Pointedly sober and factual, the speaker explains the necessary preparations for the last departure of an express steam train headed for Berlin from Leipzig Central Station on 30 September 1978. Numerous amateur filmmakers and photographers accompany the steam engine as it departs on its final mission. Unlike the speaker, they were probably quite moved.

The self-taught nature filmmaker Ingeborg Tölke uses quotes from literary encounters with the flora and fauna of the moor in a gentle approach to this landscape. With great empathy, she uncovers the often all-too-hastily overlooked beauties and cruelties of the place, using time-lapse and macro techniques. Her debut work, which was also amazing in terms of film craft, won several awards.

The filmmaker Herbert Kasinski portrays the Mitropa restaurant at Leipzig Central Station which seems a little out of time. The figures quoted at the beginning of the film and the number of hungry and thirsty people extrapolated from them are still impressive today: Every day, 800 trains carrying 250,000 passengers arrived at Europe’s biggest terminal with its then 32 platforms.