Taxi Brokstedt: from Neumünster to Dörnbek, Osterfeld and the Holsteinring

Where Brokstedt is, in plain terms

Brokstedt is a village in Schleswig-Holstein, the German state that lies between Hamburg and the Danish border. It sits about sixty kilometres north of central Hamburg and about eighteen kilometres south west of Neumünster, where our office and our cars are. On paper it belongs to the Kreis Steinburg, a Kreis being a rural district roughly comparable to a county, and within that district to the Amt Kellinghusen, a group of small municipalities that share one administration. None of that is visible when you arrive. What you see is a level crossing, a church, the Dorfstraße running through the middle, and fields in every direction.

For a traveller coming from outside Germany, the useful reference points are these. Hamburg Airport is around fifty kilometres away to the south. Kiel and the Baltic coast lie roughly an hour to the north east. The city of Itzehoe, the seat of the district Brokstedt belongs to, is to the west. And Brokstedt marks the northern edge of the HVV, the Hamburg transport association whose zones and tickets cover the city and its commuter belt. Everything north of the village runs on a different fare system, which is one of the reasons so many cars with Hamburg number plates stand at the station car park all day.

People come out here for reasons that have nothing to do with one another. Some are visiting a relative in one of the two care homes or in the day care. Some work at the company in Klein Floyen that builds equipment for dental practices. Some are coming for a race meeting at the Holsteinring, the sand track at the western edge of the village. Some live here and simply have to reach a hospital, an airport or a late shift in the city. What all of them run into sooner or later is the same thing, and it is not the distance. It is the timetable.

Why the train on its own does not solve it

Brokstedt lies on the railway from Hamburg-Altona to Kiel, the first line ever built in Schleswig-Holstein, and from Neumünster it is exactly one stop. The RE 70, a Regional-Express and therefore a train that calls only at the larger places, needs eight to nine minutes and runs straight through without a change. On paper this is a village where nobody would ever need a taxi. In practice it comes apart in four places, and not one of those four is the fault of the train itself.

First, not every RE 70 stops in Brokstedt. The departure that leaves Neumünster shortly after half past the hour skips both Brokstedt and Wrist. The one that does stop leaves shortly before the full hour and runs into Osterfeld a few minutes after it. For this village that means one train an hour, not two. Miss it and you are not waiting half an hour for the next one, you are waiting a whole one, and there is nowhere at the station to wait indoors.

Second, the evening ends early here. The last arrival from Neumünster is shortly before midnight, and after that nothing stops in Brokstedt until early morning. Sunday mornings have a gap in the southbound direction as well: after the train in the middle of the night, the next one to call here is not until after seven. If your flight, your shift or your dinner runs past that, the railway has already finished for the day.

Third, the railway journey ends at a station that is not in the village. It stands in the Ortsteil Osterfeld, an Ortsteil being an outlying part of a municipality, a good half kilometre from the centre around Dörnbek and the church. The station is unstaffed, category six in the classification Deutsche Bahn uses for its stations, which in practice means no ticket office, no staff and no taxi rank. No car is ever standing there by chance when a train comes in.

Fourth, there is no bus to Neumünster at all. The only line that serves Brokstedt is the 7506, which runs from here via Hardebek to Bad Bramstedt, Monday to Friday, a handful of departures a day, some of them only on school days. At weekends, on public holidays and during the school holidays the 7506 does not run at all. The Bürgerbus of the Amt Kellinghusen, a community minibus driven by volunteers, is not a scheduled service but a ride arranged by telephone inside the Amt area, and Neumünster does not belong to that area. Every time given for Brokstedt on this page is a snapshot from the timetable year now running and can change.

Where we drive within Brokstedt

Brokstedt has a good two thousand two hundred inhabitants spread over a good twelve square kilometres, and by far the greater part of that is field, wood and pasture. Against roughly ten hectares of commercial land stand something like a thousand hectares of farmland and open country. The addresses here therefore lie further apart than the population figure suggests, and a stretch that looks like a short walk on a map is no walk at all with shopping bags, a suitcase or a child.

The centre sits around Dörnbek, the Dorfstraße and the Kirchenstraße, the village street and the church street. That is where you find the Protestant church, a brick building with a semicircular apse put up shortly before 1900 to plans by the Hamburg architect Hugo Groothoff, the Friedenseichenplatz with the memorial where the village marks Volkstrauertag, the German day of mourning for the war dead in November, the Bürgerhaus and the Bürgerstuben in Dörnbek, which are the village hall and the village inn, the EDEKA supermarket on the Dorfstraße, the pharmacy and the branch of the VR Bank. The primary school belongs to the centre too, together with the PlietschHuus, which has the library, the after school care, the seniors council, speech therapy and physiotherapy under one roof, and the Regenbogen kindergarten.

A little apart lies Osterfeld with the station, the Park and Ride car park and a dealer in sea containers. In Klein Floyen sits Schlumbohm, where equipment for dental practices is developed and built. That is the largest employer in Brokstedt and the reason for a good share of the business journeys we drive out here. Then there is the filling station with the Kfz-Meisterwerkstatt in Dörnbek, a master certified car workshop where the TÜV, the German vehicle inspection body, holds a walk in session on Wednesdays and Fridays. There is the Grüne Markt right at the level crossing in the middle of the village, the potato and vegetable farm shop on the Kirchenstraße, the open air swimming pool by the sports ground, the tennis courts, the sports hall and the Umwelthaus.

And then there are the farms and clusters of houses that belong to Brokstedt but are neither the centre nor the station: Rotensande, Sibbersdorf, Brokstedtfeld, Butterkamp, Krim, Ludwigshöhe and Mittelhof. Add to those the addresses at Groß Floyen, Dellen, Am Wallberg, Am Sportplatz and in the Meisenweg. Give us the house number in Dörnbek or the name of the farm and we will set you down exactly there, not at the edge of the village. Our drivers know the difference between Klein Floyen and Groß Floyen, and they know that in Dörnbek it is better to stop before the level crossing than after it.

The road from Neumünster to Brokstedt

From the Hauptbahnhof in Neumünster, the main station, to Bahnhof Brokstedt is around eighteen kilometres, and we reckon on twenty to twenty five minutes when nothing gets in the way. To the Holsteinring on the Dorfstraße add roughly another kilometre. Brokstedt has no motorway junction of its own and no Bundesstraße, no federal trunk road, passing through it. The main axis is the L 122, a Landesstraße or state road, the old connection from Bad Bramstedt to Rendsburg. It was already metalled in the eighteenth century, which is why it still runs straight through the villages instead of around them.

Two routes lead to Brokstedt and they barely differ in length. One leaves Neumünster along the Wasbeker Straße, runs through Ehndorf and Padenstedt, joins the L 122 over the district roads and comes into Dörnbek by way of Am Wallberg. The other takes the Altonaer Straße and the Hamburger Chaussee, passes Brokenlande and Störkathen, and enters the village from the south along the Dorfstraße. Which of the two we take is the driver decision on the day, based on the hour, the school traffic and any roadworks on the L 122. Because the price to Brokstedt is agreed before you set off, the choice makes no difference at all to what you pay.

The landscape you cross is the Holsteinische Vorgeest, the sandy country in front of the moraine hills: hedgerows on earth banks, which in this region are called Knicks, pasture, and the low ground where the Brokstedter Au runs into the river Stör. That river forms a good stretch of the north western parish boundary. If you want the A 7 motorway from Brokstedt, incidentally, you do not go back through Neumünster; you go south on the L 122 towards Bad Bramstedt, about ten kilometres. That is also the direction we turn for journeys to the Klinikum Bad Bramstedt and onward to Hamburg.

When we drive to Brokstedt most often

The Holsteinring at Dorfstraße 44 is the best known sand track in Schleswig-Holstein, an oval of 393 metres with room for around eight thousand spectators. On the race days of the Brokstedt Wikinger, and at the Lanz-Bulldog-Treffen where historic tractors are shown, more people come into the village than live in it. The Holsteinring stands a kilometre west of the centre, no public transport reaches it, and when the last heat has been run everybody wants to leave at the same minute. Anyone who fixes the journey home while booking the journey out is not the one standing on the field beside the car park afterwards.

The second standing reason for journeys to Brokstedt is clinics and doctors, because the village has no hospital. To the Friedrich-Ebert-Krankenhaus on the Friesenstraße in Neumünster is around twenty minutes, to the Klinikum Bad Bramstedt a good quarter of an hour, to the Klinikum Itzehoe a good half hour, and to none of those three does a bus run from Brokstedt. On top of that comes the visiting traffic to the two care homes, the pensioners residence and the day care in the village. That traffic runs the whole year, almost always comes from outside, and follows visiting hours rather than the rhythm of the RE 70.

Then the commuters. Brokstedt is the northern boundary of the HVV area, which is why the car park at the station in Osterfeld fills up with the cars of people who take the train to Hamburg. But anyone working a late shift in Neumünster, or going out for the evening there, is past the last arrival, and from Bahnhof Osterfeld to a front door in Dörnbek there is nothing running after that in any case. To Hamburg Airport it is around fifty kilometres from here over the B 4, the B 206 and the A 7. By train the same journey means changing twice, which with suitcases and an early departure is the classic reason to book a car the evening before.

And finally the Schulverband Brokstedt und Umgebung, the school association that covers nine municipalities across two districts. The children come from Armstedt, Borstel, Fitzbek, Hasenkrug, Hardebek, Rade, Sarlhusen and Willenscharen among other places. Outside the running times of the 7506 there is nothing for them, and in the school holidays there is nothing at all. In summer the journeys to the open air pool by the sports ground come on top of that, and to the Naturparkweg, the nature park trail that crosses the parish in the direction of Aukrug.

Krankenfahrten: journeys to treatment from Brokstedt

A Krankenfahrt is a journey to or from medical treatment in an ordinary taxi rather than in an ambulance. A doctor prescribes it, and in most cases the health insurer is billed instead of the passenger paying the full fare at the door. It is a fixed part of the German system and a large part of our work. In Brokstedt itself there is a general practice on the Sparkassenweg and the pharmacy in Dörnbek, which also runs a delivery service. Everything beyond that lies outside the village: specialists, laboratory, X-ray, dialysis, maternity, the emergency department. Whoever lives here and needs treatment regularly leaves the village regularly, and that is the point at which a railway timetable stops being any help.

There is also a quirk in the geography. Brokstedt belongs to the Kreis Steinburg and the district town is Itzehoe, but the nearest hospital does not stand in its own district town, it stands in Neumünster. For the insurer what counts in an admission is the nearest suitable hospital that can be reached, not where the district boundary happens to run. If it does have to be Itzehoe, either the Klinikum or the dialysis practice on the Lise-Meitner-Straße, you see how awkwardly the railway lies here. There is no through train. You travel south to Elmshorn first, change there, and a good hour of your day is gone. By car over Kellinghusen it is roughly half that.

Over a series of appointments this adds up. Dialysis runs three times a week, radiotherapy often on almost every working day, and the first session of the morning starts early. The first RE 70 that stops in Brokstedt at all is usually too late for it, and the good half kilometre from the platform in Osterfeld to your own front door is not a walk any more after treatment. A series is booked with us once. After that every single journey stands in the plan, out and back, and where it can be arranged the same driver comes each time.

The basis for all of it is the prescription for patient transport, the form known as Muster 4, which you are given at the practice or at the clinic. For outpatient treatment the approval of your insurer is usually needed as well. The journey counts as approved when, among other cases, a severely disabled person pass carries the mark aG, Bl or H, or when Pflegegrad 4 or 5 has been established. Pflegegrad is the German care level, running from one to five, with five the highest. At Pflegegrad 3 it applies when mobility is permanently impaired. For members of the statutory health insurance a statutory co payment per journey normally remains, and anyone who is exempt from it pays nothing on top. Please settle that with the practice or the insurer before the first journey, then there is no discussion about it afterwards. And because Brokstedt lies outside the Pflichtfahrgebiet, the compulsory service area inside which the official city tariff table applies, the price for this route stands before the first journey and holds for the whole series. On request we collect the journeys and invoice them once a month.

Celebrations, clubs and the village calendar

Whoever celebrates in Brokstedt usually celebrates in Dörnbek. The Bürgerstuben has a hall for up to three hundred people, along with club and seminar rooms, a summer terrace, a German nine pin bowling lane, guest rooms and a holiday flat. Weddings, confirmations, round birthdays and club anniversaries all happen there. A few steps further stands the Bürgerhaus, where the municipality holds its residents meetings and where festivities such as the Oktoberfest take place.

Club life is extensive for a place of this size. The TSV Brokstedt, the sports club, turns a hundred years old in 2026 and, besides the sport itself, puts on the Deerns Markt, a hundred kilometre run and tournaments on the tennis courts. The DLRG, the German lifesaving association, looks after the open air pool. The volunteer fire brigade invites the village to its Feuerwehrball. The local branch of the German Red Cross organises the blood donation sessions. Beyond those there are the Landfrauen, the countrywomen association, the scouts, an angling club, the Singfonie choir and a theatre group. Miteinander Leben, shortened in the village to MiLe, brings cabaret, readings, concerts and, in summer, a whole run of evenings under the open sky.

Spread across the year it looks roughly like this. Boßeln, a road bowling game played in the north German winter, and the Feuerwehrball in late winter. The Easter fire on the sports ground. The asparagus dinner in May. Bathing days and the Piratennacht at the height of summer. A street flea market and the Dörferfest in late summer. In autumn a duck race, the parts market of the MSC and the Augenweide craft market. After that the lantern walk, the Adventsvergnügen, Singen unterm Stern and the Advent concert in the church. The exact dates move from one year to the next, the calendar kept by the municipality is the authority on them, and what stands here is a snapshot.

For us all of that means one thing above everything else. On evenings like these the guests come from outside, and when the evening ends, nothing runs. Tell us when you book roughly when it will finish and how many people want to go back, and a Großraumtaxi, which is a large van taxi seating up to eight passengers, or several cars at once will be at the door in Dörnbek at that time. Anyone going back to Neumünster, Kellinghusen or Bad Bramstedt has already seen the price before the outward journey and does not have to work anything out at the end of the night.

A fixed price instead of the Taxameter

German taxi law divides the country into compulsory service areas, and the one belonging to Neumünster reaches past the city boundary, but only as far as Tasdorf, Bönebüttel, Padenstedt, Ehndorf, Wasbek, Großharrie, Rendswühren and Schillsdorf. That area is the Pflichtfahrgebiet, and inside it every fare is worked out by the Taxameter, the calibrated meter fitted in the car, according to the official city tariff. Brokstedt belongs to the Kreis Steinburg and the Amt Kellinghusen and therefore lies outside it. The curious part is that on the route through Ehndorf and Padenstedt we drive through two villages that very much do belong. What counts for the price is that the destination is called Brokstedt, not which way we take to reach it.

Because Brokstedt lies outside, we are allowed to agree a fixed price for the journey in advance, and that is what we do. It stands on the screen before you confirm and it does not move while you are on the road, not even when the L 122 is closed for roadworks and we have to go round by Störkathen. Inside Neumünster this is not possible: there the calibrated Taxameter charges the official city tariff and we would not be permitted to agree a price of our own with you. That is why this page carries a fixed price for Brokstedt while the page about the city tariff carries a table.

As long as no car has set off in the direction of Brokstedt you can cancel free of charge. Payment is cash or card in the car, or online in advance. And if you would rather speak to somebody than type, because the pick up is at a farm in Rotensande or Mittelhof that the booking form does not reliably find, our office answers around the clock on 04321 22200.

Frequently asked questions

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