 | Scientists have quashed a claim by two amateur treasure hunters that they had discovered a legendary gold train hidden by the Nazis in a southern Polish railway embankment. “There is no train,” Prof Janusz Madej of the Polish mining academy told a press conference in the city of Wałbrzych. “The geo-magnetic model anomalies would be far greater if there was a train,” he said. |  |
 | Madej spoke after a team of scientists spent a month surveying a site at the 22-mile (35km) mark on the Wrocław-Wałbrzych railway line identified as the train’s resting place. After the Polish army cleared the railway embankment, the scientists from the mining academy used magnetic field detectors, thermal imaging cameras and radars. |  |
 | Forest workers have cleared trees and shrubs from a site in southwestern Poland under which two explorers claim there is a secret tunnel and a Nazi train, possibly containing armaments and precious minerals. Workers removed vegetation from the indicated site after military experts said it had to be cleared before they could inspect it. They have since allowed excavation to begin.  |   |
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 Treasure hunters claim items were discovered around the site where the gold train is supposedly hidden - including this Nazi Eagle. | Gold fever descended on southwestern Poland ever since a top culture official gave credence to the claim of the two treasure hunters. Locals and foreigners have arrived by the score with metal detectors to comb the forested area of the Owl Mountains in Lower Silesia where authorities said ground-penetrating radar show images of an armored train hidden in a tunnel. |  |
 | The mountainous area around the castle city of Walbrzych was honeycombed with underground rail passages and bunkers during World War II, when it was part of Germany and the Nazis created Project Riese, or Giant, for suspected weapons development and supply depots for the war effort. |  |
 | Poland's Deputy Minister of Culture, Piotr Zuchowski described the find as 'unprecedented', adding: 'We do not know what is inside the train. 'Probably military equipment but also possibly jewellery, works of art and archive documents. 'Armoured trains from this period were used to carry extremely valuable items and this is an armoured train, it is a big clue.' It sparked a frenzy with treasure hunters as far away as Japan descending on the area. |  With a fear that there are still booby-traps in the area left by the Nazis and that people may be tempted to start digging for themselves, authorities closed off the 4km site. |
 The train - which legend says disappeared in 1945 as the Nazis tried to get their stolen treasure to safety - is said to be buried underneath this hill in Poland | It is well-known that the Nazis built a network of railway lines under the mountains. In May 1945 gold and other valuables from the city of Wroclaw were being transported to Walbrzych when they disappeared between the towns of Lubiechow and Swiebodzice. According to legend, the Nazis loaded all the valuables they had looted in Wroclaw - then called Breslau and part of Greater Germany - to escape the advancing Red Army. |   |
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 | The legend of the lost gold train holds the Soviets were about to overrun Breslau and that the train was forced to hole up in one of the Riese tunnels before reaching better secured German territory. Some say there is more than one train, claiming three went into a tunnel one night, never to be seen again. |  |
