Forerunners
The present day narrow gauge network emerged as a result of the merger of originally separate railway lines which belonged to two different railway companies:
In 1887 the first narrow gauge line in the Harz, from Gernrode to Mägdesprung, was opened. It was owned by the Gernrode-Harzgerode Railway Company (Gernrode-Harzgeroder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) or GHE. In the years that followed the line was extended and the network enlarged. The GHE network included the railway lines from Gernrode to Harzgerode, Hasselfelde and Eisfelder Talmühle. Because the line followed a section of the valley of a small river, the Selke, it was also nicknamed the Selke Valley Railway (Selketalbahn); another pet name was the Anhalt Harz Railway (Anhaltische Harzbahn).
In 1896 a second railway company was entered into the commercial register who wanted to build a narrow gauge railway through the Harz. On 22 December 1898 the Nordhausen-Wernigerode Railway Company (Nordhausen-Wernigeroder Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft) or NWE opened special services on the line from Wernigerode to the Brocken (Brocken Railway), the so-called Trans-Harz Railway (Harzquerbahn) from Wernigerode via Drei Annen Hohne to Nordhausen was fully opened to traffic on 27 March 1899.
The GHE and NWE were subordinated to the Deutsche Reichsbahn in East Germany on 1 April 1949.
Read more about this topic: Harz Narrow Gauge Railways