Picturesque winter landscape with a train of Harz Narrow Gauge Railways, whose steam locomotive pulling carriages with wooden platforms along scenic hills, forests and meadows, steep slopes and turns, from Schierke (685 m) towards the top of Brocken plateau at 1142 meters above sea level. The Harz Narrow Gauge Railways (or HSB) is the largest network of 1,000 mm rail road in Europe (140.4 km ), located in the Harz mountains, in central Germany, with steam locomotives, most of which date back to 1950. The railways connect the principal towns of Wernigerode, Nordhausen and Quedlinburg. The first train ran from Wernigerode to Schierke in 1898.