Association of German Museum and Tourist Railways
The Association of German Museum and Touristic Railways (VDMT) is an association active in Germany that supports the affiliated associations in maintaining private rail vehicle collections and the museum railways operated with them . The association is entered in the public list of the registration of associations and their representatives , commonly known as the lobby list , of the German Bundestag . More than 80 percent of the members are associations. But the association is also open to workshops, engineering offices, publishers or individuals who feel connected to the goals of the association.
The association and its members represent a stock of around 100 operational locomotives and railcars . More than half of them are operational steam locomotives . In 1998, more than two million passengers were carried with these and the nearly 1,000 serviceable cars that go with them.
The Association of German Museum and Tourist Railways was initiated in 1992 by the then Vice President of the Federal Association of German Railway Friends (BDEF). The actual establishment then took place with 42 founding members in 1993 in the Bochum Railway Museum in Bochum-Dahlhausen , which is initiated and operated by the German Society for Railway History (DGEG).