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 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.