The narrow gauge Brocken Railway was opened on 27 March 1899. Brocken station is one of the highest railway stations in Germany lying at a height of (). Its gauge is . In 1935 the "Deutsche Reichspost" made the first television broadcast from the Brocken using a mobile transmitter and, in the following year, the first television tower in the world was built on the mountain; carrying the first live television broadcast of the Summer Olympics in Berlin. The tower continued functioning until September 1939, when the authorities suspended broadcasting on the outbreak of World War II.