into the hands of the Soviet troops who would overrun the area within weeks. The train was said to have left Wroclaw, then known as Breslau and part of the Third Reich, and travelled through the Project Reise area before it went missing.
Reise, which means “giant” in German, was a vast complex of tunnels and storehouses under the Owl Mountains being constructed by slave labourers in the late months of the Second World War.
It was never finished, but survivors of the Nazi work camps told tales of massive bunkers and passages cut deep into the mountains, stoking the legend and rumours that the gold-laden train pulled into one of the underground recesses for safety from aerial bombardment, or to hide the loot from the advancing Allies.
Public safety officials in the area around Walbrzych have called in reinforcements to guard against treasure hunters thronging the tunnel network, some of which is open to the public as a historical site, but much more sealed off and never explored.
The train, if it exists and is hidden deep in the mountains of Lower Silesia, probably would have been fitted with explosives to deter intruders, Walbrzych Council Chairman Jacek Cichura told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
“We are on alert should we need to take any specific security measures,” a police spokeswoman told Poland’s TVN24.
Local media report that speculation is rife among the excited residents and throngs of foreign explorers and journalists that the mystery train is somewhere near Walim, a village about 20 kilometres west of Walbrzych.
Walim was the site of unauthorised drilling and georadar testing in May that left six large holes in the ground, Mayor Adam Hausman told Polish and British journalists after the reported discovery last week.
The claim has also rekindled theories on the fate of the long-lost Amber Room panels that were plundered by a Nazi army force from Catherine’s Palace outside Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1941. The panels were taken to Koenigsberg Castle and reassembled within weeks, but Adolf Hitler ordered all valuables removed from the Reich’s eastern edge in January 1945.
The Amber Room at Catherine’s Palace has been restored with new panels and sculptures. The whereabouts of the priceless 18th century originals remain a mystery.