Deutsches Gruben- und Feldbahnmuseum

The Deutsches Gruben- und Feldbahnmuseum stands below Schloss Steinhausen on the site of the former Zeche Theresia, a coal mine closed in 1892. The museum occupies part of the Bergbauwanderweg Muttental trail network. It began in 1989 when volunteers displayed locomotives and wagons on the old colliery land. After thirteen years of work the museum opened in 2002, run by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Muttenthalbahn founded in 1986. The association preserves historic mine and field railway vehicles in working order for future generations. Its name comes from the Muttentalbahn, a 19th-century line that once carried coal locally. The collection numbers ninety-two locomotives and about two hundred wagons. Diesel, electric and compressed-air engines are shown alongside mining carriages and light field railway trolleys. Many vehicles came from Lower Saxony’s peat-cutting areas, while others include English wagons used to transport ammunition to the Belgian front in the First World War. Members converted these wagons into passenger cars still used on the museum railway. A landslip in July 2021 damaged the engine shed and blocked the track with fallen trees and earth. Volunteers and local firms restored the site by spring 2022, though repairs to the shed and some vehicles continue. Visitors follow a metre-gauge line that starts at a halt beside the Ruhrtalbahn and the Nachtigallstraße car park. The track crosses the road at the route’s only level crossing before reaching the museum’s extensive sidings and a second halt. From there the line runs past the Ruhrtalbahn halt at Zeche Nachtigall to a third stop on the adjoining LWL-Industriemuseum Zeche Nachtigall site. The track loops around old ring kilns and passes through a short tunnel driven by a former connecting adit. On operating days a passenger train runs hourly between the three stops, letting visitors ride the full length of the line.