''Eisenbahn Kurier'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

for ''Railway Courier''), or EK, is a monthly magazine published in

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau or simply Freiburg is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fourth-largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg after Stuttgart, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. Its built-up area has a population of abou ...

, Germany, whose focus is on

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

and

model railway Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives ...

themes. Its target audience is railway modellers and model railway fans, as well as railway experts and employees. With a monthly print run of about 40,000 copies, EK is one of the biggest railway magazines in Germany. The magazine is produced by its own publisher, EK Verlag, which is registered in the Freiburg Trade Register. Its manager is Dierk Lawrenz, Handeloh.

History

''Eisenbahn Kurier'' was founded in 1966 in

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...

by a small group of railway fans, which included the famous locomotive photographer Carl Bellingrodt. Its declared aim was to publish a magazine in which information about the remaining, operational

Deutsche Bundesbahn Deutsche Bundesbahn (, ) or DB () was formed as the state railway of the newly established West Germany (FRG) on 7 September 1949 as a successor of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG). The DB remained the state railway of West Germany u ...

steam locomotives was reported. Whilst there were already several hobby magazines at that time which had a railway theme, there were few up to date reports on the prototype or they were only cursorily mentioned. Today EK still has a heavy emphasis on current railway events. Bellingrodt later bequeathed a large part of his photographic archive to EK, which still publishes them on a regular basis today. EK attracted further attention in 1972 when it purchased an operational steam locomotive, number 24 009 from

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

, which became the foundation for the activities of the company "directly on the tracks". The oldest still operational

dining car A dining car (American English) or a restaurant car (British English), also a diner, is a passenger railroad car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant. These cars provide the highest level of service of any rai ...

in Germany (1700D) and the

Prussian Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, the House of Hohenzoll ...

crown prince's coach are amongst its other purchases. In 1981 the magazine began covering the subject of railway modelling in the magazine, which now appeared monthly. In 1976 the first specialist and photo books were published by EK Verlag. When EK first covered model railway topics they were very much a peripheral theme, but over the course of the year they have increasingly taken more and more space in the magazine. From 1990 to 1994 a slightly different parallel edition of EK was produced specially for the new German federal states from the old East Germany. Its content varied little from the western edition, but it was cheaper. Following the founding of

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

, this concept was dropped. Since 1966 many railway books have been published by ''Eisenbahn Kurier'' alongside the magazine, including books on individual German locomotive classes. In addition, there are also picture series and books on regional railway subjects in their range of publications, as well as DVDs, videos and numerous special magazine editions on historic and current railway topics in the ''Eisenbahn Kurier Special'', ''EK Themen'' and ''EK Aspekte'' series. Besides ''Eisenbahn Kurier'' the EK Verlag also publishes the ''Modellbahn Kurier'' magazine (purely for modellers; ) as well as ''Stadtverkehr'' (meaning ''Urban Transit'' and concerning city transport, such as

tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...

s, buses and

metro Metro may refer to: Geography * Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...

systems; {{issn, 0038-9013).

External links

www.eisenbahn-kurier.dewww.modellbahn-kurier.dewww.stadtverkehr.de
1966 establishments in West Germany German-language magazines Monthly magazines published in Germany Rail transport magazines published in Germany Magazines established in 1966 Mass media in Freiburg im Breisgau Mass media in Wuppertal Rail transport modelling publications

History

See also

External links