Reasonably useful description of the Bayerische Zugspitzbahn and its history up to 1995. More interesting on the planning of the line than its actual construction - there is a good bit about the high-level tunnel works, but we could have done with more. There are plenty of impressive photos, as one would expect from a book of this sort, and a reasonable, if not exactly generous, number of maps and technical diagrams.

One oddity, possibly related to the author's note that the book was written with the full co-operation of the BZB company, is the absence of any mention of the political events of the 1930s. Difficult to imagine that a line to Germany's highest summit, opened in 1929, didn't play an important part in Nazi propaganda...

[I can't help wondering how a book about such a quintessentially Bavarian subject gets to be written by a man named Preuß who lives in Berlin!] ( )