation, and several of them — the Weißeritztalbahn, the Lößnitzgrundbahn and the Fichtelbergbahn — belong to a different operator, the SDG, whose own €12.00 supplement covers all three on one day but does not extend to Zittau. Two operators, two supplements, no combined ticket. A Deutschlandticket plus one supplement in each company is the way that works out cheapest, and it is worth planning the days so that each €12.00 buys more than one line.

Conditions here were checked against the operator's published tariff, Interrail's own coverage table for Germany and the Deutschlandticket's published price, in August 2026.

The railway is sixteen kilometres long and the things worth stopping for are spread along all of it, which is one of the better arguments for a day ticket. Zittau is a proper town with a market square rather than a place you pass through on the way to the mountains. Olbersdorf is where the industrial history is, and it is not hidden — the lake and the machinery beside it are both plainly what they are. Bertsdorf is the railway's own museum. And the two termini are the two halves of the Zittau Mountains: a monastery ruin on a rock at one, three and a half centuries of quarrying at the other.

The cards below follow the order a train from Zittau reaches them.

This railway is unusual in running its own accommodation, and in putting it inside the stations. The operator lets a guesthouse in one terminus building, a holiday flat in the other, and two converted passenger coaches that stand on the platform and move between the two termini with the season. All of them look out on the line, which is either the whole point or a reason to choose something else.

One detail is worth knowing before booking: the operator gives a free week ticket for one person with any stay of five nights or more in its own accommodation. Against a €42.00 weekly fare that is a real reduction rather than a gesture.

The alternative is to stay in the village at Oybin and walk to the castle, which is what most visitors do. Prices and availability are on each house's own site — we have not verified either, and neither star ratings nor guest scores appear on the cards below.