Germany €9 ticket

[murphaph]

Off to the Harz mountains again today. Currently on board the Regional Express (RE) 10 from Magdeburg to Sangerhausen, where I have a very tight connection to the RE 9 to Nordhausen. I am effectively traveling around the mountains to the east to travel through them from the south to the north. I have resigned myself to not making the steam hauled train I want so if I catch it it's a bonus.

Couple of snaps from Magdeburg Hbf:

Staßfurt:

Abandoned platform with its GDR era lighting at Sandersleben:

 

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by murphaph

[Georgeconna]

Enjoy Philiip, Keep the photos coming!

[murphaph]

Thanks George. Today I had a series of very tight connections but miraculously made them all and got to travel south to north steam hauled through the mountains. Worth getting up early for. I will add pictures and some video later from home. Back on mainline rail on the way home via Berlin now. 

[murphaph]

 

 

 

So as promised a few videos from today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[murphaph]

And a couple of the more interesting pics:

Nordhausen. The ramp used to transfer wagons from standard gauge to and from the narrow gauge dollies:

Hybrid diesel electric tram sharing the HSB alignment:

Climbing towards Eisfelder Talmühle:

(yes, that's a Welsh flag)

Up on the plateau:

Elend station:

Drei Annen Hohne where all three crossing locos take on water:

Departing for Wernigerode behind 99 236:

 

 

[leslie10646]

Great stuff, Phil.

The Harz really is "Something Else". I first did it (bar The Brocken, of course) in 1988 when it was in East Germany.

Isn't Drei Annen Hohne the place to be? - not sure if anywhere else in the World where in 2022 you'd get THREE steam locos on timetabled trains together!

Surely the steam isn't included in the €9 ticket?

[murphaph]

Hi Leslie,

All the steam I took is included in the €9 ticket. The section from Drei Annen Hohne to the summit of the Brocken is the only part of the network not included.

I was actually thinking the same myself today. I'd be surprised if three scheduled narrow gauge steam services meet anywhere in the world like that. Possibly any gauge. 

[Georgeconna]

Unreal, Those Tanks engines are animals for sure! Lucky lad and what a day to do it. Slowly sinking over here.

Thanks for taking the time to upload those.

[connollystn]

@murphaph - Thanks for uploading the videos and additional pictures. It was great to see the Blue Tiger locomotive, it has to be one of the nicest looking diesels ever. Can't recall ever seeing it in the DB AG livery.

[murphaph]

40 minutes ago, connollystn said:

@murphaph - Thanks for uploading the videos and additional pictures. It was great to see the Blue Tiger locomotive, it has to be one of the nicest looking diesels ever. Can't recall ever seeing it in the DB AG livery.

Hmmm, it seems like these things are pretty rare in Europe. I never really took any interest in them tbh. There are only 11 in Germany. The rest are in Pakistan and Malaysia according to Wikipedia.

I assumed they were more common than that, probably because the HVLE is my "local" private railway and they own 9 of those 11 and the other 2 belong to ITL which is based in Dresden, which isn't a million miles away and I have seen at least one ITL example around here too. I will be more attentive in future and if I see one I'll take a snap or two.

DB doesn't own any and never has, though the German wiki says the Autozug (Motorail) was pulled by one for a few days several years ago.

[connollystn]

@murphaph - Thanks for that information. I sort of guessed that the Blue Tiger was a rarity and didn't realise so few were constructed. Was tempted to buy a model by Mehano but I've a preference for shorter locomotives, lets say,  in the region of 230mm or less due in part that I operate my trains on a single oval track with radius 2 curves. Anyway, if at all possible, keep posting pictures and videos of German railways - you might need to open a separate thread in the Continental Railway forum. Again, thanks very much for posting all of those pictures - sure I'm not the only one on here who appreciates them.

[murphaph]

Nice to get the feedback so I know I'm not just spamming the forum with irrelevant content connolly. Much appreciated.

My next "target", probably next week is likely to be the Zittauerschmalspurbahn or Zittau Narrow Gauge Railway. Zittau is located in the Free State of Saxony, right in the corner where Germany, Czechia and Poland meet:

https://g.page/zittauer-schmalspurbahn?share

Germany to the north, Czechia to the west and south and Poland to the east. The railway heads south from Zittau, departing from the narrow gauge station adjoining the standard gauge mainline rail one. The line continues to Bertsdorf where it branches in two. Both lines continue south into neighbouring parallel valleys and terminate at the spa resort towns of Jonsdorf and Oybin. During the week trains to Oybin are through running with a change at Bertsdorf required to head to Jonsdorf. Interestingly however they run trains between the two branch line termini, via Bertsdorf without the need to change. The route takes about an hour in each direction from Zittau to either terminus, so I can cover the whole network behind various traction (diesel and steam operate, the steam trains hauling DR stock) and still be home at a reasonable hour. I will again depart from my local station at 5.40 and reach Zittau at 9.56. If the RE2 is running through Berlin again (it currently only runs to Charlottenburg in western Berlin) then it's a fairly pleasant journey with just a short hop two stations and then the RE2 all the way to Cottbus (the RE2 is one of Germany's longest regional expresses) and just one more RB (Regiobahn, or regional train), the RB65 to Zittau.

https://www.zittauer-schmalspurbahn.de/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zittau–Oybin/Jonsdorf_railway

There is a "hefty" €5 surcharge for a day's use of the network for holders of a €9 ticket. I think I can manage that lol. Normally a day ticket is €17, which isn't bad either in fairness but the €9 ticket means I can get there and back for nothing.

[Broithe]

5 minutes ago, murphaph said:

There is a "hefty" €5 surcharge for a day's use of the network for holders of a €9 ticket. I think I can manage that lol. Normally a day ticket is €17, which isn't bad either in fairness but the €9 ticket means I can get there and back for nothing.

Nothing - and a whole €3 change left, to spend on yourself.

[Bob229]

Thanks for great photos and videos, the glorious sound of a steam train

[murphaph]

So yesterday I took another spin to another narrow gauge steam system. This time the aforementioned Zittauerschmalspurbahn.

Unfortunately there are still works restricting the capacity on the Berliner Stadtbahn (our 100 year old version of Crossrail that runs east-west right through the heart of the city, except all on a viaduct or otherwise elevated above street level:

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

The works mean my local regional train, the RB14 terminates at Charlottenburg but this trip involved traversing the city so I waited briefly for an RE1 (they have priority and can still use the Stadtbahn it seems) and took this to Ostkreuz (eastern cross, where the Stadtbahn intersects with the Ringbahn, or circle line). From here I took an RE2 to Cottbus in the far south east of the state of Brandenburg. There the connection was delayed but connecting trains waited and I had a cross platform transfer to the RB65 to my final destination on the mainline network, Zittau in the far south east of the state of Saxony. Unfortunately there are track upgrade works so at the moment the middle-of-nowhere station of Hagenwerder is the terminus. From there a seamless rail replacement service took us by bus to Zittau Hbf. In the end the rail replacement service added a nice bit of interest and my phone welcomed me to Poland and back to Germany the whole way along the route as the border parallels the road. 

From Zittau I took the narrow gauge direct to Oybin, then straight back to Zittau, then to the Junction station at Bertsdorf, where I changed trains and headed to Jonsdorf, from where I took the train back to Bertsdorf, changed again and headed back down to Zittau to catch my bus and head home the way I came. I made a stop in Berlin Hbf as it turns out and took the RB10 home instead of the RB14 as the timing was better. A couple of pics of Berlin Hbf are therefore included for completeness. It's basically a large shopping centre with a railway station inside it really.

Ok, so on to the pics...

Arriving into Lübben, which is the first station in the bilingual Spreewald district. The other language here is the minority Sorbian, a slavic language, which is strongly protected by the German state following the persecution of Sorbian speakers under the Nazi regime. I can thoroughly recommend a visit to the Spreewald. It has a real primordial feel to it. The area is known for its canals and features Germany's only canal boat postal delivery service. The little punt is also Germany's smallest Postbank outlet and sells stamps and other postal services to customers:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postkahn (sorry German only)

All change at Cottbus, where a track measuring train sits idle in the yard:

DMU traction now all the way to the end destination. Next point of interest is the border station of Görlitz. Presumably they needed many more platforms at one stage to perform customs checks on trains arriving from Poland. Now abandoned:

My temporary rail terminus on the mainline system for today, Hagenwerder, where we changed over to a bus replacement that was waiting for us:

And now a few images from Zittau itself, including what appears to be an old ballast wagon:

Loco running around in the bus station in Zittau:

Arriving Zittau Vorstadt:

The junction station of Bertsdorf now:

The terminus at Oybin:

And now the other terminus at Jonsdorf and some snaps along the way back to the junction at Bertsdorf. Note the signal cabin is located slap bang in the middle of the junction, controlling it by way of semaphore signals still:

And for the sake of completeness a couple of snaps of Berlin including Hbf as I did pass through here too. The station is two level (excluding the U5 U-Bahn and under construction underground S21 S-Bahn), with 8 low level platforms running north-south and a further 6 high level platforms (4 for IC & regional, 2 for S-Bahn) running east-west, connected by the world's slowest lifts (pro tip, unless you have really awkward luggage, take three escalators rather than waiting for a lift). The station is (in)famous for its huge glazed roof being too short. The contract was poorly defined and the contractor was forced to end the works prematurely so the station could open without scaffolding for the 2006 world cup. The roof contractor sued and won his case and he has a legal right to come back and finish the station roof to its full length (presumably when times are hard again in the building trade!). The low level platforms taken from an intermediate level:

The east-west tracks are supported by those columns. The bridge in the very top of the foreground is carrying the S-Bahn tracks left to right:

CD operated Eurocity train from Prague to Hamburg departing from the same platform my RB10 will depart from shortly. Loco appears to be leased from a German owner however:

A Talgo "Bumblebee" (Hummel) shunter at Bhf Warschauer Straße (Warsaw Road Station). This depot did at one stage service Talgo coaching stock but I haven't seen any here in a while:

Videos of the steam part will be uploaded to YouTube and linked in a subsequent post

Edit. The editor decided to insert these images without me clicking "insert". I don't know if that's expected behavior but anyway I'll just leave them. One of them I actually forgot to add so I'll comment that as it's rare....

A diamond crossing of an unusual type. The track we are crossing over is standard gauge mainline rail belonging to the Deutsche Bahn. This requires communication between our conductor and the DB signaller, which is what is happening in the pic below where he is standing at that yellow DB post on the little halt immediately before this diamond:

This viaduct carries the mainline rail we are about to cross over. Strange arrangement:

Edited July 5, 2022 by murphaph

[DB JOE]

Wonderful!!  Looks like you had the weather for it too!!!!

 

[murphaph]

Yeah Joe it was another hot one. 32 degrees in Zittau yesterday mid afternoon.

So a few videos have been uploaded:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Georgeconna]

man alive a 2-10-2. Just subscribed there now so I will watch the vids with me dinner. Thanks for sharing what looked to be  wonderful day out!

[Bob229]

Many thanks for the photos and commentary plenty of preserved lines for Steam loco great day trip and sunny weather,   was in Berlin Hbf fine station on different levels no shortage of shops and restaurants 

[murphaph]

So not a €9 ticket but not far off...

My wife decided to surprise me today on our anniversary with a mystery tour. Until getting to the platform in Berlin Hauptbahnhof I wasn't sure where we were going. I suspected a night train given the time of departure. I am now on the Swedish private railway Snälltåget night train from Berlin to Stockholm, which is our destination. Arrival time tomorrow afternoon at 14.15. Next stop Hamburg Central at midnight then 6 hours through the night to Copenhagen, crossing the high level bridge over the Kiel Canal and the Great Belt Tunnel/Bridge to get us from Jutland to Zealand. After Copenhagen I get to use the lower deck of the Øresund Bridge for the first time before stopping in Malmö and then it's 8 hours up through Sweden to Stockholm. The loco hauling us is owned by a local to me (Potsdam) based private operator called WFL. Loco is an old GDR electric, class 112 in today's money. I think they were originally class 243, built just outside Berlin in the LEW Hennigsdorf. I expect a loco change at the Danish border.

[Broithe]

26 minutes ago, murphaph said:

 

That sign reminds of driving a van back from Prague on my own, after a friend had moved there. A day of driving a RHD van on the wrong side of the road, with no rear windows, plus all the associated dealings in Czech, German and French, had my head still spinning when I came down for breakfast the next morning in Dunkirk, before heading for the tunnel.

Getting access to the breakfast required me to state my room number.

It was 229.

I told the poor woman that it was "dva, zwei, neuf" - and she didn't bat an eyelid.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Broithe

[murphaph]

Passing through Hamburg Hbf now, Germany's busiest station with well over half a million passengers a day. On to Denmark now.

 

[murphaph]

An interesting night. Approximately two hours after leaving Hamburg we arrived at Padborg just over the Danish border where at 2am we were awoken by Danish police checking passports. So much for Schengen. This stop is not a scheduled so no passengers boarded or alighted. The German loco belonging to WFL was uncoupled here and returned light engine to Germany it seemed. The new loco that would take us through Denmark was from Hectorail.

We departed roughly one hour after arriving here. This is not an express service by any means but two adults in poverty class (in fairness clean and comfortable and you were left alone to get some sleep) cost €80 from Berlin to Stockholm.

Padborg at 2am:

 

[murphaph]

We then set off into Denmark, across the Great Belt bridge around 5am and made a single scheduled stop on the outskirts of Copenhagen at Høje Taastrup at 6.30 or so. I didn't take any pictures here. Then on to the Øresund Bridge and my first time crossing it by rail and then into Malmö Central (where I am writing this from). Our train has lost a couple of the sleeper coaches now and we have been shunted in the remaining coaches from our arrival platform P7 over to P5 and coupled up to the longer "day train" from here to Stockholm which was shunted into the platform shortly after our arrival.

The layover here is a mammoth 2 hours. Plenty of time to stretch one's legs and grab a coffee for €6. The sun is just rising now. Here some impressions of Malmö:

Our departure platform showing our wagon 216 now in the middle of the train. It was behind the loco so far:

Shunting the day train into P5:

Our train standing at P7 still:

An SJ Express service to Stockholm awaits its departure time at P8:

As Malmö is a terminus station (not actually true since Øresund Bridge was opened and a tunnel for the S-Tog was built) our seats will now face forwards for the remainder of the journey, which is nice as there's actually something to see outside being daylight now. We've been traveling backwards since Berlin but in the darkness and while you're catching 40 winks you don't notice it really. Onwards....

[murphaph]

A couple of final snaps from Malmö Central before we depart (the section descending down under my feet is the tunnel approach facing towards the Øresund. The bridge has effectively created a large metropolitan area out of Copenhagen and Malmö, with people commuting to work in the other country being quite normal these days. Our train stands assembled and waiting for a green signal:

 

 

 

[Bob229]

Thanks for photos, enjoy the tour,  

[murphaph]

My wife fooled me. Stockholm wasn't the final destination at all. We're now on a cruise ferry to Helsinki so I might see a bit of Russian broad gauge too! A few snaps from along the trip up from Malmö and of Stockholm Central:

[Broithe]

Mmm, have you actually seen the tickets?

Has she definitely got a return for you..?

[murphaph]

48 minutes ago, Broithe said:

Mmm, have you actually seen the tickets?

Has she definitely got a return for you..?

Lol now that you mention it.....

[Broithe]

Mmm, someone has posted elsewhere using his log-in...

 

I suspect she's shoved him over the Russian border and is now back home, enjoying the peace and quiet.

[DJ Dangerous]

Very Canarian looking skylines in the last few photos...

And that grey unit reminds me of the old orange-ish TGV's from the early nineties!

[murphaph]

A few impressions of Helsinki and the Finnish 5' gauge that is now a political issue thanks to Russia.

Central Station:

A typical metro station entrance but I assume the triangle symbol has the same meaning as in some other places....civil defence shelter. I bet the Finns have kept theirs in working order unlike in Germany:

The last one was our ship, the Silja Symphony. She was the third vessel to reach the location of the sinking of the Estonia on that fateful night.

[Broithe]

Excellent!

All is not lost.

She has remembered to confiscate his camera before sending off to the Gulag.

Phew...

[murphaph]

FYI from now on his, I mean my posts on railway topics may raise a few eyebrows....even more than before that is. 

[Sven-E]

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.