Buurt Railway Museum

The railway between Haaksbergen, 12 km south of Hengelo and Boekelo 6 km to the north was opened as a tourist line in 1967. It enables visitors to see the landscape of the Witteveen, the ‘white peatlands’ that are characteristic of the border between the Netherlands and Germany. The railway occupies the original 19th century station buildings at Haaksbergen, where its visitor facilities are situated, and where its locomotives are based. Some locomotives that do not usually work trains are displayed in a 4-track shed at Boekelo. Trains stop at Soutindustrie, a station on the site of a salt works that closed in 1959. The rolling stock consists of seven steam engines and 11 diesels, together with a railbus of 1936. The collection includes an 0-6-0 tank locomotive built at Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) in 1896, an 0-4-0 built by Backer & Rueb of Breda in 1901, an 0-6-0 constructed in Zurich in 1910 and a tram locomotive of 1926 by Cockerill of Seraing. From time to time an historical train is operated which creates an authentic impression of travel on a rural railway in the first decade of the 20th century.