The Golden Train captures the imagination once again. This is how its legend was born.

When the "Golden Train 2025" exploration group announced it had received approval from the State Forests to carry out the first phase of its plan, the Polish "gold rush" returned in full force. The plan, while only calling for "metal detectors to remove any metal objects from the research area," offers new hope for many.

The golden train fires up the imagination again

Residents of Wałbrzych and the surrounding area emphasize that they have heard about the golden train since childhood. Joanna Lamparska mentions this in her book "The Golden Train: A Brief History of Madness." "I've heard about the missing train since I was a child. How many people have been on its trail? I even participated in the search myself," writes the author.

"But it's a legend, after all. Almost everyone believes in it, even though no one has ever seen it. It's like the Loch Ness Monster; Wałbrzych without this train is like the Amber Room without amber," he continues. Indeed, the golden train is valuable to Wałbrzych even if it's never found. City officials calculated in 2016 that the advertising equivalent of media mentions is approximately PLN 500 million, equivalent to Wałbrzych's entire annual budget.

The golden train was much discussed in 2015. That year, Andreas Richter and Piotr Koper reported the discovery of the legendary cache to the Wałbrzych authorities. However, a search that began on August 13th yielded no results. On December 15, 2015, scientists from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków ruled out the location of the golden train as claimed by the two alleged discoverers.

The search continued with varying degrees of intensity, finally ending in August 2016. "The tunnel is here, but we need to find it. Maybe we were looking in the wrong place," said Andrzej Gaik, a spokesman for the searchers.

Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter returned to the topic in June 2017. They again announced that they had all the necessary permits and had developed an action plan. They emphasized that they would use, among other things, the vertical gradient method, microgravimetric surveys, and electrical resistivity soil tomography.

As they explained, if even two of these methods confirmed the anomaly, it would indicate the existence of the legendary composition. However, this time, they also failed to find any trace of the legendary composition.

Where did the legend of the golden train come from?

Joanna Lamparska recalls that the history of the search for the golden train goes back much further. It supposedly began in 1944, when the Third Reich demanded that the people of Lower Silesia deposit their savings in banks. The "Wrocław gold" was said to consist of over 50 large metal chests and numerous smaller wooden ones.

In April 1945, the cargo was supposed to be loaded onto an armored train and set off towards Wałbrzych to escape the Red Army. According to the book's author, Tadeusz Słowikowski was the first to be stricken with "treasure fever," and he quickly began spreading it to those around him. He reportedly heard about the gold from Germans with whom he worked in a mine in Wałbrzych after the war.

In the 1970s, Słowikowski met a railwayman named Schulz, who worked as a crossing guard at kilometer 61. He reportedly learned from his predecessor that some trains left Świebodzice but never reached Wałbrzych. No one saw them afterward.

Lamparska explains that Lower Silesia was considered the safest region of the Third Reich until 1944. At that time, the area was spared from the Allied bombing raids that had been carried out on industrial areas of Germany for two years. Many stories of hidden treasures and works of art circulated in the region.

Read also: The Golden Train at Your Fingertips? "Legends Make Sense" Read also: Three Treasures in 30 Days. "If Things Keep Up This Way, You'll Find the Golden Train"