Germany €9 ticket

[murphaph]

4 minutes ago, Sven-E said:

Thanks for all the pictures from my original country.

You mention the passport control at the Danish border. This came about during the mass immigration wave a few years ago. There were lots of screams when Sweden and Denmark wanted to introduce passport control and thus violate the Schengen rules. I was actually surprised about the passport control at the Danish border as I thought the passport control was only at the Swedish border. Interestingly there is no check when you go from Sweden to Denmark.

You're welcome Sven. I was quite surprised too because the last time I went to Sweden it was by car routing Berlin-Rostock-(ferry)-Gedser-Copenhagen-(Oresund Bridge)-Malmö and that time there were no passport checks entering Denmark at Gedser ferry port (the police did look at the car and wave us through) but we were stopped and passport checked entering Sweden after the bridge tool booths. I was actually expecting passport checks entering Sweden again on the train but there were none. I also visited Denmark last year also taking the Rostock-Gedser ferry and there were no passport checks then either.

A few more pics from Stockholm on our return via Arlanda. We took the Arlanda express which gets up to 200km/h and has you at the airport in 18 minutes. Non-stop service from Stockholm Central. Not cheap though, 299 SEK for 2 adults.

Stockholm Central:

This looks like a station but it appears to be the carriage valet station just outside Stockholm Central:

A couple more blurry shots taken at speed on the Arlanda Express:

And for completeness a few snaps from my home airport station, Berlin-Brandenburg:

The buffer stops signify the end of the line for the S-Bahn. The regional and intercity tracks run through the station and trains arrive and depart in both directions. I am not sure if the S-Bahn can be extended without additional tunnelling and I don't know if there is anywhere sensible it could go to from here to be honest. 

A locally built 481 unit from AD Tranz (taken over by Bombardier before the units were delivered) bound for Spandau on the other side of the city. We would also pass through Spandau on the way home but on a regional train.

A regional express to Berlin Hbf. We would not board this but wait for a direct RB14 that took us all the way home without changing. Unfortunately at some stage in the coming years our direct airport connection is due to be lost as the Bahn reorganises regional routes in and around Berlin. This train takes half an hour or so to reach its destination and stops twice on the way. Not quite the Arlanda Express but it only costs about a tenth the price

So, that concludes the lesson

[Broithe]

You'll have seen the €49 monthly Deutschlandticket coming shortly?

Get the camera charged up.

We're waiting...

[Georgeconna]

Fab Trips. Beats Athenry.

Off next week and was looking at taking me Dad for a trip from Cork to Galway and back up the WRC, the length of time to do it is nuts.

[DJ Dangerous]

1 hour ago, Broithe said:

You'll have seen the €49 monthly Deutschlandticket coming shortly?

Get the camera charged up.

We're waiting...

 

Who are you talking to?

[Broithe]

1 minute ago, DJ Dangerous said:

 

Who are you talking to?

I assume that she's still making the odd post, to cover up what she did to him...

It's only the pictures we want, anyway...

[spudfan]

Funding deal clears the way for Germany’s €49 monthly ticket | News | Railway Gazette International

[murphaph]

I will not be getting one as I don't need to commute anywhere daily. For the odd time I need to go into Berlin it isn't really worth it for me. Great boost for people who do commute. For comparison a monthly ticket for Berlin ABC which would be something like the short hop zone around Dublin is currently €90 and is only valid locally. The new ticket is valid nationwide on local and regional transport. It'll be good for Brandenburg and other areas surrounding big cities as it will encourage day trips out of Berlin and other cities into the surrounding regions. Only downside is it's subscription only and non-transferable. The current Berlin tickets are available spontaneously or as subscriptions and are transferable, even the cheaper subscription options. But that's a small complaint really given the benefits.

[murphaph]

The long awaited €49 or "Deutschland Ticket" goes live on Monday. As expected it's a subscription model but it can be subscribed to and more importantly cancelled digitally from many of the numerous tariff area apps and websites. If you plan a couple of weeks in Germany then even as a tourist it makes sense to subscribe and cancel before the 10th of the month. I can see myself occasionally buying one if there's a series of trips planned in a month. The clear winners are medium and longer distance commuters though. A person in the next town out from here is no longer in the Berlin ABC zonal area and pays about 1400 a year for their ticket. That will now be a lot less.

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-new-49-monthly-travel-pass-explained/a-65421776

 

 

Edited April 29, 2023 by murphaph

[murphaph]

A couple of impressions from Hungary, which we are currently visiting. We took the sleeper from Berlin to Budapest Nyugati via Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Journey time of just under 14 hours. Still plenty of jointed track in southern Poland which made sleeping a bit difficult. Two long shunting stops in Bohumin and Breclav allowed for some more solid sleep. We departed Berlin in a train made up of Hungarian, Austrian and Polish coaches and arrived in Budapest with the Hungarian, Czech and different Polish coaches (ones which came from Warsaw and joined our train in Bohumin). Allegedly this route is the most complicated sleeper route in the world with all the cities served.

This is Nyugati (west) station. From here we took a taxi to the grim Deli (south) station and from there took an ex German built rake of interregional coaches to lake Balaton which took roughly two hours. The stretch along the lake's western shore is single track so there was some waiting for oncoming trains to pass...

The Danube was also in flood following all the recent heavy rains further upstream:

[Gabhal Luimnigh]

Looks fascinating, enjoy.

[leslie10646]

On 29/4/2023 at 9:13 AM, murphaph said:

The long awaited €49 or "Deutschland Ticket" goes live on Monday. As expected it's a subscription model but it can be subscribed to and more importantly cancelled digitally from many of the numerous tariff area apps and websites. If you plan a couple of weeks in Germany then even as a tourist it makes sense to subscribe and cancel before the 10th of the month. I can see myself occasionally buying one if there's a series of trips planned in a month. The clear winners are medium and longer distance commuters though. A person in the next town out from here is no longer in the Berlin ABC zonal area and pays about 1400 a year for their ticket. That will now be a lot less.

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-new-49-monthly-travel-pass-explained/a-65421776

 

 

Hi Murph. As I made my way through Germany on my First Class Innterrail Pass, the trains didn't seem too full, but in places DB simply don't provide enough stock. A single unit in the Black Forest area had about double the number of passengers to seats and trains by Lake Constanz were also jammed. Meanwhile, the Uk has been cutting up perfectly good EMUS!

Enjoy Hungary - how's your Hungarian - a unique langauge!

[murphaph]

I have about a dozen words Leslie. My wife can speak it well enough though so she does all the talking

[leslie10646]

6 minutes ago, murphaph said:

I have about a dozen words Leslie. My wife can speak it well enough though so she does all the talking

It would have been handy to have known her in 1973 (my first visit) and 1975 when I ended up under house arrest - it's a long story .....

I hope that you enjoyed your Ham and Eggs this morning for breakfast - sensible people the Hungarians - know what a decent breakfast should be.

[murphaph]

Couple more snaps taken today:

 

[murphaph]

And a few more from Zalabér-Batyk Station kind of in the middle of nowhere but my wife's Hungarian side of the family are from this area so we occasionally visit. I usually drop down to see if anything is doing. Until 2007 this was a branch station providing interchange to the 6km short branch to the south east, which was closed due to austerity measures. Allegedly it will be reopened some day. For a pretty dead station in the middle of nowhere you can still get to both Budapest and Ljubljana direct from here, but most trains are local or regional. Freight trains often stop here to let passenger ones pass. There's an abandoned loading ramp which looks like it may have seen beet tipped from it at some stage! The parking area is clearly made of recycled sleepers laid face down to create a flat surface. 

And a few from a much more tourist oriented Balatonarács, taken in the evening sun...

 

 

[murphaph]

A couple of short videos from the above two locations...

 

[murphaph]

Headed down to the local railway restoration society in Ketzin an der Havel tody for their open day. Lots of badly vandalised coaches and wagons awaiting restoration. A local private (predominantly freight) railway HVLE loaned a Traxx P160 DE + driver for cab rides for the whole day, which was quite a gesture as these locomotives can generate significant income in that time.

The former station at Ketzin lost its passenger service in 1966 already, though freight (primarily sugar beet on its way to the factory in the town) continued to use the tracks intil 1997. Interestingly beet trains still occasionally stable here as it provides a rare bit of "parking space" in the area. The branch is still connected and most of it still belongs to DB (previously DR), only the last couple of km belongs to the restoration society.

Here a couple of snaps.

 

 

 

 

[leslie10646]

On 12/8/2023 at 8:01 AM, murphaph said:

A couple of short videos from the above two locations...

I've got one of those in a box upstairs! Never run, needless to say!

 

 

[murphaph]

Not exactly rail related but there are a few models in this post. Yesterday I visited the shipbuilding museum at Monfalcone near Trieste in Italy. This is the site of one of Fincantieri's largest yards and one that specialises in building some of the largest passenger ships in the world. The site has a deep industrial history and includes the manufacture of aircraft and later UAVs. I include a handful of the pictures I took here:

 

 

 

[murphaph]

So strictly speaking this is a rail based vehicle and not just any rail based vehicle, but the second heaviest movable work machine in the world, weighing in at a massive 13.5 k tonnes and the largest (by dimensions) vehicle of any kind ever built, with a length of over half a kilometre. I was blown away by the scale of it. This one is preserved and will likely be the only one of its kind that will be preserved. There is no call for multiple examples of these machines all within a fairly small radius of each other. This one was in fact supposed to be detonated and scrapped, but thankfully some local enthusiasts intervened and were able to save it. 

The purpose of the machine is to remove what is called the overburden (a word I learned today) which is the soil covering and preventing access to a natural resource such as (as in thic case) a coal seam. It is not used to mine the actual coal! 

This example was the youngest, being built around the time of the collapse of the GDR. It was only in service for about one year, before being retired. The coal mine it operated in produced fairly low grade lignite that was used solely for the production of briquettes and coke for the local steel industry. Both of these customer bases dried up almost immediately after the fall of the wall. Nobody wanted briquette fires when gas and oil heating became readily available. The steel plants closed along with so many others.

We took the guided tour and walked around a mile from the start to the end! We entered the beast at the excavator end and walked all the way to the highest point at the tipping end. The soil was released from a sufficient height to ensure it self compacted on impact and could support the weight of the machine when it came time to slew the tracks over and excavate a new part of the mine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overburden_Conveyor_Bridge_F60

All pics taken today in glorious autumn sunshine

Excavator end. The large drum on the left used to transport the main power cable. The machine is entirely electric with over 700 wheels.

View out towards the tipping end. Spoil was released from the arms left and right. The larger yellow box slung under the conveyor was the control room.

The tipping end. In the foreground the workshops, canteen etc. which was also rail borne and followed the conveyor as it moved.

The excavator end. Note the two excavators were removed and are working in other mines to this day. The excavators fed the conveyors reaching down from the bridge on these huge arms. The spoil was carried up to the main bridge deck and across the open cast pit, to be deposited by the tipping end.

Drawing of the behemoth. The excavators (Bagger) are shown in the lower drawing.

It's pretty high even at the excavator end! The walkways were adapted before tourists could access the machine. The miners did not have the luxury of almost solid decking. They had to look down through a metal grid. They also had simple handrails, without the extra plating. The yellow structure slung under the bridge and nearest to the camera is the computer! This thing was ultra modern in 1990 (for GDR standards anyway) but it still took a room to contain a fraction of the computing power we carry around in our pockets these days).

View from the highest point at the tipping end. A good 74m above the ground. Above the open cast pit the height was actually higher but falling from any part of this machine would not have ended well!

A picture of an F60 in operation with teh 2x Es 3750 excavators showing how it operated. In the open cast pit itself the coal was excavated with a separate machine, the SRs 1301 and the coal was transported out lengthways along the seam along a conveyor belt (Kohlebandanlage).

View along the main axis towards the tipping end.At this point we descended the stairs and then continued towards the highest point along the right hand catwalk, returing on the catwalk on the left.

 

Another view from the top. The lake began forming as soon as the pumps keeping the groundwater out were switched off in 1992. It took 10 years for the water to reach its current level.  The area is now being developed for tourism.

A panoramic view of the machine, which involved a long walk and setting my camera to panorama! No chance of taking a normal picture from within the site.

The track slewing machine. The sleepers are hollow steel type, lighter than wood, which enabled this machine to pick them up and slew them over by 60cm.

 

Close up of the "slweing head". It could be moved left ir right, depending on which way the main machine needed to go.

 

Sketch of the track slewing machine. 

 

Locomotive used on site. Not exactly sure what role this had. The guide had left at this point so I couldn't ask unfortunately.

 

 

 

[Broithe]

Have IRM scanned it?

Is there a programme for production of the model yet?

[Fowler4f]

19 hours ago, Broithe said:

Have IRM scanned it?

Is there a programme for production of the model yet?

Tony Beets on Gold Rush would have one and the real size one as well.