The picture of the Junkers F13 and the narrow gauge iland railway of Wangerooge is of course colored with an AI – but it looks quite realistic. Above all, it shows quite well that one hundred years ago an airfield was not usually a concrete runway.

The Berlin-Bremen-Wangerooge scheduled air service for the postal service began on Wangerooge as early as 1920, at that time with biplanes. From 1926, the newly founded Lufthansa flew passenger services to Wangerooge with the Junkers F13 and from 1933 with the Junkers Ju 52. There are still airworthy examples of both aircraft today and after taking part in one of the last Ju52 flights from the former central airport Berlin-Tempelhof, I can only recommend the special experience of taking to the skies in one of these historic aircraft.

The picture shows exactly one of the Lufthansa Junkers F13s – the D565 to be precise. The photo was probably taken sometime between 1926 and 1932, especially as there are no references to symbols of the period 1933 ff in the photo, and I would also place the clothing and the lettering “Nordseebad Wangerooge Flugplatz” in the Weimar period. On the right is Josef Ungermann’s “Fliegerschlösschen” and a hangar for the planes.

And here at the airfield, a train from the island’s railroad is approaching. The motion blur suggests that the train is just rolling out, and the looks of the people on the platform also suggest this. Incidentally, this is the only picture of an Inselbahn train and a platform at Inselflugplatz that I have ever seen. If anyone knows of any other pictures, that would of course be fantastic.

But there are other special features. The locomotive is either the 99 022 or 99 023, the 99 021 can be ruled out due to its different design. However, at the time the photo was taken, the locomotive did not have a “sandbox”. Both engines already had a sandbox when they were delivered to the G.O.E. as Nos. 4 and 5 in 1910 and 1913 by HANOMAG. And all operational photographs known to me always show the machines with a sandbox. Furthermore, the bell that is otherwise always visible is missing. So in which summer was the engine on the move in such a “simplified” way?

The carriages are also interesting. You usually see the PwPost4s built in 1931, but this is clearly an older pack wagon. I can’t tell whether there is a mail compartment behind the open sliding door. Followed by a compartment wagon, which also seems to me to be shorter than the wagons usually depicted. But I could be wrong.

So although everything is actually clear, there are still questions – about the date the picture was taken, the locomotive number, the condition of the locomotive, the types of wagons – people who are familiar with the Wangerooger Inselbahn can certainly add to this.

Last but not least, the original picture in black and white.