Our second trip in the spring of 2005 follows on naturally from the first—and had originally been intended to follow on chronologically, as well. As it happened, there was a two-week gap between our departure from Vienna at the end of the Austrian trip and our return to Vienna for three more full days prior to the beginning of the Eastern Europe trip in Budapest on June 7th. The exigencies of staggered travel arrangements meant that we spent this time at home in Tehachapi, with the concomitant requirement for two transatlantic flights as well.
So, on Wednesday June 1st, we leave our house just before 1 pm to drive down to Max Bohlmann’s house in Granada Hills, and thence to the Van Nuys Flyaway, whence we catch the 3 pm bus to LAX while Max takes our car back to a parking space at his house for the duration. Our thanks go to Max for his kindness in this regard.
We’re thus at LAX by 4 pm, for a 6:55 pm flight. Checking-in, having the bags x-rayed, and passing through security went without a hitch. At the currency exchange, we can get only two of our desired currencies (fortunately including Euros for the first part of the trip), and will have to get the rest later. By a little after 4:30 pm, we’re sitting at what later proves to be the wrong gate (due to a late gate change), and by 6:45 pm we’re on the aircraft awaiting departure. This occurs about 25 minutes late, presaging similarly late arrival in Frankfurt on Thursday.
Our 3 pm arrival is followed by a quick passage through immigration and a longer wait for the checked bags. With the latter in hand, we take the hotel’s shuttle bus over to our hotel for the night, adjacent to the south side of the airport, getting to the room by 4:15 pm, and then with several hours of daylight remaining decide to go into the center of Frankfurt for the late afternoon and early evening.
Frankfurt airport has two railway stations: a regional one for local trains, and a long distance one for trains heading all over western Europe. Today’s short trip starts from the regional one, but first we have our German railpasses validated (and discover that we can’t have our Eastern Europe railpasses validated until we reach Austria on Friday). We also acquire the additional currencies we will need for this trip, before proceeding down one more level to the regional station platform for trains into Frankfurt.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-2-2005 |
DB |
1723 |
Airport-Hauptbahnhof |
Local EMU |
N/A |
|
6-2-2005 |
DB |
1926 |
Hauptbahnhof-Airport |
ICE1 |
Class 401 |
The regional station at Frankfurt Airport has three platforms of which number 1 serves trains into Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. The travel time on the regional train is 11 minutes. The line soon comes out of the tunnel, heading northeast, and crosses over the tracks coming east from the Airport’s long-distance station. The two pairs of tracks then come together to form a four-track main line. The line from Mainz (Bischofsheim), off which the airport line is a loop, trails in from the west. There are crossovers among the four tracks west of an area where a new road underpass is apparently being constructed. This is just west of Frankfurt Sportfeld, where more tracks join from the southwest—a line from Worms. A line east bypassing the center of Frankfurt continues ahead as the main line curves northwest. Another track appears on the south side at a higher level—the east to north leg of a wye from the bypass line—eventually descending to join the formation, which then passes through Frankfurt Niederrad..
The line turns east, joining the S-bahn line from the west as the main line from Mainz crosses overhead and then descends to join the formation, which passes under a north-south railway bridge crossing overhead. More tracks curve in from the south (and, it transpires, east) on the west bank of the River Main, having diverged from the route of the line over that bridge. The extended set of tracks crosses the river on a through truss bridge (or set of bridges). There is a carriage yard on the south side of the line, and a flyover carries main line tracks across the suburban tracks and the carriage sidings. There are more carriage sidings on the north side of the line. There is a locomotive depot on the south side, closer to the Hbf than are the carriage sidings. A ramp down from the flyover leads to a tunnel mouth for the S-bahn trains whose station is below the ground-level main railway station.
Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof has twenty-four main tracks served by eleven two-sided and two outer single-sided platforms. The overall roof comprises three large center barrels and two smaller outer barrels, all facing due west. Most of the long-distance services use the platforms towards the south side of the station, with regional and suburban services towards the north. Since the tracks in the line heading west are arranged the other way around, this explains the need for the flyover carrying long-distance trains over the regional tracks. Long-distance trains from the south and east are already on the south side of the formation. There is a multi-storey signal control tower in art deco style beyond the end of the long-distance platforms, but alongside the ends of the two longest regional platforms. There is a large circulating concourse on the east end of the stub platforms, with concessions in booths out in the concourse and along the east wall, and the railway offices beyond to the east. Four S-bahn platforms are down below, and are accessed by stairways and escalators from the main concourse. The east front of the station is in neo-gothic style, and faces onto a square containing a major tramway station as well as a heavily-trafficked road. The modern center of Frankfurt is about half a mile away to the east.
There are two private railways operating out of Frankfurt Hbf. Locomotives with Luxemburg in big letters on the side are DB locomotives with the correct dual-power capability for operating into Luxemburg.
Arriving in Frankfurt, we spend some time out at the end of first one platform and then a longer one, taking a sufficient number of photographs to capture the flavor of a rush-hour’s traffic at this major station. We spend some time conversing with a German business man who is also taking photographs of the trains while waiting for his ICE back to Düsseldorf. We also confirm our ability to have the second set of railpasses validated on the train when it crosses the Austrian border, step outside the station to see the exterior façade and observe a few of Frankfurt’s trams, and then buy Bratwurst on buns for the dinner we eat on the long-distance train heading back to the Airport’s long-distance station.
The line to the long-distance station at Frankfurt Airport dips down to pass under the tracks heading to the regional station, then rise up into daylight again on the opposite side of the autobahn from the airport terminals. The station has two platforms serving four tracks inside an artistically-styled totally-glazed overall roof. Two levels of escalators rise to the level of a walkway across the autobahn, in which there are check-in desks for the airport. At the far end of that walkway, escalators head down into the Lufthansa terminal.
Arriving at the latter, we walk back to the hotel shuttle’s pickup point, return to the hotel, and go to bed.
As our train to Vienna does not depart until almost noon, we get up just in time to partake of the included breakfast in the hotel, and then take the shuttle bus back to the airport, where we walk to the long distance railway station with our luggage. I try to buy a DB timetable, but since the next timetable starts on June 12th and the hardcopies haven’t been received yet, I’m given a CD-ROM copy of the current timetable (no charge) instead.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-3-2005 |
DB/ÖBB (ICE 29) |
1201 |
Frankfurt A/P Vienna W. |
ICE1 |
Class 401 |
I can’t find our reservations for this train (it transpires that they’re stapled behind the ones for the Berlin to Frankfurt train for June 20th), so we board without them and are able to find available adjacent seats from Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof onwards. Trying to take photographs of sites I had noticed the night before, I discover that the battery in my camera has discharged. Swapping batteries allows me to take some photos during the day, but before arrival in Vienna the second battery is discharged as well. In Vienna, both batteries charge exceedingly slowly, so we buy a new once and that seems to cure the problem. At home, I discover that none of the photos taken on Thursday or Friday were properly exposed, and many were out of focus as well, but the full inspection and manipulation that I gave the unpowered camera in Vienna seems to have cured that for the remainder of the trip.
Leaving Frankfurt Hbf, the line to the east crosses the river and then turns through a counter-clockwise semi-circle to head towards the east. Halfway around this semi-circle, tracks depart for the south (Darmstadt) on a wye that connects to the line east as well as the line into Frankfurt. The line east passes through Frankfurt Stresemannallee, following which the bypass line from Frankfurt Sportfeld trails in from the southwest. Through an industrial district on the south side of the river and an adjacent barge canal, the line passes through Frankfurt (Main) Süd. An S-bahn line leaves to the northeast, while the main line passes through Offenbach, where a branch departs to the southeast, Mulheim and Steinheim. On the west side of Hanau, the more northerly S-bahn line trails in from the northwest as the line turns southeast.
Hanau has five two-track platforms (three to the north, two to the south) in a ‘vee’ configuration. The line towards Würzburg takes the southerly tracks, while those to the north serve the line to Kassel. East of the station, there are freights yards in the ‘vee’. Southeast of the station, a non-electrified line curves away south and an electrfieid one turns away east and immediately curves around anti-clockwise to head north, passing over the Kassel line on a bridge. The line passes through Grossauheim. A connection south from that line, and from Wolfgang on the Kassell line, trails in from the north. The main line southeast passes through Grosskrot-Zenburg, Kohl, where a branch heads east, Dettingen, Rückerbacher-Schlucht, and Klein Ostheim. There is a wye junction with a line west to Darmstadt as the main line turns east to reach Aschaffenburg, where a non-electrified line curves away to the south.
East of Aschaffenburg, the line passes through Hösbach and Laufach, and then climbs up and over a watershed, curving northeast through Schwarzkopf tunnel west of Heigenbrücken, and then descending southeastward through a mixed pine and deciduous forest on the east side of the watershed. The line turns east through Wiesthal, then north-northeast and east again to Partenstein, where it turns southeast towards Lohr. A non-electrified branch line trails in from the south as the line turns northeast into Lohr. East of Lohr, the line comes alongside the Main-Danube canal. The historic line curves away to the north at the start of the connector onto the north-south high-speed line. The connector line crosses over the main high-speed line during a turn to the south and passes through a series of tunnels before joining that main north-south high-speed line at a grade-separated junction. This line passes south through Rohrbach and runs through woods and fields, and through tunnels and over bridges up above a series of communities along the historic line in the valley below and to the east. Approaching an urban area, the line passes on a high bridge above a river and freight yards on the historic line below, as it curves southeast, and then passes through more tunnels before reaching the main station at Würzburg as the historic line trails in from the west.
Würzburg has at least six platforms serving eleven or twelve tracks, with station buildings on the north/east. At the “east” end of the station, the line curves sharply to the “south”, crossing the river again, and then turns back to the east on the south side of the river as a line to Würzburg Süd and beyond continues directly south. The countryside southeast of Würzburg comprises more fields and deciduous woodland, as the line turns northeast, passes through Rottendorf, takes the right fork and heads southeast at a junction where another line continues northeast, and passes through Dettelbach, and Buckbrunn Mainstockheim before turning south the Kitzingen. At Kitzingen, the line crosses the river/canal again, and turns back southeasterly to pass through Mainbernheim, jogs northeast and then back southeast again before Iphofen, and passes through Markt Einersheim, Markt Bibart, Langenfeld and Neustadt, where non-electrified lines head southwest, west of the station, and northeast, east of the station.
East of Neustadt, the line passes through evergreen forests, and through Emskirchen and Hagenbüchach, turns east-northeast to Puschendorf, and southeast again to Siegelsdorf, where a non-electrified line trails in from the west, Fürth Burgfarrnbach and Fürth Unterfüberg. A line trails in from the north and a non-electrified one from the south, west of Fürth, where the line crosses the river/canal again. After the line passes through Fürth, a freight line to the Nuremberg yard heads south, throwing off a non-electrified branch that turns east and crosses above the main line, which continues southeast, passing through Nuremberg Neusündersbühl and Nuremberg Rothenbergerstrasse.. There is a roundhouse on the north side, west of Nuremberg, then a yard on the same side. There is a flying junction just west of the station, with main lines coming in from the southwest and south, while the station is another large city station with many platforms and tracks. There are carriage sidings and a depot on the south side, east of the station. There is another flying junction east of the station, at which a non-electrified line heads northeast and an electrified one east-northeast while the main line to Passau heads southeast.
There is a large freight yard on the north side of the tracks, followed by Nurembrug Gleisshammer and Nuremberg Dutzendeich. The freight bypass line rejoins from the southwest at a large wye., the line passes through Fischbach and turns south-southeast and then southeast again, through Feucht, where a branch line heads east, Ochenbruck, Mimberg, Burgthann, Oberferrieden, and Pölling. At Neunarktm a closed branch line heads south while the main line curves south and then east. East of Neumarkt, the line runs on a long bridge over woodland, and later enters a long cutting with retaining walls, while passing eastward through Deining and Bitzhausen, southeast through Seubersdorf, east throughParsberg and then southeast again through Mausheim and Bekatzhausen. There’s a tall communications tower in the woods to the south. There are more bridges across deep valleys.
The line passes through a country station at Laaber, and then across another bridge with a village below it, turns south through Deuerling and southeast to Undorf. East of Undorf, there is another cutting with a retaining wall, as the line turns east. Nine kilometers west of Regensburg, a widish river is visible below to the northeast. The line then crosses a wider river into Etterhausen. At Regensburg-Prüfening, a line from Ingolstadt trails in from the south. West of Regensburg, there is a yard on the north side of the line and carriage sidings to the south side of the line. East of the station, a non-electrified line heads north at a wye where the main line turns southeast again. At Regensburg Ost, there is a yard and locomotive sidings on the northeast side of the line.
The line now enters a broad flat valley, with a line of hills in the distance to the northeast, but not to the southwest. Agricultural fields have replaced upland. The line passes through Burgweinting, Obertraubling, where a line heads off to the south, Mangolding, Modsham, Taimering, Sünching, where the line turns east, Radldorf, where a non-electrified line trails in from the south, Straubing, where a non-electrified branch heads east and the line turns southeast, Strasskrichen, and Stephansposching. There are many grain elevators owned by BagWa, west of Plattling, where a line comes in from the southwest. There is a yard on the northeast side west of Plattling. Just east of Plattling, where a non-electrified line heads northeast, the line crosses a river. There is a road bridge high above the valley. The Danube runs along the northeast side of the line.
The line continues southeast, through Langenisarhofen, where the Isar joins the Danube, Osterhofen, Girching, where the line turns east, Pleinting, where it turns back southeast again, Vilshofen, where a non-electrified branch heads south, a closed station at Sandbach, where the line turns east, a closed station at Schalding, where the line turns southeast again, and a junction with non-electrified lines trailing in from both north and south, as the main line turns east. There is a freight yard to the north on the west side of Passau, and loco. sheds on the south side (including a steam locomotive, 2-8-2T 86 501, Henschel, 1942). There is a signal tower on the south side at the west end of Passau station.
West of Passau, the line passes through a tunnel as it turns south, a non-electrified line trails in from the east, and the line crosses over the Danube into Austria. For a distance, the line runs south along the left bank of the Danube, through Pyret, Wernstein, Schärding, and Gopperding, before turning away southeastward to run through farmland, as a non-electrified line continues south. The main line continues through Allerding, where it turns east, Taufkirchen an der Pram, where it turns southeast again, Andorf, GriesbachZell and der Pram, where the line turns south, Riedau, Kumpfmühl, where the line turns east and Kimpling. A non-electrified line trails in from the southwest At Neumarkt-Kallham, the line is running through rolling hills with mixed forest and open meadows. East of the station, a private line with many stations heads east to Linz, while the main line turns south to Obertrattnach-Markt Hofkirchen, where it turns east.
There is a freight yard on the south side approaching Grieskirchen-Gallspach. The line passes through Schlüsslberg, Bad Schallerbach-Wollern, where it turns southeast again, Haiding, where a non-electrified line comes in from the north, and Wels-Puchberg. The junction with the line coming in from Salzburg to the southwest is reached just west of Wels station.
(From Wels to Vienna, the line is the same as that on which we traveled on May 20th, 2005; its Route Description is presented in the Austria 2005 document.)
After traversing a little bit of the high-speed railway line, and passing through such cities as Würzburg and Nuremburg (and following the Main-Danube Canal for a while), we enter the Danube valley. Rounding high-speed curves, it certainly seems as if the train is tilting—is this true? There is a green and yellow multiple-unit labeled “Wald Bahn” in the station at Plattling. We cross the Danube into Austria after the stop at Passau. As predicted, the Austrian conductor validates our new passes without difficulty. There is evidence of new track construction along the line between Passau and Wels—new track and concrete ties; we’re running along the only track with catenary at Riedau. At Wels, our route joins that from Salzburg on which we had left Vienna on May 20th, and the remainder of the route into Vienna’s Westbahnhof is thus familiar.
In Vienna, we use the U-bahn concourse to cross the Gürtel, but not Mariahilferstrasse due to the intrusion of some stairs to the needed exit, and walk to the Hotel on the southeast corner of Europaplatz (the intersection of the Gürtel, and Mariahilferstrasse in this area). We eat dinner outside at a restaurant across the side street from the hotel, while camera batteries charge back in the room.
This is our second visit to Vienna within a three-week period. The comments in this report should be read in conjunction with those in the Austrian trip report from May 17th-20th, 2005. In contrast to the May visit, we never once visited the inner city at or above ground level on the June visit, concentrating instead on those places outside the Ringstrasse that we had not visited in May, such as the musicians’ grove in the cemetery, Schönbrunn Palace, and the Beethoven sites in the hills north of Heiligenstadt, as well as sites of railway interest.
The first buildings at what became Schönbrunn Palace were designed by Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach in the 1690s, and inhabited in a state of partial completeness, as a sumptuous hunting lodge, in 1700. Nikolaus Pacassi transformed this into an imperial summer residence in 1743-49, with additions and decoration continuing until 1767. The park to the rear of the castle was laid out from 1755 onwards, with various buildings and sculptures still being added as late as 1778, with the Gloriette, in particular, being built in 1775 by Johann Ferdinand von Hohenberg. When the palace was built, it was set in a thickly-wooded area, a considerable distance beyond the city’s walls (at today’s Ringstrasse). In the 19th-century, the city had expanded to the point that the emperor could reasonably live at Schönbrunn year around. And today, the palace grounds serve as a useful park in an otherwise urbanized area.
The musicians’ grove at the Zentralfriedhof is on the south (left) side of the driveway heading directly back from the second gate, about halfway to the domed church in the center of the cemetery, set back behind a lawn. There are statues here marking the graves of Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Franz Suppé, Johann Strauss II and Eduard Strauss, and a statue of Mozart whose grave is at an unknown location in the St. Marxx cemetery, a short distance further north.
The buildings for the Technical Museum in Vienna were constructed between 1908 and 1912, with the intent of housing a set of collections following along the lines of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The museum organization was created in 1913, and collections gradually installed over the succeeding years. The partly populated museum was opened in 1918, but collections were still being installed as late as the 1930s. Among these collections in later years (by the mid-1970s) was a collection of railway locomotives, mainly but not exclusively steam, that was still owned and managed by a department of the railways until 1980. This collection was arrayed around a turntable on the rear of the museum, with easy connection to the adjacent Westbahn main line, not far outside the Westbahnhof. By 1990, the buildings were in serious need of restoration and reconstruction, and the decision was taken to close the museum completely from 1992, with all collections being removed.
The railway locomotive and rolling-stock collection was moved to the privately-operated railway museum located in a retired KFN motive power depot on the south side of the main line at Strasshof, northeast of Vienna, known as the Heizhaus, where it remains in 2005. The Technical Museum that reopened in 1999 has explanatory exhibits and models of railway artifacts, but full-size railway artifacts themselves are conspicuous by their absence.
The Heizhaus—the Strasshof Railway Museum—has a large locomotive shed at the east end of the complex, with eight tracks leading into the west face of the building. Locomotives and rolling stock are on display both within the engine shed and on the tracks outside. The latter funnel down to just two tracks heading west through the yard, which also contains a turntable (and the pit left behind by another one), a water tower, watering cranes and ash disposal stations, and a coaling station In the vicinity of these artifacts, there are seven parallel tracks, many of which have locomotives and rolling stock that have not been restored for display purposes, stored on them. At the far east end of the yard, these tracks again funnel down to two, and then just one that provides a connection with the former KFN main line running along the north side of the museum’s grounds. The locomotives in the collection are:
2-4-0T “Licaon”, built in 1851 for the KFNB by the locomotive works of the StEG
0-6-0 29 852, built in 1869 for the Südbahn by StEG
0-4-0T 21, built in 1882 for the Wien-Anspang by Krauss
0-8-0 55.5708, built in 1887 for kkStB by Wiener Neustadt
4-4-0 17c 372, built in 1891 for the Südbahn by Floridsdorf
0-6-2T 97.208, built in 1892 for kkStB by Floridsdorf
0-4-0T 999.105, built in 1894 for the Salzkammergut Lokalbahn by Krauss
0-6-0 32c 1665, built in 1895 for the Südbahn by StEG
2-6-2T 30 33, built in 1897 for the kkStB by Wiener Neustadt
0-6-0T 1851, built in 1898 for the GKB by Krauss
2-6-0 54.14, built in 1899 for kkStB by Wiener Neustadt
0-10-0 180.01, built in 1900 for the kkStB by Floridsdorf
0-4-0T 1.05, built in 1906 for the Nieder Österreichisches Lokalbahn by Krauss
0-8-0T 178.84, built in 1909 for the kkStB by Krauss
0-8-0T 92.2234, built in 1910 for the kkStB by Krauss
2-6-2 15.13, built in 1910 for the kkStB by Wiener Neustadt
2-6-4 310.23, built in 1911 for the kkStB by StEG
0-4-0T 1, built in 1912 for the Lagerhaus Wien by StEG
4-6-0 109.13, built in 1912 for the Südbahn by Wiener Neustadt
2-6-2T 175.817, built in 1912 for the kkStB by BMMF
0-12-0T 197.301, built in 1912 for the kkStB by Floridsdorf
4-6-2T 629.01, built in 1913 for the Südbahn by StEG
2-10-0 580.03, built in 1913 for the Südbahn by StEG
2-6-2 429.1971, built in 1916 for the kkStB by StEG
0-10-0 57.223, built in 1916 for the kkStB by Wiener Neustadt
2-6-2T 229.222, built in 1918 for the kkStB by Wiener Neustadt
2-2-2T 12.02, built in 1918 for the BBÖ by Krauss
2-8-0 156.3423, built in 1920 for the BBÖ by Floridsdorf
0-10-0 257.601, built in 1921 for the Südbahn by StEG
0-10-0 257.605, built in 1921 for the Südbahn by StEG
4-8-0 33.102, built in 1923 for the ÖBB by StEG
2-10-0 58.744, built in 1923 for the ÖBB by Wiener Neustadt
2-8-2T 93.1403, built in 1928 for the BBÖ by StEG
2-8-4 12.10, built in 1936 for the ÖBB by Floridsdorf
2-10-0 52 100, built in 1943 for Deutsche Reichsbahn by Krauss-Maffei
2-10-0 42.2708, built in 1946 for the ÖStB by Floridsdorf
2-10-0 52.7594, built in 1944 for Deutsche Reichsbahn by Floridsdorf
1-C 1060.001, built in 1912 for the kkStB by Floridsdorf
1-C-C-1 13.257, built in 1920 for SBB by Winterthur
1A-B-1A 1570.01, built in 1926 for the BBÖ by Siemens
1-C-C-1 1189.05, built in 1927 for the BBÖ by Floridsdorf
Bo-Bo 1045.14, built in 1928 for the BBÖ by Floridsdorf
Co-Co 1020.038-4, built in 1943 for Deutsche Reichsbahn by AEG
B 130.01, built in 1933 for Deutsche Reichsbahn by Borsig
B 112.06, built in 1934 for Deutsche Reichsbahn by Arnold
B 5159, built in 1944 for Deutsche Reichsbahn by Windhoff
B 2060 004-5, built in 1954 for ÖBB by Jenbacher
By morning, both batteries seem to have charged, and the camera seems to be working correctly (as the pictures from the hotel room window will attest). Nonetheless, the first thing we do this morning, after getting coffee and tea, is find a camera shop to buy a new battery, which we take back to the hotel room to put on to charge.
We then take the U-bahn from the Westbahnhof station out to the southern end of the line at Simmering. In the process of exiting the U-bahn station there and finding the tram stop for the onward journey to the cemetery, Chris finds a pet shop, and just like that we have the needed toy for Chessie on our return home.
The southbound tram stop proves to be across the street and under the railway bridge carrying the erstwhile StEG line east from Simmeringer Hauptstrasse station. We ride two stops to the Zentralfriedhof (central cemetery) second gate, and go in to visit the graves and statues in the musician’s grove, where Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and others are buried, and where there is a statue to Mozart who is buried elsewhere. We then walk through the cemetery in the spring sunshine, passing the large church whose dome we can see from the hotel room window, and exit at the northwest corner, immediately east of the control building for the freight marshaling hump in the northern part of Kledering Yard, which lies just across the street at this point..
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-4-2005 |
ÖBB |
11xx |
Zentralfriedhof-Wien Mitte |
4020 S-bahn |
N/A |
The Zentralfriedhof station on the airport line is an island platform with pedestrian subway entrances from both sides. The double track line heads northwest on the city side of the station, and passes under the east apex of the wye leading from the Ostbahn to Simmeringer Hauptstrasse. There is a station at Simmering Aspangbahn, adjacent to St. Marxx cemetery, as the line curves north and then northwest again. The S-bahn line from the Südbahnhof basement trails in from the southwest, and the line passes through Rennweg station, at the intersection of the eponymous street and Fasangasse. The line is now on a viaduct a couple of floors above the city streets, turning north and then northeast and descending below street level into Wien Mitte, which has two platforms serving four tracks, and is entirely underground. Some of the platforms at the adjacent Landstrasse station (on line U-2) can be seen from Wien Mitte through gaps in the wall separating the two sets of platforms, but all of which, for lines U-2 and U-3, require an exit to street level and a re-entry to reach.
We take an S-bahn S-7 train back into Vienna (at Wien Mitte), and change to the U-bahn (at the adjacent Landstrasse station,) to return to the hotel. Here, we change clothes and, at an appropriate time, take a pair of connecting U-bahn trains on the lines converted from tram subways over to the Stadtpark station, whence we walk to the Konzerthaus. We have tickets for the Vienna Philharmonic’s Vienna Festival concert this afternoon at 3:30 pm, obtained months ago using the hall’s website (all in German) to make this part of the trip possible. We love the interior appearance of the concert hall, but we love its acoustic even more, as heard from our seats in the third row of the balcony, center section.
The VPO, in a Vienna Festival concert conducted by Pierre Boulez as part of the celebrations of his 80th birthday, accompanies Daniel Barenboim in a rare piano playing appearance in the Schönberg Piano Concerto. This is alright, but Danny’s solo encore (a piece we could not identify) is electrifying. Chris says it is “worth the whole trip to Vienna.” The main work is Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, in a performance that is astounding both in the playing and the sound of the orchestra. In fact, every time the brass choirs start up, the sound of the brass instruments comes from the curved corner of the ceiling above the stage, rather than directly, with stunning effect. Pierre Boulez appears to have totally grasped the overall architecture of the symphony and within that overall architecture, lets the music pace itself. The build-up of the layers of sound at the end of the first movement seems particularly good in that regard. Boulez plays the work in a way that showed no added romanticism was needed—it’s all in the score already!
During the concert, steady rainfall has started, limiting any thoughts of a post-concert excursion or outdoor activity when the concert ends at 5:30 pm, so we scurry back to the U-bahn station after the concert and head back to the hotel. The rain continues until about 7:30 pm. We eat at a nearby Chinese restaurant where the food is quite good, and the modern décor abrasive.
In e-mail conversations about the possible availability of material on Austrian railways in English, I had arranged with John Russell, list owner of the Southern E-mail Group (pertaining to the English railway of that name) to meet us for visits to the Technical Museum of Vienna, and then the Heizhaus railway museum in a former railway locomotive depot east of the city in Strasshof. John comes by the hotel room at almost 10 am (after having some difficulty parking his car), and we use his car to get to the two museums, with him dropping us off at a suburban railway station afterwards to avoid him having to cross the city for a second round trip.
First up is the Technical Museum, alongside the line out of the Westbahnhof just a little way west of the hotel. The driving route is somewhat longer than the walking or tram) route would have been), but we get there without difficulty.
The exhibits at Strasshof have replaced the outdoor steam locomotive exhibit that once was here, and all that remains inside are models and educational displays. The bookshop is important, though, yielding a book with English-language text on all the preserved steam locomotives of the Habsburg Empire as well as a current book on ÖBB locomotives, albeit in German (but the technical data are readable). So, after a stop in the café for coffee, we head out for Strasshof.
On the way, we pass through the small town of Deutsch Wagram, seeing the balcony where Napoleon is reputed to have addressed his troops before defeating the Austrians at the battle of Wagram. In the village of Strasshof, 2-10-0 52.7593 (Floridsdorf, 1944) is stuffed-and-mounted along the south side of the road. At the museum, we find that the facility is being used today for the 50th-anniversary celebration of the local choirs. This means that admission is free, but also that some exhibits normally inside the shed are out in the yard for the day, making them perhaps easier to photographs but removing any kind of signage from their vicinity.
A relatively modern-looking 4-6-0 (109.13, built in 1912) is in steam and giving cab rides up and down the yard (for the children of the partygoers). We walk the yard, taking photographs of both static exhibits and the operating locomotive, and then go inside where we photograph the remaining exhibits inside, trying to work around the partygoers as we do so. After patronizing the bookstore, we have lunch and Chris uses John’s camera to take a photograph of him and me in front of a 2-10-0 freight locomotive (42.2708, built in 1946), that John will post on the SEmG website as evidence of a group mini-meet. While we’re here, there is a brief heavy rainshower.
The Strasshof railway station is not immediately evident, so John drops us off at the Deutsch Wagram station to take an S-bahn train back into Vienna.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-5-2005 |
ÖBB |
1530 |
Deutsch Wagram-Wien Mitte |
4020 S-bahn |
N/A |
The line between Deutsch Wagram and Floridsdorf was the very first railway line in the Vienna area, and was the main line of King Ferdinand’s Nordbahn. In 2005, the line is a Vienna S-bahn route with two electrified tracks that also serves as the main line from Vienna’s Südbahnof (Ost) to Břeclav and beyond (Brno and Prague: Ostrava, Katowice and Warsaw). Deutsch Wagram has two platforms (although the island serves both ways on the S-bahn), serving three tracks, with station buildings on the south side. The line towards Vienna heads west-southwest through open countryside. Sussenbrunn has two island platforms serving four tracks, with station buildings to the south. The former StEG line from the Südbahnof (Ost) via Simmeringer Hauptstrasse passes underneath heading just east of north. There are connecting tracks in all four quadrants of this intersection, with main line trains using the southeast quadrant (which has a burrowing junction at the east connection for north/eastbound trains).
Leopoldau has two island platforms servings four tracks, and is elevated above street level so no station buildings are visible. Floridsdorf-Siemensstrasse has one island platform serving two tracks. There is a yard to the south. An electrified track that has climbed up from this line passes overhead and then comes alongside to the north, but never quite seems to connect before turning away to join the line heading northwest and then west to Krems an der Donau. There are carriage sidings to the north, and then a complete train depot as the line turns southwest and the westbound connection from the Krems an der Donau line trails in. Floridsdorf has three platforms serving five tracks (two of them for U-bahn line U-6) and station buildings to the south. The line passes through Strandbäder and crosses the Danube, on the Nordbahnbrücke, to Handelskai, which has two platforms serving two tracks (at this level—there is at least one more on the line from Heiligenstadt—and other places—at ground level, below) at the west end of the Danube bridge.
The line continues on viaduct across the city streets and turns southward. A connection from the line along the west bank of the Danube (south of Handelskai lower-level) trails in from the east. Traisengasse has two platforms serving two elevated tracks. There is a yard on the east side, after which the line passes through a tunnel, and on emerging passes the erstwhile main station at Wien Nord, below and to the east, and the huge 1879-built 65 meter diameter Ferris Wheel (of ‘Third Man’ fame) at the Prater pleasure grounds beyond. The present Praterstern-Wien Nord station has two platforms serving three tracks and is under construction. The line then curves southwest and passes over the Danube Canal on its way to Wien Mitte where we leave the train to take the U-bahn back to the Westbahnhof and the hotel.
Since there is plenty of afternoon left, we ride the U-6 line out to Floridsdorf (where we had just been on the S-bahn) and back, above the streets of Vienna, continuing to Wien Meidling where we change to the Wiener Lokalbahn trams for the run out through the evening sunlit countryside to Baden Josefsplatz, in the town, on the edge of the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) and return (and back to the U-bahn for the last leg back to the hotel). We have an expensive dinner at the Russian restaurant around the corner from the hotel.
The Wiener Lokalbahn runs on the tracks of the Vienna tramway between its inner terminus across the Ringstrasse from the Opera House and its own tracks at Philadelphiabrücke, the road bridge across the railway tracks at the west end of Meidling station. At the south side of that bridge, as the road turns west, the Lokalbahn line curves southeast and enters its private right-of-way. The Schedifkaplatz station is just onto the private r-o-w, above the tracks of the connection between Meidling station and the ‘belt line’ heading southeast. The Lokalbahn crosses above the tracks of the ‘belt line’ coming around from Penzing, and runs along the west side of that line, south of the junction with the Meidling connection, with stations at Schöpfwerk, Gutheil-Schoder-Gasse and Intersdorf Personenbahnhof, where the line turns south and leaves the ‘belt line’ which turns east at this point.
The Lokalbahn, running alongside a main road but still on private r-o-w, passes through Neu Erlaa, where it crosses to the east side of the main road Laxenburger Allee, Vösendorf-Siebenhirten, Maria Enzersdorf Südstadt, Wiener Neudorf, Griesfeld, Neu Guntramsdorf, Guntramsdorf Lokalbahn, where it turns south-southwest, Eigenheimsiedling, Müllersdorf, and Traiskirchen Lokalbahn. The line turns west where a connection from the non-electrified line from Kledering trails in, and then passes through Traiswinkel Lokalbahn, turns southwest through Pfaffstätten, west again at Leesdorf, now running on the city streets of Baden, passes under the Südbahn main line at its Baden station, turns west-northwest at Baden-Viadukt, and terminates in an off-street station on the north side of the street at Baden Josefsplatz.
This morning we start out by taking tramline 58 out to the main entrance to Schönbrunn Palace. We choose not to take the full day required to get a time to tour the palace, wait for that time, and then take the tour. Instead, we walk around the back of the palace and then up the slope through the grounds to the level of the Gloriette, where we admire and photograph the views of the palace, grounds, and city beyond from both ends of the terrace. We walk back down through the woods, patronize the gift shop, and leave, walking west on the road outside towards Hietzing U-bahn station. Approaching the latter, we stop to admire and photograph the emperor’s personal entrance to the station platforms, a building designed by the famed Otto Wagner at the end of the 19th century.
We then take the U-bahn out to its Hütteldorf terminus, walk though the pedestrian subway to the ÖBB station, and watch the passenger and freight traffic through the station for 45 minutes or so. Because this station is on the west side of the connection around from the massive freight yards at Kledering, on the south side of the urban area, the freight traffic here is much higher than it would be closer in to the city.
We then take the S-45 train around the northwest suburbs to Heiligenstadt, where we eat lunch at a bistro in the station building.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-6-2005 |
ÖBB |
1145 |
Hütteldorf-Heiligenstadt |
4020 S-bahn |
N/A |
|
6-6-2005 |
ÖBB |
?? |
Heiligenstadt-Handelskai |
4024 S-bahn |
N/A |
Hutteldorf has three platforms serving five through tracks and a bay on the northeast side (serving line S-45), with station buildings on the north side; the pedestrian subway connecting these platforms is common with that at the U-bahn station adjacent to the south. The S-45 tracks run alongside the main Westbahn line out of the Westbahnhof as far as Penzing, which has platforms on both the Westbahn line and the S-45 line. The latter then turns away to the north. This line was one of the earliest urban railways in the Vienna area, with station buildings and other structures designed by Otto Wagner. The line passes through Breitensee, Ottakgrin (where the station also provides the western terminus of U-bahn line U-3), Hernals, where it turns northeast, Gersthof, where it turns north-northeast, Krottenbachstrasse, and Oberdöbling, where it turns east.
The line turns north at the junction with the line coming north from Frans-Josefs Bahnhof. Heiligenstadt has three platforms serving four tracks for the S-bahn and two platforms serving two tracks for U-2, with a common pedestrian subway, and direct access from the easternmost S-bahn platform to the adjacent U-bahn platform. The tracks split at the north end of Heiligenstadt station, with one set of tracks heading north to join the former Nordwestbahn line along the west bank of the Danube, and the S-45 set curving east to join that same line along the river, headed southeast. There is a wye junction with the line south to the erstwhile Vienna Nordwestbahnhof and the S-45 line continues along the riverbank and across the northern entrance to the Donau Kanal to the lower-level platforms at Handelskai.
After lunch, we walk a block past the famous urban housing developments of the area (such as the 1200 m. long Karl Marx Hof built by Karl Ehn between 1927 and 1930, which has 1600 apartments), and take a tram on line D up to Beethovengang in Nüssdorf, whence we walk west and upward to the Beethoven memorial statue. We then walk back to Eroicagasse, and turn south to pass the tavern (Mayer am Pfarrplatz) where Beethoven wrote some of his music, and then west again to the house in which Beethoven wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament.
We then walk south (and uphill) to Hohe Warte, and take a line 37 tram back via Nüssdorfersatraase into Vienna. This line terminates in a double-level loop (serving terminating lines from different directions) at the Schottentor or University station, adjacent to the lines around the Ringstrasse, next to the Votivkirche, which I photograph. We then take a tram anti-clockwise to the Museum Quarter, with a view to visiting the Canaletto exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum), but find that the museum is closed on Mondays. We continue around the Ring to Stadtpark, where I photograph the Konzerthaus’ exterior and the Johan Strauss II statue in the park, and then take the U-bahn (U-2) onwards around the east side of the city center along the canal, with the line running under the Kai above, and on to Heiligenstatdt, continuing onwards on S-45 around the clockwise semi-circle to the lower-level at Handelskai, and then returning to the Westbahnhof on U-6 from the upper level at Handelskai.
For dinner, we take U-6 to Nüssdorferstrasse and tram line 38 on to Grinzing, where we eat in one of the taverns, returning the same way.
Vienna’s urban transportation system has three rail-born components: the tramway system and U-bahn owned by the regional transportation organization, and the S-bahn, operated over the tracks of the ÖBB, but at the behest of and subsidized by the regional transportation organization.
Vienna has the second largest tramway system in the world, after St. Petersburg, the capital of Imperial Russia when the tramways were developed. (Vienna was the capital of the Habsburg Empire, which adjoined Imperial Russia, at that same time period.) Horse-drawn trams began in Vienna in 1865, with electrification begun in the early 20th-century. In 2005, Vienna has 30 tramlines covering 200 km of route, with most of the trams having been supplied by DüWag. The tramway tunnels near the Südbahnhof and around the northwest of the city, beyond the Ringstrasse, were built in the 1960s as a way of getting transit off the streets, prior to the development of the metro (U-bahn).
The tramway routing system has two main components: circular lines around the Ringstrasse and Gürtel, and radial lines on the major streets heading out of the city, beyond the Ringstrasse. Of course, some lines comprise both circular and radial segments. There are a number of large tramway stations where lines intersect, one of the most complex being at Schottentor, which has two stacked levels of loop line for terminating radial lines with the upper loop alongside the circular lines on the Ringstrasse and the lower loop being directly below it. The lower loop abuts a large underground shopping area. The tramlines that terminate at the Westbahnhof, as well as those passing by on the Gürtel, run from a station with a glassy barrel roof in the center of the Gürtel, accessed by an underground passageway from the Westbahnhof.
The history of the Vienna tram system, as well as the Vienna Stadtbahn, can be traced at the Vienna Tramway Museum in the Erdberg region of the city, which has at least one example of every tramcar that historically ran in the city. The museum owns 47 powered tramcars, 47 trailers, 10 buses, and 3 work cars.
The first lines of the U-bahn originated in the rapid transit lines built by Otto Wagner in the 1890s as the three lines of the Vienna Stadtbahn, two of which have since become metro lines U-4 and U-6. When the Wien River was channeled in the 1880s, it became clear that its newly-constructed banks provided an excellent route for a rapid transit line, Otto Wagner’s second, running all the way from Hütteldorf through Hietzing, past the front of Schönbrunn Palace, along the left side of the marketplace that arose on the covered section of the river, under Karlsplatz, where the landmark station entry ways were built, following the riverbank all the way through today’s Landstrase sattion to the Donau Kanal, and then turning north along the west bank of that waterway all the way to Heiligenstadt. This, today, is metro line U-4. The original Stadtbahn also included the track that is today the S-bahn line north from Landstrasse/Wien Mitte through Praterstern to the KFN Hauptbahnhof at Wien Nord.
Otto Wagner’s third rapid transit line was built mostly on viaduct along the median of the Gürtel, north from its Meidling Hauptstrasse intersection with the line along the Wien River (requiring a large through girder bridge across that river), all the way around to the north side of the city. This originally included a viaduct continuing north where the present line turns east, north of Nüssdorferstrasse, which connected up with the first line (now S-45) to reach Heiligenstadt. The Stadtbahn lines were electrified in the 1920s, with electric operation beginning in 1924. There were ramps connecting the Stadtbahn system with the tramlines along the Gürtel below at the north end of Gumpendorferstraase station, south of the Westbahnhof, at least after electrification. Today’s U-6 turns east through the interchange with U-4 at Spittelau (using the viaduct originally built to connect the two lines at this point for continuous running from one line to the other), across the Donau Kanal and across the island to Handelskai. In the metro construction era, this line was extended alongside the KFN main line, across the Danube to the big interchange station at Floridsdorf, as well as southward from the Meidling Hauptstrasse end.
In the late 1960s, after the debacle of the tramway tunnels and their dingy, un-navigable, and ultimately unsafe stations, the city decided to invest in a full scale subway/metro system that would include, for the first time, transit lines in the old city inside the Ringstrasse. This resulted in lines U-1 (Reumannplatz to Donau Zentrum) and U-3 (Ottakring to Simmering, crossing under the center of the city, and line U-2 (taking over the northwest tramway tunnels) completing the circling of the inner city by connecting around the northwest side from a U-4 connection at Karlsplatz to a U-4 connection at Schottenring, alongside the Donau Kanal. This was the point at which the lines described above became U-4 and U-6. There is no line U-5.
The first Otto Wagner urban railway line is the one around the northwest corner of the city, which was not included in the metro and has since become S-45. This line runs mainly on viaduct, with some track in tunnels and cuttings, with the original section running from Hütteldorf in the west along the Westbahn to Penzing and thence around the northwest corner of the city to the Nordwestbahn at Heiligenstadt in the north. The extension of S-45 around to Handelskai along the river came in the 1980s or later; the rest of the line was reopened as S-45, after decades of dormancy, in 1987. (This line was not included in the 1920s electrification.)
The S-bahn system comprises 10 lines (S-1, S-2, S-3, S-7, S-15, S-40, S-45, S-50, S-60, S-80) that provide both radial and circular services complementing the routes of the U-bahn. These were developed by the same planners as the U-bahn, but use electric railcars running on main line tracks rather than special stock on dedicated tracks. Four of the lines provide radial service over the main lines out of the main termini: S-40 from Franz-Josefs Bahnhof over the Nordwestbahn; S-50 over the Westbahn from the Westbahnhof, S-60 from the Südbahnhof over the Südbahn and S-80 from the Südbahnhof (Ost) over the StEG. S-45 provides circular service around the northwest, as described above. S-1 and S-2 provide a combination of circular and cross-city service from the Südbahn through Meidling, the Südbahnhof, thence to Mitte and out on the Nordbahn through Handelskai, heading east beyond Florisdorf, splitting east of Lleopoldau.. S-3 and S-15 provide service around the southwest side of the city, connecting Hütteldorf to Meidling, then taking the same route as S-1 and S-2 to Floridsdorf, whence they head northwest along the east side of the river. S-7 runs from the airport through Mitte and Floridsdorf, out on the Nordbahn to Leopoldau and back in towards the city on the StEG.
There is a three-track connector between the Südbahnhof (Ost) platforms and the west-facing Südbahnhof platforms that may one day become the location of Vienna Central station. This will directly impact the main line train services, but may also have an impact on the routing of the S-bahn lines. (There are currently S-bahn tracks parallel to the Südbahn tracks from Meidling, and continuing east to Mitte, with stations at both Südtirolerplatz and the Südbahnhof, as well as out of the Südbahnhof (Ost).)
Services along the radial routes beyond the S-bahn outer termini are provided by the regional commuter services branded as the Weasel, and operated by ÖBB, which mainly use push-pull trains (locomotive at one end, driving trailer at the other) of bi-level stock.
(The CAT, the non-stop rail line from the airport to the City Air Terminal located next to Wien Mitte station, uses the same track as S-bahn line S-7, but has its own dedicated platforms at the City Air Terminal, CAT trains use the same bi-level coaching stock with driving cars at one end at the Weasel regional commuter trains, but in a different color scheme and with different seating arrangements.)
This morning, we transfer from Vienna to Budapest to start the tour. After checking out of the hotel, we walk with the luggage across the Gürtel (both halves) and the tram tracks, and then across Mariahilferstrasse and its tram tracks to reach the lower concourse level of the Westbahnhof. After taking the escalator up to the upper level, we buy coffee and check on our train. It appears that the carriages are in the platform already, so Chris sits with the luggage next to the first class car, while I walk out to the end of the platform to spend some time photographing the morning traffic. This includes an arrival from Bucharest, via Budapest, with Romanian stock and a MAV (Hungarian Railways) “Taurus” locomotive.
When I return, people are boarding the train, even though it does not yet have a locomotive and is not listed on the indicator on the platform. We board, and find that our reserved seats are facing backwards. There do not seem to be any alternative seats not having reservation slips, so we can’t do anything about this. A slight bump suggests we have a locomotive, and at a little after the appointed time (to wait for cross-platform connecting passengers from an ICE that arrives just a few minutes late and discharges many business people headed into Vienna for the day or the week as well as those connecting to our train), the train leaves. It comprises Serbian stock, heading for Belgrade after it has taken us to Budapest.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-7-2005 |
ÖBB/MAV |
1003 |
Vienna W-Budapest Keleti |
Serbian InterCity |
1116 |
The “belt line” route around the southwest side of Vienna departs from the Hutteldorf (Linz) route to the west of Penzing station and yard with a wye, heads south and then curves gently around to the east, passing through Speising as it does so. The S-bahn line around this corner of the city goes straight ahead to Meidling as the belt line diverges southeast and passes over the Südbahn line and under the Wiener Lokalbahn before the tracks curving around from Meidling trail in from the north, with the Lokalbahn alongside to the west. The belt line turns east-southeast, and passes through Inzersdorf Ort. The regional line heading to Ebenfurth turns away south. At Kledering, a connecting line leaves the north side of the ‘belt line’ and climbs up to join the Ostbahn line heading southeast, crossing over the continuation of the ‘belt line’ as it does so.
(From Kledering to Perndorf Ort, the route description is the same as for May 20th, 2005 on our trip to Eisenstadt, covered in the Austria 2005 trip report.)
East of Perndorf Ort, a non-electrified freight-only line that originally went Bratislava, then was truncated, and opened to Bratislava again on August 20, 1998, heads off to the northeast. The main line continues east and then east-southeast, through Zurndorf and Nickelsdorf to the Austro-Hungarian border. The overhead power supply changes from Austria’s 15kV 16⅔ Hz to Hungary’s 25kV 50 Hz somewhere in the vicinity of the border. At the west end of Hegyeshalom, a line from Bratislava trails in. Hegyeshalom has three platforms serving five tracks with station buildings to the north. At the east end of the station, a non-electrified line south to Csorna on the GySEV heads off. The main line continues southeast, through Mosonmagyarovar to a junction with the GySEV line trailing in from the west, and turns east into Györ, which has three platforms serving five tracks with station buildings to the north and freight yard on the north side, east of the station. East of the station, a non-electrified line heads off to the south and soon splits.
The line continues east to Komarom, where it comes alongside the south bank of the Danube. East of the station, a non-electrified line heads off to the south, curving around southwest before definitively heading south. The main line follows the Danube east-southeast to Almastuzito. A non-electrified line continues east along the Danube while the main line turns south-southeast, through Tata, Tatabanya, where a line leaves southwestward, and Szarliget, where a short branch heads east. The main line turns east to Bicske, where a non-electrified branch trails in from the south, and continues eastward through Budaörs, after which it turns north as two other lines trail in from the south-southeast. Entering the Budapest area, the line varies between four and six tracks wide, with four tracks in most stations along the way. Budapest Kelenfold has six platforms serving twelve tracks with station buildings to the east. North of Kelenfold, the suburban and commuter lines continue straight ahead to Budapest deli, while the main line turns east. Two more lines curve in from the south-southeast as the line enters Budapest Ferencväros station. East of the latter, the line curves around to the north, with a connector to Köbanya-Kispest heading southeast. At a wye junction with a line from the east, the line from Vienna takes the west leg to head west, northwest as a spur to Budapest Jozsefvaros station and freight yard continues west, and then west-northwest into Budapest Keleti.
Budapest Keleti has a central arched roof with four platforms serving four tracks (6-9) inside of it. There are two sets of side platforms out beyond the overall roof, all provided with umbrella roofs (as are the central platforms beyond the end of the overall roof), with two platforms serving five tracks (1-5, one is on the outside of a main platforms) on the north side, and one platform serving three tracks (11-13, one is on the outside of the main platform) on the south side. The tracks face west, with a signal tower controlling the throat near the end of one of the lone main platforms, beyond which is the locomotive depot on the south side of the tracks. Carriage sidings are to the south side of the entire station. The main buildings of the station are at the west end of the overall roof, and along the north side of the overall roof. Outside to the west is a plaza, on the west side of which is the entrance to the subway station serving this main-line station. The main street in the area passes alongside all of these buildings on their north side.
Our train today is ICE 345, Avala. I manage to get some photographs as the train traverses the Vienna suburbs, because I know what is coming and where. As we cross the Hungarian border, first the Austrian authorities and then the Hungarians come by and stamp our passports. In Hungary, we start seeing many MAV locomotives, but I don’t see any of them soon enough the photograph them until we’re almost to Budapest Keleti. Hungary is a continuation of the flat land on the Austrian side of the border—large fields with borders of deciduous trees. At Komaron, the Danube is alongside to the north, with Slovakia on its far bank.
There will not be time to have anything for lunch after reaching Budapest, so we eat in the restaurant car on the train. The waiter is somewhat surprise that I want to pay in Hungarian Forints (I need to change a large note before reaching Budapest), but manages to do so. On reaching Budapest, we don’t take the time to photograph what’s in the station (a mistake), and rush off to take a taxi to the Marriott Hotel. We’re at the hotel and in the room with over half an hour to spare before the tour starts, however, so a few minutes at the station would not have gone amiss. One thing that was there was a GySEV “Taurus”, of which I see no others on the trip.
Budapest is the capital city of modern Hungary. From 1867 until 1919, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary, a much larger country that also formed part of the Austro-Hungarian (Habsburg) Empire. The city of Budapest was formed in the 1873 by the amalgamation of the existing cities of Buda, on the west bank, and Pest, on the east bank, of the Danube.
Matyas Church, Hungary’s Coronation Cathedral atop the castle hill in old Buda, is the only church in old Buda to have survived the Turkish occupation from 1541 to 1686, albeit by operating as a mosque during that time period. The central nave of the cathedral was constructed as a Romanesque basilica between 1245 and 1272. The side aisles were raised to the height of the nave around 1370, resulting in a Gothic hall. The southwest portal dates from the same time period. The south bell tower dates from 1470. The church became the Coronation Cathedral in 1867, after the re-establishment of the Hungarian monarchy, albeit in the personage of the Habsburg Emperor. The chapels on the north side were built between 1873 and 1893. The building suffered serious damage during the Siege of Budapest in 1944-45, and was repaired and renovated between 1950 and 1970.
St. Anne’s church, in the area of old Buda at the foot, and northeast, of the castle hill, was built from 1740 onwards, originally for the Jesuits, but due to the dissolution of that order in 1773, was not consecrated until 1805. The side altars were built and sculpted by Antal Eberhart in 1768. Gergely Vogl painted the ceiling in the cupola in 1771. The high altar and pulpit were built and sculpted in 1773 by Karoly Bebo
St. Elizabeth’s church, just a few tens of meters north of St. Anne’s, was built for the Franciscans between 1731 and 1757. Franciscan friars carved the pulpit and pews at that time. The baroque interior is adorned with late 19th-century frescoes. The building is now an integral part of a hospital and hostel built in the 19th-century for the Elizabeth Sisters.
Budapest’s trams, started as horse-trams in 1866 and electrified at a later date, run on standard gauge tracks with a total route length of 213 km. Suburban electric light railways run north (from old Buda to Szentendre), east (from the Red Line terminus to Gödöllö), and south (from the south end of the east riverbank line to Csepel and from Kazvahohid to Rackeve) from termini on the edge of the central area, but no longer share any trackage with the urban tramway system. From the perspective of those staying down on the riverbank in Central Pest, the Budapest tram system is strange. There are lines running along both banks of the river that just end at stub terminals, with no direct connections to other lines anywhere along their routes. Only by connecting to other lines north of the Parliament building can the rest of the system be accessed.
Budapest has one of the oldest deep-tube subways in the world, comprising two lines that cross in the center of Pest and an additional line that runs outward from the same location. The Red Line runs from Budapest Deli commuter terminus behind the castle hill in Buda, under the river, through the interchange station of Deak Ferenc, then east past Keleti station to Ors veser tere. The Blue Line runs south from Üjpest through Deak Ferenc and then southeast to Köbanya-Kispest. The Orange Line runs from Deak Feren northeast to Vlexikoi ut. The subway’s deep tube lines were the second such operation in the world, opened in 1896, after the City and South London Railway in London, England. The present-day Russian-built trains seem to have only two positions on their controllers: rapid acceleration and heavy braking!
The Hungarian Railway Heritage Park, opened in 2000, is located at the former site of the Budapest North motive power depot, and is run by the government as part of its “Nostalgie” operations. The park includes two turntables, one complete with an operational roundhouse and the other with open-air sidings used to store the vast majority of the steam locomotive collection, along with many parallel tracks on which the passenger and freight rolling stock are stored. The collection includes the following:
0-6-0 269 (335,095), built in 1867 for Hungarian Eastern by Wiener Neustadt
0-6-0 1026 (341,012), built in 1882 for Budapest-Pecs by Wöhlert
0-6-0 480 (382,007), built in 1883 for StEG by its own factory
0-6-0 17, built in 1885 for GySEV by Wiener Neustadt
0-6-0T 765, built in 1886 for MAV by its own Machine Works in Budapest
4-4-0 204, built in 1900 for MAV by its own Machine Works
0-6-0 370,011, built in 1902 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
2-6-2T 376,615, built in 1911 for MAV by its own Engineering Factory
0-6-0T 377,493, built in 1912 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
0-8-0T 2, built in 1913 for a Hungarian sugar factory by StEG
4-6-2 301,016, built in 1914 for MAV by its own Engineering Factory
2-6-2 324,540, built in 1915 for MAV by its own Machine Works
0-4-0T 91,001, built in 1915 for MAV by Krauss
2-6-2T 342,006, built in 1916 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
4-6-0 109.109, built in 1917 for the Südbahn by Floridsdorf
4-6-0 328,054, built in 1922 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
2-6-2T 375,562, built in 1923 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
4-8-0 424,009, built in 1924 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
2-4-2T 22,034, built in 1929 for MAV by its own Machine Factory
2-10-0 520.034, built in 1944 for DR by Upper Silesia (Kriegslok)
2-8-0 411,118, built in 1944 for the US Army by Baldwin in Philadelphia (S-160)
4-8-0 424,247, built in 1955 for MAV by the MAVAG Engineering Factory
4-8-0 424,287, built in 1956 for MAV by the MAVAG Engineering Factory
1-D-1 V40,016, built in 1934 for MAV by MAVAG
Bo-Bo V41,523, built in 1962 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
Bo-Bo V42,527, built in 1966 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
Co-Co V63,001, built in 1975 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
Bo-Bo M44,209, built in 1954 for MAV by MAVAG
Bo-Bo M44,211, built in 1954 for MAV by MAVAG
B M28,1001, built in 1956 for MAV by Wilhelm Peck in Györ
C M31,2035, built in 1959 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
B-B M46,2001, built in 1961 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
Co-Co M61,001, built in 1963 for MAV by Nohab in Sweden under license from GM
Co-Co M62,001, built in 1965 for MAV by October Revolution in Lugansk
Bo-Bo M40,113, built in 1967 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
Co-Co M63,003, built in 1975 for MAV by Ganz-MAVAG
Single car Bcmot 397, built for MAV by Ganz in 1929
Single car ARPAD 23, built for MAV by Ganz in 1935
Single car Abnymot 502, built for MAV by Ganz in 1939
Single car ABbmot 610, built for MAV by Ganz in 1956
Single car Bamot GySEV 702, built in 1959 by Räba in Györ, sold to GySEV in 1962
Two-car BD4VT GySEV 5146-02, built in 1961 for ÖBB by Simmering
There are also five tampers of various ages in the collection.
At approaching 2 pm, we return to the hotel lobby, and meet the people with whom we’ll be spending the next twelve and a half days. Two of them were on the Austrian Tour just last month, and five more were on the Switzerland Tour in 2004. The other twelve people (six couples) are new to us. Of course, Werner Schorn is also here. We have no local guide this afternoon, so Werner leads us on a walking tour.
Out of the hotel (in which every room has a view of the Danube and the hills on the Buda side of the river), we walk north along the riverbank in our location in central Pest. The concrete river bank has two levels,, with a walkway and tramway on the upper level, and a roadway below. Only the lower level is truly susceptible to flooding. We walk past the 19th-century concert hall, currently closed for renovation, and then walk across the historic Chain Bridge, the first bridge across the Danube in this location and the impetus that led to Pest and Buda combining into the single city of Budapest in the 1860s. On the Buda side of the river, we take the funicular up to the top of the hill on which the castle is perched. It takes two cars to get us all to the top, so those of us on the first car have a short wait for Werner and the others to arrive.
From the ramparts, we look down and east, over the Danube, seeing several of Budapest’s bridges, and the whole array of buildings along the left bank of the Danube, including the Marriott Hotel we have just left, the concert hall, and the Hungarian Parliament Building, a magnificent neo-Gothic pile, as far north as we can see. Walking to another location, north of some of the castle buildings, we can see north past the Parliament to yet another bridge, this one impinging on St. Margaret’s Island within the river as well as connecting into Buda, and many of the buildings of the lower part of Buda.
At this point, Werner ends this walking tour, and group members head in many directions. Werner has told us that we will be going into the adjacent cathedral on Wednesday, so while Chris and I walk past its outside, we do not pay to go in. We do, however, admire its outside, along with the equestrian statue of St. Stephan, St. Mary Magdalen and the plague monument nearby. After stopping for coffee and tea (and a quick look at the guide book I’m carrying), we walk slowly around the streets of Old Buda, up here on the rock, and then descend though the north gate down into lower Buda, where we walk to the right bank of the river to view the outsides (and get quick looks though the internal doors into the insides) of two beautiful baroque churches: St. Anne’s and St. Elizabeth’s.
From here, we walk back along the riverbank, alongside another tramline, to the Chain Bridge, cross it, and return to the hotel. In the interval prior to dinner, Kester Eddy, an e-mail correspondent whom I’ve never met (like John Russell prior to Sunday), calls. He would be available to get together this evening, when we can’t, and might be able to do so on Wednesday, but expects to be out of town by Thursday. In the event, we don’t manage to get together with Kester while we’re in Budapest. After the group dinner, we admire the floodlit buildings and bridges along the river, to the extent they are visible from our hotel room.
This morning, our local guide, Susan, who will be with us for the next two days, joins us after breakfast. We start out by riding the tramline on the left bank on a hundred year old tram, first south past the location where a new concert hall and a new opera house are being built, to the end of the line, and then north, past the Parliament building, to the north end of the line adjacent to St. Margaret’s Bridge. Here, we change to another tramline, which takes us across the bridge. At the west end of the bridge, we leave the tram to descend two levels to a station on a subterranean railway line that provides a service out to Szentendre, to the north of the city, and then continue on the same tram line to Moscow Square, a major tramway hub, where we leave the tram and take the minibus service up onto the castle hill again.
We leave the bus at Castle square in front of St. Matyas Cathedral, and spend the next hour or so taking an inside tour of the cathedral, and then a visit to the adjacent Fisherman’s Overlook, yet another place to view the river and the buildings along its banks. Susan uses these visits as an opportunity to tell us about Hungarian history, to the extent that this is useful for understanding what we see and why it is important to the Hungarian people. This is followed by an included lunch at a restaurant up on the castle rock.
After lunch, we take the minibus back down to Moscow Square and then ride the tramline east to Nyugati railway station. Here, we have about a 45-minute wait until our “Nostalgia Train”, an early electric locomotive and several four-wheel carriages, takes us on its scheduled service at 1:50 pm out to the Hungarian Railway Museum in a former locomotive depot and carriage yard, a mile or two outside the station, where we arrive at 2:05 pm. The carriage we ride in dates from 1886. This museum is a magnificent operation (as one might expect from its state support), with one turntable having an array of cosmetically restored steam locomotives, and another with a roundhouse that has preserved diesel and electric locomotives within. Many restored early carriages, some of them available for rental for trips, are located on carriage sidings adjacent to the latter.
We visit quite a number of the carriages with our English-speaking museum guide, showing both the wealth of historical artifacts, and their development over the years. The operational diesel railcar set that we tour was once used by the Communist apparatchiks in Hungary for meetings and tours of the country. Visiting the steam locomotives, Chris explains to Susan how a steam locomotive works, and I’m pleased by how much she has actually absorbed over the years! The museum bookstore has an unexpected benefit: a book in English on the history of the Hungarian railways (including the years before 1919 of those railways in other countries that were under Hungarian control from 1867 to 1919), as well as the expected catalog of the museum’s collection (with some text in English). The history book includes capsule descriptions of the various types of locomotives currently in operations on MAV, as well as those that once operated here.
We return to the hotel by tramway (line 14, four blocks west of the museum) and then subway (Blue Line) back to the Deak Ferenc station, walking back to the hotel through the pedestrian area. This part of Central Pest is a shopping area, with little in the way of historical interest.. Chris and I then make a visit to the baroque church near the hotel (the “little parish” church), and then use the subway for a return visit to Keleti station to get some photographs of the building and the trains using it at this rush hour. On our return to the pedestrian district between the subway station and the hotel, we eat goulash soup at a small restaurant along the way.
Today was touted as being a great experience, but in fact was merely a big soggy disappointment. The brochure had touted this as a train ride out into the Great Hungarian Plains, but the final documents have it being by bus. Four of us manage to make at least part of the journey, as far as Kecskemet, by train anyway, while the other take the provided minibus.
Those of us taking the train use the subway to get from the hotel to Nyugati station, whence we take an Intercity train headed south through Kecskemet to some southern Hungarian destination. In the subway station at Nyugati we’re stopped by a ticket inspector, the only time this happens on subways or trams the entire trip.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-9-2005 |
MAV (IC 702) |
0935 |
Budapest-Kecskemet |
Intercity |
V43 |
Budapest Nyugati has a similar sort of arrangement to Budapest Keleti, with some platforms in the central area under an overall roof, while others are off to the side beyond the overall roof (but only on one side, in this case). Apparently, this is due to an initial prohibition of railways running within the city, with the inner ends of the outer platforms being at the old city boundary. All platforms beyond the overall roof have umbrella shed over them. Platforms 1-9 are outside the overall roof on the west side, while platforms 10-15 are inside the overall roof. There are station buildings on both sides of the overall roofed area, with a simple façade at the south end adjacent to the street on which the tramlines run. There is a large signal tower out at the end of the platforms. A road bridge crosses the entire throat, and there are carriage sidings adjacent to the east side of the station.
The line heads northeast out of the station, but takes the south leg of a wye with a line to the southeast almost immediately, continuing south-southeastward through Budapest Zuglow, passing a connector heading east to the eastward line out of Keleti, which then passes overhead. The connecting track from the line east of Ferencväros trail in from the northwest as the line reaches Köbanya-Kispest, where it turns southeast as a non-electrified line heads off to the southwest. The outer terminus of the subway’s Blue Line is adjacent to this station on the southwest side. The main line continues southeastward through Vecses, Gyömrö, and Monor to Cegled. East of the latter, there is a wye on which the line to Kecskemet takes the west leg, turning south-southwest, while the other line heads due east. The line to Kecskemet passes through Nagykörös before turning south-southeast as it reaches Kecskemet station, which has three or four low-level platforms serving four tracks, with station buildings to the west. Composer Zoltan Kodaly was born in the station buildings in 1882, when his father was station master here.
By the time we arrive at Kecskemet station, rain is falling heavily. An attempt to take a taxi fails, because we can’t communicate our destination to the taxi driver. So, we hurry south-southwest through the streets to the town hall, where other tour members (some are taking a boat ride on the Danube instead) are waiting in a wood paneled room with pictures pertaining to Hungarian history hanging on the walls. Benches have been prepared with a picture postcard and a small bottle of apricot brandy for each person. I give mine to Dave Wiley, sitting next to me, while Chris gives hers to Werner. (Apricots are gown widely in this part of Hungary.) In this room, an aging city councilor gives us (in Hungarian, translated by Susan) a long lecture on Hungarian history and the “Hungarian Tragedy” of the year 1919, when 65% of the former lands of Hungary were taken away by the peace treaty following WWI. Some group members comment that ‘this is what happens when you lose a war’.
Following the lecture, rain is still falling heavily, sharply curtailing the promised walking tour of old Kecskemet. We can’t even enter the baroque church next to the town hall, because it is closed, much to Susan’s surprise! Walking through the park from the baroque church and the fountain outside it to the meeting point with the minibus, we pass a monument to those who died in the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, and a synagogue bordering the park. We all take the minibus on out to Bugac, passing a diesel-hailed narrow-gauge train of 4-wheel cars going in the other direction on the line running alongside the road (route 54), before it and we turn south to Bugac. This is the closest we will come to it.
In Bugac, we stop at an inn where we have a huge included lunch, and are treated to a dancing display in place of the promised horse show (canceled due to the rain). At the inn, a large dog keeps walking around the tables and later the dancers, getting in between them as they dance. The dancers make each person in the group participate in a group dance, but I decline because my artificial hip is sore. After the huge lunch, instead of waiting around for the narrow gauge train to take us back from Bugac to Kecskemet, we cut short the day and return directly to Budapest, via E75 and M5. The minibus takes us to Keleti station, on the fringes of the downtown traffic jam, and while most group members then take the subway back to the hotel, three of us take up Werner’s offer for some more time spent train watching at Keleti station, before we, too, take the subway back to the hotel. One of the trains we see at Keleti comprises Russian cars headed for various places in the former Soviet Union, including Moscow, Kiev in Ukraine and other cities.
For Chris and me, dinner tonight is a bacon croissant at the McCafé adjunct to a local McDonald’s.
Prior to 1867, the history of “Hungarian” railways was the history of whichever Austrian railways built east or southeast into what is now Hungary, including the Südbahn, the Staats Eisenbahn Gesellschaft (StEG), and smaller lines wholly contained within the borders of present-day Hungary. From 1867 to 1920, the kingdom of Hungary comprised not only today’s Hungary, but also today’s Slovakia, Ruthenia (now in Ukraine), Transylvania (now in Romania), Croatia (except Dalmatia), and the Banat region that is now divided between Romania and Serbia. In 1920, Hungary was reduced to its present borders, except for an aberrant period in WWII, when Nazi Germany gave Hungary some of its former territories to rule.
The first railway in Hungary was the 33.6 km north from Pest to Vac, opened in 1846 by Hungarian Central Railways, which soon also opened a line southeast and then east from Pest 98.1 km via Cegled to Szolnok, in 1847, and another line 17 km west from Bratislava to Marchegg, in present-day Austria, in 1848. This company was forcibly wound-up in favor of one called Southeastern [Austrian] State Railways in 1850, which then became the Staats Eisenbahn Gesellschaft (StEG) in 1856. This (Austrian) nationalized company completed many lines to the north and east of Pest, including those in present-day Slovakia (completing the line from Vac to Bratislava in 1851, and extending it northward in the 1870s to become the line to today’s Zilina in the 1880s, for example) and on into Galicia (now part of Poland). Budapest Nyugati station was opened in 1877. StEG also completed and operated the line between Pest and Vienna via Györ.
The Austrian Südbahn also built lines into Hungary, in the far southwest of the country, starting with a line from Wiener Neustradt to Sopron in 1847, and including the line southwest from Buda(pest) Deli to Nagykanisza, Murakeresztur and the border at Asredisce (then with Austria, now the Croatian-Slovenian frontier) completed in 1860.
Other major railway lines in the second half of the nineteenth century included:
the Tisza Region Railways, which took over the line via Cegled to Szolnok and extended it hundreds of kilometers eastward and southeastward, reaching (by different lines) both Arad and Temesvar in Transylvania before 1860 and Kosice (ex-Kassa) in Slovakia by 1870;
the Hungarian Northern Railway, which built north-northeast from Pest (Jozsefvaros) to Hatvan and Salgotarjan in the 1860s, and was nationalized almost immediately;
the Kassa-Oldenberg Railway (KsOd), which built west across northern Slovakia in 1870-72 from Kassa (Kosice) to today’s Zilina, then north to the (now) Czech border and on into Galicia (now Poland), and was only nationalized by Czechoslovakia after 1920;
the Hungarian Northeastern Railway, with lines in Slovakia and Ruthenia, east of today’s Kosice, which are split today between Slovakia and Ukraine;
the Hungarian Eastern Railway, with lines in the northern part of Transylvania, now all in Romania;
and many others with shorter lengths of lines built. All of these (except the Südbahn, but including the Hungarian portions of StEG) were nationalized, starting in 1868 when the first Hungarian State Railways (MAV) was formed, and completed by 1891, when the StEG lines were included. Those parts of the Südbahn that remained within the new state of Hungary in 1920 were nationalized in 1931.
One of the first projects of the new MAV was completing the main line between Buda and the Adriatic port of Trieste, completed in 1873. Zagreb had been reached by 1870, and Belgrade (in Serbia) by 1883. Budapest (Keleti) station was opened in 1884.With the main lines essentially completed, many regional and branch lines were built to fill in the countryside between 1890 and 1914, and many main lines received second tracks.
As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, in 1920, the formerly Hungarian railways in Slovakia and Ruthenia were transferred to the new state of Czechoslovakia, those in Transylvania and the newly-Romanian part of Banat were transferred to the enlarged Romania, and the rest of those in Banat and those in Croatia were transferred to the newly-constituted Yugoslavia. Lines in those parts of Burgenland that elected to become part of Austria transferred to Austria with those regions in 1922. Only 38.5% of Hungary’s pre-war network remained Hungarian after the breakup.
The new borders cut across 49 lines, 42 of them in open country. Each of the country’s main lines was cut by a border before a major junction, leaving 294 km of dead lines, leading nowhere but a closed border. (In fact, the cross-country lines seemed deliberately to have been palces beyond the border to permit a Czechoslovakia-Romania-Yugoslavia railway line that did not enter Hungary at any point.) This necessitated some selective construction of new lines aliong the broders, some changes in routings to keep services between Hungarian points within the new Hungary, as well as changes in junction and locomotive-changing points. For example, prior to 1920, the main line from Budapest to Vienna had been by way of Vac, Bratislava and Marchegg. Most of that line had gone to Czechoslovakia, so the line from Budapest to Komarom, Györ and Hegyeshalom was rebuilt and double-tracked to become the new main route to Vienna. Significantly, of the ten regional business managements units created in 1899 and still extant in 1920, the headquarters of eight of them were in cities no longer part of the territory of Hungary!
The first experiments with electric traction took place in the 1910s (including the Bratislava-Vienna line through Schwechat) and with diesel in the 1920s, and some dieselization of rural rail services using railcars took place in the early 1930s. The electrification (at 16kV, 50Hz) of the main line from Budapest Keleti to Hegyeshalom, on the route to Vienna, with the section to Komarom was in operation in1932, and on to Hegyeshalom in 1934. After a long hiatus due to WWII and its aftermath, significant electrification at 25kV, 50Hz, took place starting in 1966, starting with Budapest Nyugati-Cegled-Szolnok and the continuation eastward, with 29% of the national network electrified by 1990, and 31% by 2000. Steam traction in Hungary ended in 1984.
Electrification from Budapest Nuygati-Vac-Szob was carried out as part of the complete electrification of the main line from Berlin to Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia, with the Budapest-Szob section in operation by the end of 1971. The entire line from Sturovo (in today’s Slovakia) through Hungary to Romania was opened to electric traction by the end of 1974. The line between Budapest Deli and Kelenföld was electrified in 1980, the lines onward to Croatia in 1981, to southwestern Hungary in 1983, and the GySEV in 1987-88. Central traffic control and remote catenary control—the first full CTC installation in Hungary—was installed on the Budapest-Hegyeshalom line in the 1990s, when that route was upgraded to 25kV 50Hz and realigned for 160 km/h maximum speeds.
Several main lines had a second track added between 1981 and 1992, although only 16% of the total route length was double track in 2000. Track renewal on the Budapest- Györ-Hegyeshalom line, including a completely new routing in places west of Komarom, has resulted in upper speeds of 160 km/h since 1997. Other main lines, including Budapest Nyugati-Szob and Budapest Nyugati-Cegled-Szolnok, have had track and roadbed completely renewed in the years from 1967 onward. All three Budapest passenger termini were rebuilt in the 1970s. By 2000, Hungary was a full participant in the international InterCity and EuroCity passenger train network, with five pairs of InterCity and seven pairs of EuroCity trains daily, with ten pairs of trains between Budapest and Vienna (most going onward to further destinations in western Europe), five pairs of trains between Budapest and Prague, three pairs between Budapest and Warsaw, one between Budapest and Krakow and one between Budapest and Wroclaw (giving a total of ten pairs between Budapest and Bratislava). Southward, there are six pairs of trains going at least as far as Bucharest, five to Belgrade and four to Zagreb, many with onward destination beyond these places, and eastward there is one pair of trains between Budapest, Kiev and Moscow. There is also a pair of trains between Budapest and Bratislava via Kosice.
The first container terminal in Central Europe was built at Budapest’s Csepel Harbor, on the Danube, in the 1970s, in conjunction with the rebuilding of Budapest Jozsefvaros freight yard. Budapest Ferencvaros marshaling yard was rebuilt in the 1950s and again in the 1980s. Between 1945 and 1990, Hungarian railways placed most emphasis on those international lines that ran in a northeasterly direction to the Soviet Union. After 1990, the west-east and the southwest-northeast routes became more important in both international and domestic commerce.
Segments of the Pan-European Transportation Corridors being funded by the European Union as an aid to the development of transportation infrastructure in central and eastern Europe that lie within Hungary include: (from Vienna) Hegyeshalom-Györ-Budapest, (from Bratislava) Szob-Budapest and Budapest-Szolnok-Lököshaza (splitting to Bucharest and Sofia/Thessalonika/Istanbul), all on Corridor IV; (from Lviv, ex-Lvov) Zaboby-Nyiregyhaza-Miskolc-Budapest, Budapest-Szekesfehervar-Hodos (requiring some new construction) (and on the Ljubljana and Trieste), Budapest-Dombovar-Gyelenyes (and on the Zagreb and Rjeka), and Dombovar-Pecs-Magyarboly (and on across the Croatian border to Osijek, Sarajevo, Mostar and Ploce), all in Corridor V; and Budapest-Kelebia (and on to Belgrade and beyond), in Corridor X. This seems a lot like a list of the main lines of greater Hungary, prior to 1920! Work on the needed projects along these lines began in 1998 and 1999.
MAV’s main-line services in 2005 are operated mainly by the following motive power. All electric traction operates on the Hungarian standard of 25kV, 50 Hz, with some additional power capabilities as stated.
Class V42, built 1961-66, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1650 HP (1214 kW), 40 km/h max. speed
Class V43, built 1963-82, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3000 HP (2.2 MW), 120 km/h max. speed
Class V46, built 1983-91, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 890 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class V63, built 1974-88, Co-Co wheel arr., 5000 HP (3.6 MW), 160 km/h max. speed
Class 1047 (“Taurus”), introduced 2002, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 6.4MW power, 230 km/h maximum speed. These also operate on Austria’s 15 kV 16⅔ Hz overhead power.
Class BDV 4-car unit, built 1988-90, Bo-Bo power car wheel arrangement
Class BVmot 4-car unit, intro. 1994, Bo-Bo power car wheel arr., 1755 kW, 160 km/h
Class M41, built1972-83, B-B wheel arr., 1800 HP (1325 kW), 100 km/h max. speed
Class M44, built 1057-71, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 600 HP (442 kW), 80 km/h max. speed
Class M46, built 1963, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 750 HP (542 kW), 65 km/h. speed
Class M62, built 1965-74, Co-Co wheel arr., 2000 HP (1472 kW), 100 km/h max. speed
Class M63, built 1970-75, Co-Co wheel arr., 3000 HP (2.2 MW), 160 km/h max. speed
Class MD 5-car unit, built 1970-75, B-B power car wheel arr., 800 HP (588 kW)
Class BZmot 1-car, built 1977-84, A-1 wheel arrangement, 190 HP (140 kW)
Passenger cars from the communist era are easily distinguishable by their vertical parabolic roofs compared to the elliptical roofs used on newer cars from western sources.
This morning we check out of the hotel to head for Slovakia. Once again we use the subway to head for Nyugati station, and once again we carefully count the stations along the way. It turns out that there are very visible signs on the platforms at the subway station at Nyugati, but they’re the only ones we see at any of the stations along the two line segments we’ve used. Here in Hungary, the announcements also tell us nothing, because no-one in the group understands Hungarian. (In fact, I hadn’t realized exactly how much of the announcements in German in both Germany and Austria (and Switzerland, the year before) I had been understanding until we moved on to Hungary where I understand nothing at all!)
We’re going to Bratislava this morning, on a train that is headed to Berlin via Prague. The group has reservations in the first class car, and we find ourselves sitting with John and Bonny Collins, whom we had met the previous year on the Swiss tour.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-10-2005 |
MAV/ZSR (EC 170) |
1020 |
Budapest-Bratislava |
MAV Intercity |
350013-9 |
The route to Bratislava goes straight ahead (northeast) at the big junction outside of Nyugati, where the line to Kecskemet turns southeast, continuing through Rakosrendezö (with the railway museum off to the west, and a freight yard across the line to the east). A connecting track heads off eastward to join a line southeast, a non-electrified extension of which crosses the main line northeast, and another connector trails in from the south. The welded-rail main line turns north-northeast to Rakospalota-Klipest, where a non-electrified line heads off to he northeast. This routing is the one developed during the Soviet Bloc era, remaining on the eastern side of the former location of the ‘Iron Curtain’, and thus on the left bank of the Danube, the entire way to Bratislava. This means the line heads north, passing through Dunakeszi, as far as Vac, where a line trails in from the southeast, and then follows the curves of the Danube northwest, turning west where a non-electrified line heads north-northwest, passing through Veröce, turning south-southwest to Nagymaros, then sharply west and north again to Zebegeny, and then more or less due west through Szob, the last station in Hungary, which has two platforms serving four tracks with station buildings to the north.
The line continues west across the border into Slovakia, where the welded rail gives way to jointed track and then west southwest until the river turns away from the line as a non-electrified line trails in from the north, east of Sturovo, a station which has three platforms serving six tracks, with umbrella sheds on each platform, station buildings to the south and a freight yard on the north side of the platforms. The wooded hills along the Danube fade into open fields as the line leaves the river behind. The line, now reduced to a single track with passing places, then heads generally northwest through Nove Zamky, a station with four platforms serving seven tracks and a yard to the northwest of the station, where a line trails in from the south, east of the station, and another departs for the north, west of the station, and continues through Palarikovo, where a line trails in from the east,, turning west before Sala, where a non-electrified branch trails in from the south, and then generally west through Galanta, where a line heads north on the west side of the station, Senec, and Bratislava-Vajnor, site of the large Vychod freight marshaling yard bordering the line in the suburbs of Bratislava. All the tracks at Vychod are electrified at 25kV and class 210 electric switchers do the switching. On joining the line trailing in southwestward from Zilina, the line turns southwestward for the last stretch into Bratislava.
South of the junction, a line heads off to the east to pass around the northeast side of Bratislava, there are carriage yards and a locomotive depot on the northwest side of the line. Bratislava Hlavna Stanica has five platforms, provided with umbrella sheds, serving nine tracks, and is built on a big curve between the northeast-heading track on the “east” end and the west-heading track on the other end. The station buildings are on the southeast portion of this curve, and have exits leading to a bus plaza directly to the southeast and a tram terminus to the east that are physically separate from one another. There are separate signal-control towers on the ends of the main platform (with the buildings on it) at each end of the station, plus another one in the middle of the tracks at the east end. There are two through tracks for freight in the middle of the station, since there is no freight bypass in Bratislava. There are additional carriage sidings at the southwest corner of the station, on the tracks leading into the outdoor exhibits area of the railway museum.
One of the steam locomotives is live as we pass the Hungarian Railway Museum. The border crossing formalities again include passport stamps from both Hungary, the country we’re leaving, and Slovakia, the one we’re entering. The train is delayed for about twenty minutes at Nove Zamky, where a two-minute stop is allowed.
Bratislava is the capital of the Slovakian Republic. Prior to the separation of Slovakia from the then-Czechoslovakia in the early1990s, Bratislava had been a provincial capital since 1919, and prior to that (as Pressburg or Pozsony) had been a provincial capital (in the Kingdom of Hungary, from 1867), within the Habsburg Empire. From 1563 to 1830, St. Martin’s Cathedral was the coronation church for Hungarian monarchs (all within the Habsburg Empire), due to the previous sites for that activity having fallen to the Turks. The city is located on the left bank of the Danube, within commuting distance of Vienna, 60 km away to the west, and within sight of both the Austrian and Hungarian borders from the ramparts of its castle. Although its small old city (now a pedestrianized area), and the castle buildings on the hill 85 m. above the Danube, either remained intact, or have been rebuilt in kind, and the old city area has an interesting gestalt, there is little of real architectural or historical interest here.
After visiting Vienna and then Budapest, visiting Bratislava is like having visited New York City and Philadelphia, and then being asked to take an interest in the history and culture of Trenton or Newark, New Jersey. The real need to visit Bratislava on a tour like this is so that one doesn’t wonder about what it was like, ever afterward.
Bratislava has an extensive meter gauge tramway system, started in 1895, and covering 36.7 km, with a total of 13 lines (1-9, 11, 12, 14, 17) surrounding the old city area and radiating out to all of the outer areas of the modern city. Much of the trackage in the central city’s old streets has been completely rebuilt in the years since Slovakian independence, with the trackage outside our hotel being rebuilt in 2004.
The Slovak Transport Museum, occupying the original Hungarian Central Railway station in Bratislava, has, among many other artifacts, the following railway exhibits:
0-6-0T ČSD 310.0107, built for kkStB by BMMF (Bohemian Loco. Works) in 1912
2-8-0 ČSD 434.128, built for kkStB by BMMF (Bohemian Loco. Works) in 1918
2-10-0 ČSD 534.0471, built for ČSD by ČKD in 1947
Co-Co diesel loco. ČSD 781 312-4, built for ČSD by Skoda in 1966
Bo-Bo diesel loco. T678-016, built for ČSD by ČKD in 1965
A 1929 breakdown crane
Other wagons, a fireless steam locomotive, etc.
The Bratislava station, Hlavna Stanica (it sounds great, but merely means ‘main station’ in Slovakian) is about 2 km north of the old town center, where our hotel is located, so we have a chartered bus to carry us there, passing Grassalkovich Palace, built in Baroque style in the 1760s and today used as the President’s residence, on the way.. Once we’ve checked in and had a few moments in our rooms, Werner leads us north into the pedestrian area of the old town, and then through St. Michael’s Gate to a restaurant located behind and on a lower level, where we have an included lunch. After lunch, we meet our local guide, Jenna, who will lead our tram and walking tour this afternoon.
There’s a momentary diversion as we leave the restaurant, as several people point out to Chris that there is a mother cat with a small kitten in the outdoor area of the restaurant. Then we walk out of the pedestrianised area onto one of the surrounding streets to board a historic (1910) tram that then takes us on a tour around the outside of the old town, starting at Zupne Namestie, heading southwest across a bridge over a lower-level four-lane road (the one heading for the bridge) and then through a tramway tunnel that heads southwest under the castle, turning east at the tunnel’s southern exit to pass along the left bank of the Danube at the foot of the castle rock under first the new Parliament building and then the old castle ramparts, and under the northern approach to Novy Most, the “new bridge” , a late 20th-century new-style suspension bridge that has only one set of supports on the far bank of the river.
We turn north on Mostova to pass the hotel on our left (as well as the concert hall on the other side of the street), and curve east-northeast in the square outside the hotel onto Jesenskeho, past the Slovak National Theater on our left. We see a group of children in national dress heading for a performance stage in the square. We also pass a memorial to a 29th August 1944 uprising. Then we turn north on Sturova and then Spitalska, and momentarily head away from the old town, past a park, a palace and “Cross Street”, where executions were once held, before turning west onto Vazovova Utica—a street which has the Palace of Justice at its east end, behind us as we turn, and then turning southwest again on Blumentalska, passing the Blumental Church, and continuing onto Radlinskeho, passing the St. Florestan statue, a building in the form of an inverted pyramid down a street off to our right (a radio station’s studio), and along Obchodna, the main shopping street of Bratislava, and then past the “Beauty Gate” and two churches—St. Stephen’s and the Trinitarian baroque church. We again pass through the tramway tunnel and turn east along the Danube, leaving the tram at the station under the approach road to the New Bridge.
We pass the Bratislava Holocaust Memorial, built to replace a demolished synagogue, and the outside of St. Martin’s Cathedral (which we are supposed to enter but are prevented from doing so by a church official). We walk through many of the streets of the old town, discussing the buildings along the way, passing St. Michael’s Gate next to where we had eaten lunch, and passing through the main square, where there is a statue of Napoleon leaning on a bench in front of the French Embassy) and through the Town Hall’s archway and courtyard to the town museum, which we are unable to enter (to Jenna’s evident surprise) due to a reception being held for some Japanese visitors. At this point, Jenna invites those who are interested to meet her at 11:15 am on Saturday to go to the museum, and the group makes its way back through the streets we had walked earlier with Werner, to the hotel. There is some sort of amateur music festival going on in the square outside the hotel, but it is inaudible from our room even with the window wide open.
We have another group dinner in the hotel this evening.
This is a “free day” in Bratislava. It amazes me that we have such a thing in by far the least interesting city on the tour, but there it is! Werner takes a small group of us on the tram to the tramway terminus at Hlavna Stanica, although with less than the best possible efficiency. The tramway stop on the corner nearest the hotel entrance is used only by line 4, whereas we need line 1 to go to the station. This line runs down the same street as line 4 in this vicinity, but only stops towards the rear of the concert hall, or beyond the rear of the National Theater. Taking line 4 for a couple of stops results in a walk over to the line 1 stop at the interchange point that is at least as far as walking to the stop at the rear of the concert hall would have been!
After leaving the tram, we then walk around the west side of the station to the Slovakian Railway (actually, “Transport”, since it includes road vehicles as well) Museum in an old good shed (and the lines outside of it) there. The bookshop has both a small catalog of museum holdings and a current book on the locomotives and rolling stock of Slovak Railways. Most of our attention goes to the preserved locomotives on the tracks outside the museum buildings.
On leaving the museum, Chris and I spend an hour on the platforms of Hlavna Stanica, watching and photographing the freight and passenger traffic, and light engines passing to and fro. (The main freight yard is on the line we came in on from Budapest, before its junction with the line in from Kosice, and the roundhouse is between that junction and the station. There is no freight bypass, so all freight trains to and from Brno or Prague (and intermediate locations) pass through the station on the two through tracks in the middle.)
When we leave, we take tram route 1 all the way out to its far western destination, passing our boarding point and the hotel along the way. Once the tram route turns northwest away from the Danube, it passes along the center of a wide boulevard with occasional overpasses and ranks of Soviet-era apartment buildings extending up the steep hillsides from both side of the boulevard. While the overpasses provide for local pedestrian traffic across the main road, there is, as far as we can see, no public transport serving the apartment blocks on the tops of the hills without a stiff walk from the tramlines on which we’re riding.
In the center of town, we leave the tram at the stop by the new bridge, and walk slowly up the steep steps and incline to the castle ramparts overlooking the river, and then to the castle buildings themselves. The ramparts provide a spectacular view of the river, and a less spectacular view of the array of “Socialist Realism” apartment building in the small segment of Bratislava (and Slovakia) across the river, before the borders of Austria (1 km west) and Hungary (6 km east) are reached.
The castle itself is not very interesting, and we’re not interested in either of the museums located here, but we do walk over to the ramparts overlooking the old city, which also provide excellent views, before descending the same road (but not the same steps) back to the old town, this time in the vicinity of the bridges across the depressed main road, and then around the old town to photograph the outside of a baroque church, before returning through the old town to the main square On the way, we observe some Irish soccer hooligans leaving the outdoor tables of the Irish Pub without paying for their beer.
We now ride a different tramline, out to the northeastern suburbs, along a road with plenty of factories alongside it. This is Saturday afternoon, so none is operational, but they all look as if they operate during the week. Returning the same way, we get off at the hotel.
When we get back to the hotel, our room has not yet been cleaned, even though it’s now 4:30 pm and we’ve been gone all day. We tell the front desk about this, which sends the maids to our room. While they’re cleaning, one maid tries to tell us we have to put the ‘clean room now” sign out on the door handle, if we want the room cleaned, but we demur. Later, one of the maids delivers us two pairs of “Radisson” slippers! We eat dinner this evening at a small restaurant located in the cellar off a courtyard in the old town, that we find by chance as we’re walking around near the north edge of old town.
In common with other provinces of the former Habsburg Empire, the railways in Slovakia were originally oriented towards travel to and from the Habsburg capital, Vienna, which is only 60 km from the Slovakian capital, Bratislava. The first line in Slovakia ran between Bratislava and Marchegg, where the line towards Vienna crossed into today’s Austria, and was opened in 1846. The Hungarian Central Railway built this as part of a line running from Budapest to Vienna via Szob and Bratislava (Pozsony, as it was called by the Hungarians) that opened throughout just a few years later (initially, using a connection to the KFN main line at Gänserndorf). However, the revolution of 1848 had intervened, and any semblance of “Hungarian” autonomy was suppressed in favor of direct rule from Vienna. By the time the complete line opened, in 1851, it was owned by the Southeastern [Austrian] State Railways, created in 1850, which then became the Staats Eisenbahn Gesellschaft (StEG) in 1856. This (Austrian) nationalized company completed many lines in present-day Slovakia (completing the line from Szob to Bratislava in 1851, and extending it westward for a direct StEG connection to Vienna in 1870, northward in the 1870s to become the line to today’s Zilina and on into Galicia (now part of Poland), in the 1880s, for example)
The thrust of Slovakian railways changed (or perhaps changed back to what it was before 1848) when Slovakia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary in 1867. Most of the railways in today’s Slovakia were nationalized by greater Hungary between 1865 and 1890, being incorporated into Hungarian State Railways (MAV). Major railway lines built in the second half of the nineteenth century included:
the Kassa-Oldenberg Railway (KsOd), or Kosice-Bohumin (KBD) in Slovakian which built east in the Vah valley, across northern Slovakia, in 1870-72, from today’s Zilina to Kassa (Kosice) in eastern Slovakia, then north to Bohunin on the (now) Czech border, where it joined the KFN, and on into Silesia (now Poland), and was only nationalized by Czechoslovakia in 1921;
the Hungarian Northeastern Railway, opened in 1871-72, with lines in Slovakia and Ruthenia, east of today’s Kosice, which are split today between Slovakia and (the vast majority) Ukraine (which has converted them to 5 ft. Russian gauge), incorporated into MAV not long after construction of its basic set of lines.
With the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the Dual Monarchy at the end of WWI, and the subsequent creation of a Czechoslovakian state that incorporated the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, as well as Slovakia and Ruthenia, transportation routes in Slovakia were re-oriented to focus on travel to and from the new national capital at Prague, using routes that had been of little importance beforehand, given the proximity of Bratislava and the imperial capital of Vienna. The Czechoslovakia created in 1920 included the lands to the east, all the way to the Carpathians, which thus were operated by the railways of the new country. This meant, for example, that the former StEG line north from Marchegg to Břeclav on the east side of the Morave river went from being a ‘secondary’ main line from Vienna to Moravia, to being the central part of the Czechoslovak main line between Bratislava and Prague. Segments of the KsOd and former StEG meeting at Zilina had to be redirected away from being main lines carrying traffic to and from Galicia and Poland and towards forming the main line across Slovakia (and thus Czechoslovakia) between Kosice and Bratislava. (in 1937, a new line opened across the lower Carpathians that carried (mainly) freight traffic directly between Zilina and Olomouc, in Moravia, without requiring it to take the long way around through either Bratislava or Ostrava. Those parts of MAV that fell within Czechoslovakia automatically became part of Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD).
The lands that had been ruled from Budapest until 1918 reverted to Hungarian rule from 1938 to 1945. After WWII, with these lands all falling into the Soviet bloc, Ruthenia, a region that had always had a large ethnically Ukrainian population segment (along with its Ruthenes, Germans, Hungarians, Jews (mostly Hungarian speaking), probably some Romanians and various Slav nationalities) was incorporated into Ukraine (then a Soviet Federal Socialist Republic). (This gave the USSR direct borders with all its satellite countries except the DDR and Bulgaria.) As a result, the boundary between the standard gauge railways of Czechoslovakia and the broad gauge railways further east moved westward to the new boundary between Czechoslovakia and Ukraine. In this period, more emphasis was placed on trains traveling among the Soviet bloc countries, and into the USSR, than on the heretofore more important lines between the Slovak province and the rump of Austria to its west, requiring another reorientation of traffic flows and the capacity of railway lines. In fact, the CSSR state built a broad gauge line to Kosice to bring iron ore to a steel works located miles and miles from its raw materials in the Soviet Union.
The velvet revolution in 1989 led to yet another reorientation of railway capacity, still within Czechoslovakia, but with a return to importance of the lines across the Danube and into Austria. The independence of Slovakia that came in 1993, reduced the importance of the traffic flows towards Prague while increasing those towards Austria (or, at least, to nearby Vienna). The subsequent rise in trade between the newly-independent Ukraine and the lands of Western Europe raised the importance of the railway lines leading across the Slovakia-Ukraine border, a trend only emphasized by the accession of Slovakia to the European Union in May, 2004. Capacity of the rail lines heading in that direction is currently being increased, while provision for automated changes of wheelsets to facilitate the gauge change is being enhanced.
The line from Leopoldov to Zilina was doubled in 1904, but the rest of the line south to Bratislava had to wait until the 1940s to be doubled, at least in part because many train services in the 1920s and 1930s were routed through Galanta, further east, rather than on the direct line.
The KBD was the first line in Czechoslovakia to be electrified, in 1955-56 at the west end, to Kosice in 1961-62, and north to Bohunin in 1964, all at 3000 V DC. The line from Zilina south to Brunovice is also electrified at 3000 V DC. Lines south of Brunovice were electrified at 25 kV, 50 Hz, AC. Electrification from Břeclav-Bratislava-Szob was carried out as part of the complete electrification, at 25 kV, 50 Hz, AC, of the main line from Berlin to Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia, with the Břeclav-Bratislava-Szob section in operation by the end of 1971. Of Slovakia’s electrified lines, about half (in the southwest corner of the country) are electrified at 25kV, 50 Hz, AC, and half, generally towards the north and east of the country, are at 3000 V DC. Steam traction in Slovakia ended in 1980.
Segments of the Pan-European Transportation Corridors being funded by the European Union as an aid to the development of transportation infrastructure in central and eastern Europe that lie within Slovakia include: (from Brno) Břeclav/Kuty-Bratislava-Sturovo/Szob (to Budapest) on Corridor IV; Bratislava-Zilina-Kosice-Zabony/Cop (to Lvov/Lviv) on Corridor V; and (from Katowice, etc.) Zwardon/Cadca-Zilina, on Corridor VI. This list covers just about all of the main lines in Slovakia in 2005.
ZSR’s main-line services in 2005 are operated mainly by the following motive power. All electric traction operates either on the international standard of 25kV, 50 Hz, or on 3000 V DC, or in some cases both, as stated. In Both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 3000 v DC electric locomotives are painted predominantly green, 25 kV AC predominantly red, and those that can operated on both sets of power, predominantly blue.
Class 110, built 1971-73, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 960 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 121, built 1960, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2344 kW power, 99 km/h max. speed
Class 125.8, rebuilt 1976, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2340 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 131, built 1980-82, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2.5 MW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 140, built 1953-58, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2344 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 162, built 1991, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 3378 kW power, 140 km/h max. speed
Class 163, built 1984-92, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3260 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 182, built 1963-65, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 3 MW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 183, built 1971, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 3 MW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 210, built 1972-83, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 984 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 240, built 1968-70, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3.2 MW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 263, built 1984-88, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3060 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 350, built 1973-75, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 4.2 MW power, 160 km/h max. speed
Class 362, built 1990, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 3070 kW power, 140 km/h max. speed
Class 363, built 1980-90, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3060 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 460 (5-car), built 1971-78, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1 MW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class 710, built 1961-72, C wheel arrangement, 301 kW power, 60 km/h max. speed
Class 721, built 1963-68, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 551 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 731, built 1988-92, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 600 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 735, built 1971-79, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 926 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 736, introduced 1999, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 990 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 742, built 1977-86, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 883 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 750, rebuild introduced 1991, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1325 kW, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 751, built 1964-71, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1102 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 752, built 1969-70, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1102 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 753, built 1968-77, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1325 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 754, built 1975-80, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1460 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 770, built 1963-79, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 993 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 771, built 1968-72, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 993 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 773, introduced 1999, Co-Co wheel arr., 1.3 MW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 781, built 1966-79, Co-Co wheel arr., 1435 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 810, built 1975-84, 1-A wheel arrangement, 155kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 811, introduced 1996, Ao-Ao wheel arr., 237 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 820, built 1963-64, B-2 wheel arrangement, 206 kW power, 70 km/h max. speed
Class 830, built 1958-60, 2-Bo wheel arrangement, 100 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 850, built 1962-67, B-2 wheel arrangement, 515 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class 840, introduced 2005, 2-Bo-2 wheel arr., 550 kW power, 115 km/h max. speed
Class 851, built 1967-68, B-2 wheel arrangement, 588 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Passenger cars from the communist era are easily distinguishable by their vertical parabolic roofs compared to the elliptical roofs used on newer cars from western sources.
Since there is no direct tram from the stop nearest the hotel to the station, we use the bus that will carry the luggage to Prague to take us to the station to catch our train to Prague. Our train service this morning is part of the same intercity service as the train on which we arrived, but runs four hours earlier in the day. It starts from Budapest, but continues beyond Dresden and Berlin to Hamburg, where it will arrive in late evening.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-12-2005 |
ZSR/CD (EC 174) |
0840 |
Bratislava-Prague |
MAV Intercity |
350007-1 |
The line to Prague leaves the west end of Hlavna Stanica, passing through a tunnel almost immediately, and then turns northwest to run through the western part of the city. The line turns west as it leaves the city, but soon turns north to follow the east side of the Slovak-Austrian border (formed by the Morave river at this point, rather than the Danube as it had been from Bratislava to Devin, well south of the railway). The agriculture west of Bratislava and along the river valley is sugar beet fields. At Devinska Nova Ves, a currently non-electrified line to Marchegg in Austira leaves to the northeast, soon splitting into lines for Vienna (to the west) and Gänserndorf (to the northwest). Further north, the countryside is flat but wooded along both sides except in towns and villages.
On the south side of Zohor, a non-electrified line trails in from the northeast, and north of Zohor a short non-electrified line leaves to the northwest. The line continues through Malacky to Koty, a station with two platforms serving three tracks, with the station buildings to the west and ayrd tracks to the east where a line from Trnava (on the Bratislava-Zilina line) trails in from the east and one heads northeast to Holic nad Moravou, with the main line then heading northwest, crossing into the Czech Republic as the Slovakian border heads northeast and the Czech-Austrian border turns generally west. Once on the Czech side of the border, approaching Břeclav, the Bratislava-Prague route curves south and then north as it joins with the line of the erstwhile Kaiser Ferdinand’s Nordbahn, which has come north from Vienna on the Austrian side of the border and trails in from the south. A non-electrified line running along the Czech side of the Austrian border trails in from the west, and the main line turns north-northwest. Břeclav station has three platforms serving five tracks, with station buildings to the west.
North of Břeclav, the main line of the KFN departs to the east and then northeast to head for Ostrava and Galicia (now in Poland), while the Prague line, also built by KFN, turns north-northwest towards Brno, passing through Zaječi, where it turns northwest and a non-electrified line trails in from the northeast, Šakvice, where a very short non-electrified branch trails in from the north and Vranovice, where the main line turns north and a short non-electrified branch leaves to the west. At Brno-Horni-Horspice, a non-electrified line trails in from the west, there is a large freight hump yard on the east side of the line, and a group of non-electrified lines trails in from the east. There are coach yards on the south/west side of the line approaching the station.
Brno’s Hlavni (main) station has five platforms serving nine through tracks with impressive large station buildings on the west side and yard tracks on the east side. It is located on a curve turning from northwesterly heading to northerly heading. Brno cathedral is located atop a hill on the southwest side of the station. There is a locomotive depot on the east side of the line north of the station, as the line turns north-northeast, with another yard on the east side of the line, and a burrowing junction at the north end of the yard separating the passenger tracks from the freight tracks heading north. Another connection from the same group of non-electrified lines trails in from the south at Brno-Zidenice, north of which a line leaves to the north, heading for Česka Trebova, as the main line heads northeast and then curves counter-clockwise on a viaduct that crosses over that non-electrified line to head west (briefly) and then north again.
Not far north of Brno, as the landscape becomes rolling, wooded hills, the line turns northwest, through Tišnov, where a non-electified branch leaves to the north and the main line turns west, southwest and then northwest, Křizanov, where a non-electrified line trails in from the southwest and the main line turns north, and Zdar nad Sazavou, a station with three platforms serving five tracks, with two extra tracks between tracks 1 and 2, station buildings to the north and yard tracks to the south, where the non-electrified branch from Tišnov trails in from the east and the main line turns west. This whole segment of line curves back and forth along the base of a fairly narrow valley, crossing the watershed from the Svratka river valley at Brno to the Sazavou river valley heading west. Climbing up into the hills, the trees gradually change from deciduous to firs and pines. There are two tunnels and many bridges over valleys, as the landscape returns to deciduous trees and then fields again, with evergreen forests on the hills lining the valley.
The line turns southwest as a non-electrified line trails in from the north. There is another tunnel approaching Havličkuv Brod, and the line then turns northwest, where a line coming north from Jihlava trails in from the south with a yard alongside to the west, at Havličkuv Brod, a station with four platforms serving seven tracks, station buildings to the southwest and a locomotive depot to the northeast, and a branch heading southwest departs at the northwest end of the station. There are strings of enclosed wagons (vans, boxcars) at every country station, suggesting a continuing carload and less-than-carload freight service. North of Havličkuv Brod, , the line again climbs into a hilly area. There are obviously-closed signal towers at places along the way.
At Svetla nad Sazavou, a non-electrified line continues northwest and the main line turns north, turning east briefly through Golcov-Jenikov, north of which are broad rolling grasslands, followed by another area of curves through woodland, including evergreens. The line then turns north again to Časlav, where a non-electrified branch trails in from the east and Kutna Hora (junction of the 25 kV 50hz AC section to the south and the 3000 V DC to the north), where a non-electrified line trails in from the southwest, and turns northwest, crossing over the Olomouc main line below and descends along the north side of that line to a junction with it at the east end of Kolin. Just south of Kolin is a freight yard with a layover point for DB locomotives.
[The line west from Kolin to Prague is the same (except for the route within Prague itself) as the line from Prague to Krakow, and is described under June 15th, below.]
In Prague, this line uses a through line, departing from the main line at the third junction west of Prague Liben and turning north, past a junction where a non-electrified line heads west, into Holešovice station, with the line onward continuing to the northwest to reach Germany, rather than turning south into the main (Hlavni) station in the center of the city. Holesovice station has three main platforms serving five tracks, with umbrella sheds on the platforms and station buildings to the south. The whole station is elevated above street level.
Most of the route from Bratislava is electrified at 25 kV, 50 Hz, AC, but the line from Kolin to Prague is electrified at 3000 V DC. (The changeover is at Kutna Hora, one station south of Kolin.) The locomotive on our train is a blue one, equipped to operate with both types of overhead electrification, so no change of locomotives is required en route.
There is trackwork north of Koty, in the Czech republic, replacing the northbound track. We see stacks of track segments with concrete ties, a track-laying crane, and a segment of trackless sub-roadbed, with a bridge missing, while we travel "wrong road". There is also track work on the switches just north of Brno station.
Since there is no included lunch today, many members of the group elect to eat lunch on the train (the only reasonable opportunity). As usual, Chris and I have eaten enough of the included breakfast that we don’t need to eat at lunchtime, so we don’t join them, remaining in our first class seats for the whole trip.
Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic. Before the amicable separation of Slovakia it had been capital of Czechoslovakia since 1919. Prior to 1919, it had been a provincial capital in the Habsburg Empire (Austria) for centuries. Prague is almost unique among the capitals of Central Europe in that it almost completely escaped the ravages of World War II, and thus has its historic buildings and cityscapes intact. Except for the crowds in modern dress, visiting these locations today can really provide the ambience of what these areas were like in centuries past.
Prague Castle holds a commanding position on the top of Hradčany hill west of the Vltava river, overlooking the bend of that river as it curves around the city center on the other bank. Although the first buildings on the hill were constructed starting in 882, the visible form of the castle today dates from its rebuilding under architect Nicolo Pacassi in the 1760s, with many of the buildings still occupying the sites laid out in the early years of Habsburg rule in the 1540s, and some of them dating back to the Jagellonian era in the 1480s. The most recent building at the castle is the Riding school, rebuilt after WWII (but not because of war damage). Since 1993, the castle has been the seat of the President of the Czech Republic.
The First Courtyard originated in 1763-71 as part of Nicolo Pacassi’s rebuilding. Giovanni Maria Filippi built the Mathias gateway to the second courtyard, in the early baroque style, in the 17th-century. The second courtyard also originated in the Pacassi rebuilding, but its major feature, the Chapel of the Holy Rood, was built in the second half of the 19th-century. Francesco de Torre and Hieronym Kohl created the baroque Hercules Fountain in 1686. The Gothic equestrian statue of St. George in the Third Courtyard was cast in 1373.
St. Vitus’ Cathedral is a gothic edifice, located within the castle’s third courtyard. It’s height makes it a commanding presence throughout the city, even when the castle itself cannot really be made out. Mathias of Arras started the building of the cathedral in 1344, with Peter Parler taking over from 1352 to 1399. The latest construction added some neo-Gothic portions of the structure (including the present west front, which includes a 10.4m, diameter stained glass rosette with 27,000 pieces of stained glass) in the late 19th and early 20th-century. The gilded Renaissance grille on the south tower is from the reign of Emperor Rudolph II. The Golden Gate, southern entrance to the cathedral, is decorated with a mosaic created in 1370-71. The Renaissance bell tower next to the south entrance is equipped with a Baroque helmet. Windows in the Gothic-vaulted main nave and choir are fitted with stained glass, some medieval, some from the 1930s. The baroque silver sepulcher of St. John of Nepomuk in the choir was designed by Josef Emanuel Fischer von Erlach and made in 1733-36. The same designer was responsible for the marble sepulcher of Marshal Leopold, Count of Silk, dated 1723. Perhaps the most beautiful area in the cathedral is the chapel of St. Wenceslaus.
The Old Royal Palace was built between 1492 and 1502, and has a great hall 62 m. long, 16 m. wide and 13 m. high, which was once the largest Gothic secular hall in central Europe. The three-nave pre-Romanesque Basilica of St. George has a Baroque front added centuries later. Benedict Ried built the castle’s White Tower in the later 15th-centuy. Golden Lane once housed the bowmen of the castle guards in its tiny houses. Later, goldsmiths used the buildings for their small shops. Franz Kafka live in one of these houses in the early 20th-century. There are magnificent views out over Lesser Town, below, and Old Town, across the river, from the ramparts on the south side of the castle.
Lesser Town (at least one guidebook calls it the “Little Quarter”, which may be a more idiomatic translation of the Czech) is the area down by the river, south of Hradčany hill at the west end of the Charles Bridge. St. Nicholas Church on Lesser Town was built between 1673 and 1752, primarily by Kryštof Dientezenhofer and his son Kilian Ignac Dientezenhofer. The church’s massive 80-meter high dome, decorated with statues by Ignac František Platzer, in 1755-69, and Robert Platzer, and bell tower dominate the surrounding area, including the view directly west from the Charles Bridge, to the left of the castle and cathedral buildings on the northwest skyline. The west front is richly decorated with Ionian pillars, a balcony, stuccowork and sculptural decorations. The interior includes a primary nave and side chapels abutting on the inside of the west front, leading to a presbytery below the giant dome carried by two robust arches, and the bell tower abutting to the right rear. The various flat wall and curved ceiling surfaces are decorated with frescos by Jan Lukaš Kracker in 1760 and František Xaver Palko (especially in the dome in 1753-54). Tomaš Schwartz built the late baroque organ in 1745-46. Late baroque statues created in 1755-57 guard the nave pillars. All of the side chapels have ornate altars accompanied by paintings, by various artists, dating to the 1760s, except for the two larger western side chapels, which date to 1715.
The Charles Bridge was the only crossing over the Vltava in the Prague area until 1741, connecting Lesser Town to Old Town. The bridge, built by Peter Parker in the 1350s and 1360s, is 520 meters long, and is built of sandstone bricks. Pedestrianized today, it is guarded on both ends by fortified towers adjacent to entrance arches provided with raisable and lowerable metal gates, added at the end of the 14th-century. The parapets of the bridge as it crosses the water are adorned with statues, mainly of saints important to Prague and Bohemia, the originals of which were created in 1707-14. Today’s statues are copies, and the originals are kept elsewhere for preservation against environmental erosion. There are also bas relief sculptures, dating from the 1680s. The bridge has three arches west of Kampa island, a pier one arch width wide on the island, and eleven more arches to the Old Town bank of the river.
Old Town Square, in the area south and east of the Vltava, but north of Wenceslaus Saquare, is perhaps the most fascinating place in a historically fascinating city. Prague has the benefit of being the only major Central European city whose old center was largely spared the rigors of WWII, with the vast majority of the buildings having suffered no damage whatever. How important this is will not become clear until we visit the old town area in Warsaw, which is entirely fake since all of the buildings there were destroyed in the latter stages of the war. The square is a large paved quasi-rectangular area, with a sculpted fountain somewhat off-center to the northeast, and a large monument to Jan Hus to the northwest, all of which is in the pedestrianized area of the Old Town.
The square is fronted by buildings on all sides, anchored on the northwest corner by the baroque St. Nicholas Church on Old Town Square, and on the southwest corner by the medieval Old Town Hall (part of the west side, not the south side). Streets go off at the corners, in two directions in many cases, and along the edges of the square in some places, to provide ingress and egress. On the day we visit (a Monday), several apparently separate groups of stalls occupy different parts of the square, and a number of restaurants and cafes have tables with covering umbrellas in front of their establishments along the perimeter. The buildings along the perimeter are not uniform, Baron Haussmann-style, but are, instead, rather fascinating in their picturesque (and often ornamented) diversity, mostly from the 16th to 18th-centuries. The Church of Our lady before Tyn, although not on the square itself, dominates the east side of the square, which also includes the Kinsky Palace with its statues by Ignac Platzer from 1760-65. The south side is mainly houses of Romanesque and Gothic origin. Melantrichova Passage, one of the streets off the south side, across from Old Town hall, is spanned by an arch between two buildings on opposite sides of the passage. The west side, spanning the distance between St. Nicholas Church and Old Town Hall, has a garden area with planter space and trees, in an area once known as the Hen Market, in front of the houses that are set back from the main square
St. Nicholas Church on Old Town Square was completed in 1735 on the site of an older church, and formed part of a Benedictine Monastery built between 1727 and 1730. The church was designed by Kilian Ignac Dietzenhofer. The stucco decoration is the work of Bernard Spinetti, and Bavarian artist Cosmas Damian Asam painted the frescos in the cupola and choir in 1735-36. The south front of the church is flanked by twin towers, which abut the southeast and southwest corners of the dome. Virtually nothing remains of the original ornate fixtures of the church, which were sold off when the church and monastery were closed down in 1787. The monastery was demolished in 1898. Since 1920, the church has been used by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, established in 1920 on Czechoslovakia’s independence from the Habsburg Empire.
Old Town Hall was established in 1338, and now comprises a row of colorful Gothic and Renaissance buildings along the north side of an east-west street at the southwest corner of Old Town Square. It is one of the few buildings in the area that had to be restored after WWII, since it was heavily damaged by the Nazi response to the Prague uprising in 1945. The tower on the actual corner of the square is 69.5 meters high. The animated Town Hall Clock, on the south wall of the tower, dates from 1490. It has an animated scene of the apostles, that operates every hour on the hour, and below the clock is an astronomical clock providing an illustrated calendar, dating from 1866, and indications of the astrological signs into which each date falls.
Prague’s tramways were built starting as horse trams in 1875 and electrified starting in the late 1890s, on standard gauge tracks comprising 24 tram routes that now extend to 136.6 km total route length. There are six bridges across the Vltava that carry trams. Along with some steep gradient sections climbing the hills on the west side of the river. The most recent extensions of the tramways before the velvet revolution ended the Communist Era were to new housing estates in 1987 and 1988, but a new extension to the north is being built in the 2000s. In the 1960s and 1970s, most of the investment in public transportation went into the three lines of the new metro system (Red, Yellow and Green Lines), whose construction has led to the closure of some tramlines. All of the metro lines pass under the Old Town area, forming a triangle with interchange stations at the corner, and all three pass under the Vltava at least once (the Red Line twice).
The Prague Tramway Museum has 56 vehicles: 1 horse tram from 1886, 16 passenger electric motor cars, dating as far back as 1900, 12 passenger trailers, 1 freight motor,, nine different non-passenger trailers, two locomotives and assorted trolleybuses and buses.
Prague’s Technical Museum has, among many other exhibits, eight steam locomotives displayed on the ground floor of its main (transport) hall:
0-6-2T L103 “Kladno”, built in 1855 for Buštehrader Bahn by StEG
0-6-0 ČSD 322.302, built in 1869 for Aussig-Teplitzer Bahn by Hartmann in Chemnitz
4-4-0 ČSD 252.008, built in1881 for the Nordwestbahn by Wiener Neustadt
0-4-0T 6 “Gartenau”, built in 1887 for Salzburg Electricity and Tramway Co. by Krauss
0-4-0T 4, built in the mid 1890s for the Kladno-Vojtešska Steel Works by Krauss
0-6-0T ČSD 310.0118, built in1902 for kkStB by Krauss
A1 steam railcar ČSD M124.001, built in 1903 for kkStB by Ringhoffer in Prague, and
2-6-4 310.15 (ČSD 375.007), built in 1911 for the kkStB by StEG,
along with four-axled dining car Aza 83, built in 1891 by Ringhoffer for the emperor, and two-axled saloon coach Az 45, built in 1900 by Ringhoffer for the Ustecko-Teplicka Railway.
On arrival in Prague, using a station away from the city center to facilitate the train’s continuation to Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg, our local guide, Vladimir, who has a minibus outfitted with a trailer for carrying bags awaiting us, meets us. The trailer is because the minibus is too small for people to carry bags on board. In fact, there are not enough seats for all the tour group members, Werner, and Vladimir! Perhaps the local arrangements organization has not realized that we have a tour guide traveling with us? At the hotel, on Wenceslaus Square, where Werner’s wife, Ruth, joins us for the next three days, and where check-in is less simple than usual (since the hotel refuses to hand out keys without filled out and signed registration cards, in its lobby with an obvious security guard), we find that our luggage is not yet in our rooms. It transpires that this is because the bus carrying the luggage from Bratislava is not here yet, and indeed we see it arriving as we depart for the afternoon’s activities.
After the bus ride to the hotel, we use the bus to travel from the hotel to the castle and cathedral on the hill at Hradčany, across the Vltava River from Prague’s Old Town, which the castle dominates. We tour the exterior of the palace and the interior of the cathedral, and then walk down Golden Lane, an area where writers and artists used to work. Our bus then takes us over to the Technical Museum, which has an excellent set of exhibits including eight stuffed-and-mounted steam locomotives (one of them a Gölsdorf 2-6-4 from Habsburg Empire days), along with carriages once used by the Emperor in those same far-off days. Beyond the museum’s catalog, the only books on railways in English are ones that I have already acquired from sources in England.
The bus has taken some tour members who did not wish to visit this museum back to the hotel, and will not be returning for the rest of us. Werner has given the rest of us until 5:30 pm to visit this museum, but a little after 4 pm, Chris and I are ready to leave. I search out Werner and ask him to describe the way back to the hotel using public transport. When it becomes clear that we’re going to leave, Bob and Shirley Carter and Jim Compton elect to go with us. This is good for all of us, since it takes all of us to find the landmarks required to follow Werner’s directions. We make the journey successfully, however, and have at least an extra hour to relax in the hotel room before the included dinner down in a beautiful dining room in the hotel’s basement.
This morning starts with a tram tour of parts of Prague (that are accessible by tram). On leaving the hotel as a group, we walk halfway down Wenceslaus Square, and then turn southwest at the cross street where the tramlines run. Another couple of hundred yards down this street is a tram stop, across the street from an urban high school building. Here we wait for our private vintage tram, from 1914, to appear. In the nature of tramways, one tram cannot pass another, and thus one particular tram cannot stop and wait, so the group must be in place ready to board when its special tram appears.
On board the tram, we head northwest and then southwest on Narodni, passing the National Theater, until we reach the east bank of the Vltava River, where we turn north on the line along that riverbank. One-time mills on the far side of the river are now art galleries. This route takes us through an arch across the street and past the east end of the pedestrian-only Charles Bridge. The tram turns onto the next bridge north of the Charles Bridge, passing the House of Artists Concert Hall, to cross over the river below the castle, turns north again and then climbs the serpentine ramp up to the level of the castle entrance that we had taken in the minibus the afternoon before. Continuing on west past the castle entrance, we make a right turn and then a left turn onto Patochoven to reach the Prague Tramway Museum (adjacent to an operational car barn), where we make a visit.
The scope of the tramway museum’s collection is magnificent, almost approaching the comprehensiveness of that in Vienna, but the lighting inside the former carbarn is not as good for photography as that in Vienna. A museum guide gives a tour of the displays, translated for us by Vladimir, and then of certain specific trams that have particular significance in Prague Tramway history. There are exhibits showing the development of the tramways in the city. At the end of the visit, a group photo is taken in front of the vintage tram. We then reboard that tram to continue our tour. Shortly after leaving the museum, we watch the motorman change the points in front of us. (This requires screwing the brake control wheel all the way clockwise, and then pushing down hard on its handle.)
Retracing our route past the castle and down the ramp, we turn south along the west bank of the Vltava, pass through arches over the street, and leave the tram in the square at the rear of St. Nikolaus’ baroque church to start the walking tour portion of the day. After a disquisition on the square, we walk south past a house associated with Beethoven on the west side of the street and then east towards (but not yet onto) the Charles Bridge, and then turn south to go past the old Maltese Church into another less crowded square, past an old mill which still has evidence of the depth of flooding here a few years ago (2002), across a side arm of the river and onto an island (Kaupe Island) with another interesting square. Here, several floors below the level of the Charles Bridge above us, we stop for another disquisition on a tavern and a balcony on the uppermost floor of that tavern.
Finally, we climb the stairs onto the Charles Bridge itself, where Vladimir explains the significance of the bridge to the city of Prague (it was the first river crossing anywhere near), and of the multitude of statues mounted on the sides of the bridge. We slowly walk across the bridge, through the throngs of sightseers, from west to east. After we pass through the archway in the tower at the east end (we had observed but not passed through the similar arch at the west end), Vladimir gives us an explanation of the buildings and statuary there at the east end, a location that we had passed earlier in our vintage tramcar.
We then walk west and north, alongside the bridge, and down to the level of the riverbank from which we can view the profile of the bridge in its entirety. Another walk north and then east takes us to the square in front of the concert hall, with its featured statue of Dvořak. Adjacent is a square named for a martyr of the violent end to the Prague Spring of 1968, and around the corner from that we pass the southern edge of the former Jewish Ghetto, now turned into a tourist attraction for which the sights to be seen do not justify the fees charged to enter.
Another short walk east and then south takes us to the northeast corner of Old Town Square, next to another St. Nikolaus’ baroque church. [After the Thirty Years’ War had settled which religious denomination would be observed in which countries, states and provinces, there was a veritable explosion of church building in those countries (the Roman Catholic ones) where the building of decorated churches was permitted (nay, encouraged). These decorated churches form the centerpiece of the Baroque, and later Rococo, architectural style in central Europe. There are magnificent examples of Baroque/Rococo churches, more beautiful on the inside than the outside in many cases, in Bavaria, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Krakow, and recreated examples in Warsaw.].
Vladimir points out some of the sights of the Old Town Square, after which we head across the square and through an arch in the southeast corner, behind which is a smaller square containing a restaurant at which the group eats an included lunch in a room at a lower level down a tight spiral staircase. Somehow, we have managed to complete the walking tour entirely before lunch, so afterwards, we’re able to make return visits to items we had found particularly interesting. Chris and I try to go into the baroque church on the square, but it’s 1:45 pm and there is a concert in that church at 2 pm, so we must defer that visit.
We walk to the southwest corner of the square, and wait for 2 pm to see the mechanical display on the famous clock on the south wall of the Town Hall there that occurs when it strikes the hour. Then, we walk south to the Metro (subway) station at Mustek (serving the north end of Wenceslaus Square) and take the subway Green Line back across the river to the foot of the castle, whence (after some missteps) we make our way back to the first St. Nikolaus’ Church that we had seen. Here, we pay 50 Czech Crowns each to go inside and view the interior (and more to buy the book of photographs with captions in English) When we have drunk in the magnificence of this interior (it is bested only by Ottobeuren Abbey and the churches in Salzburg, of what we have seen), a look at the map shows that the direct walk back to Old Town Square is no longer than the combined walks to and from the respective subway stations, so we walk directly east, passing through the western arch and across all of the Charles Bridge, and then angling east northeast on the east bank to take us back, with a couple of turns along the way, to the church on the northwest corner of Old Town Square. This time, we’re able to go in! After a look around the church, we walk past the market stalls. A metalworker makes, among other things, bells, and Chris finds a set of small hanging bells that should act as a wind chime, so we buy them before heading through the rest of the stalls in the direction of the hotel.
After a visit to the hotel, we take the subway one stop on each of two lines (Green and then Red) to get to Prague’s main station (Hlavni Nadrazi), where I spend almost an hour photographing the parade of rush hour trains in and out of first one end and then the other of this large station. On the return by subway to Mustek, we again cannot find, from inside the station, the entrance that is so convenient to the hotel from the outside. However, we do find a grocery store to buy drinks and chocolate, and on surfacing we find ourselves halfway down Wenceslaus Square. We encounter Werner and Ruth during our walk back to the hotel.
We eat dinner tonight at the Irish Pub down one of the side streets off Wenceslaus Square.
Some members of the group head for Karlovy Vařy today. Others stay in Prague. But the largest portion of the group goes with Werner and Ruth on a train ride to the mountains on the Czech-Polish border at Jesenik and Zlate Hory. The train we must take departs a little after 7 am from the main station that Chris and I had visited the night before, but the group dynamics mean that we must leave the hotel before breakfast starts, so we’re provided with bagged breakfasts. There is, however, time to buy coffee in the station concourse before going out to the platform, for those of us who wish it.
The trains we have ridden on heretofore have all had open-plan first class carriages, but it seems that Czech and Polish trains have compartments in their first class cars, and so it proves today. The group spreads out among several compartments, basically occupying the corner seats in each. Werner and Ruth share the compartment that Chris and I had sat down in. This is the day that Ruth has come for, since she was born to a German-speaking family in the area where are going to, when it was part of Germany, and left in 1945 when she was still a small child in advance of the post-war territorial rearrangements in the area. Because this area was behind the “Iron Curtain” until 1989, and because she held a sensitive job with the German Government, she has been unable to visit the area until now. On opening our packed breakfasts, we find both orange and orange juice in the bags (another example, following the presence of orange in last night’s desert until Werner intervened for us, that this hotel has not read the food restrictions list provided to them). Since we have provided our own drinks, we give the orange juice to Werner and Ruth, and trade fruit for apples.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-14-2005 |
CD (R 757) |
0710 |
Prague-Jesenik (nominal) |
CD Regional |
150009-8 |
|
6-14-2005 |
CD (Os 3609) |
13xx |
Jesenik-Zlate Hory |
Small EMU |
(831199-5) |
|
6-14-2005 |
CD (Os 23664) |
1425 |
Zlate Hory-Jesenik |
Small EMU |
(831199-5) |
|
6-14-2005 |
CD (D 904) |
1510 |
Jesenik-Zabreh na Morave |
CD Regional |
749265-5 |
|
6-14-2005 |
CD (D 708) |
1702 |
Zabreh na Morave-Prague |
CD InterCity |
162015-4 |
Prague Hlavni station has seven main platforms serving thirteen tracks adjacent to the main platforms, and in many cases additional tracks in between the main platforms, accessed by stepping over a nearer track. (These are all low-level platforms). A large overall double-barrel roof covers the central portions of all platforms, with umbrella sheds over those portions of the platform extending north and south beyond the barrel roof. The station buildings are on the west side of the station, with pedestrian subways extending beneath the platforms. The main concourse within the station buildings is at the level of the pedestrian subway. There is an upper level that connects with the taxi area on the street outside to the west, and has concessions areas, and a lower-level containing the platforms for the subway station serving this location. At the south end, there are three tracks on bay platforms at the west side, and the station throat leads directly to three tunnels through the hill to the south. The east side of the station has a retaining wall against a hillside there. The north end of the station is one level above the roadway to the west, with several stub tracks on the west side and the signal control tower serving the whole station on the west side. There are two main routes heading north, one which stays at the level of the station as it curves eastward along the hillside, and one to its left that descend towards the river while following the other tracks around to the east.
This line uses the higher of the two lines heading north and then curving east out of Prague Hlavni station. The higher line east continues east-northeastward along a ledge above the lower-level line and the industrial buildings on the south bank of the river, below, and then follows the curve of the river around, turning northeast as the river turns north. The lower line from Prague Hlavni comes close but below on the northwest side, and almost immediately the Nymburk line turns north crosses over the Kolin line; there is a junction at which a freight bypass line heading northwest between Liben and the line coming north out of Halešovice comes in from the east, having climbed up from the Kolin line. The joined Nymburk and freight bypass lines cross above the valley of the Rokytka, a small tributary flowing westward into the Vltava, on the north side of which there is a junction at which the Nymburk line turns east again along the north side of the valley, and then passes through Prague Vysočany station (one platform on the north side serving a single track, with station buildings to the north), while the freight bypass turns northwest along the widening valley as the tributary approaches the east side of the bend in the Vltava.
From Prague Vysočany, the line, built by the Austrian Nordwestbahn, heads east. A non-electrified line heads off to the north and the line edges east-northeast over the watershed to Čelakovice, where another non-electrified line trails in on the north side. The line now turns north-northeast to cross the valley of the river Labe (Elbe), including crossing over the river, and then turns east-northeast again. At Lysa nad Labem, a line trails in from the west-northwest, and a non-electrified branch heads northeast. The line now turns generally east along the north side of the Labe river valley. Approaching Nymburk, a non-electrified line passes overhead on a bridge, another non-electrified line trails in from the north (connecting with the line over the bridge at Veleliby, and an electrified line from Pořičany (that also connects with the line over the bridge) trails on from the southwest. Nymburk station has three platforms serving five tracks, with umbrella sheds on all platforms, station buildings to the south and yard tracks to the north. No platform serves the through lines. At Nymburk, the long-time major repair facility for the Czech railway system is on the north side of the line, east of the station.
The single track, jointed-rail line turns southeast, still following the river valley, through Podebrady (two platforms, three tracks, station to the south), and then crossing a tributary into Velky Osek (three low-level platforms, four tracks, station to the south), where a line continues due south to Kolin (following the river Labe), and the line to Hanusovice turns east-northeast to follow the valley of the tributary, crossing that river again before turning east. At Chlumec nad Cidlinou (two platforms, three tracks, station to the south, yard to the north), a non-electrified line trails in from the northwest, west of the station, and another one departs to the north, east of the station, as the main line turns southeast, initially on its north bank of the river, crosses to the south bank for the last time, and then turns east again. At Praskačka, the line turns northeast, as a connecting line to the line down the Labe valley to Pardubice continues east and then turns south.
Hradec Kralove is the only large town along the line, and is in the valley of the river Labe, which the line now enters again. North of the station (yard on the north side, three main platforms serving five tracks, three east-end bays, loco. yard to the northeast), a non-electrified line heads northwest and another one due north, as the main line turns southeastward through Trebechovice (two low-level platforms, two tracks, station to the north), following the valley of the Orlici river east out of the Labe valley. The countryside on this entire stretch of the line is agricultural fields lined with deciduous trees, and no evident hills. The line is heavily used by coal trains between at least Lysa nad Labem and Tyniste nad Orlici. (There are brown coalfields at Kladno, west of Prague, so these trains may come from there.) A non-electrified line from the north crosses on the west side of the latter, and then trails in from the west.
The 3000 V DC electric catenary on the line from Prague ends at Tynište nad Orlici, requiring a motive power change to diesel traction there (as well as leaving behind all but three of the cars), the schedule allowing eleven minutes for this process. Tynište nad Orlici has four low-level platforms serving five tracks, with station buildings to the south and a freight yard on the north side. The now single-track, non-electrified line continues southeast through Castolovice (two low-level platforms, two tracks, station to the north), where a branch leaves to the east, Kostelec (single platform and station on the north side), and Doudleby nad Orlici (two low-level platforms, station to the north), where another branch leaves to the east. The line turns south through Potstein (low-level platform, station to the south), passing through wooded countryside with rolling hills and rippling streams below the bridges, then east, crossing to the south bank of the Orlici, passing through a tunnel, northeast, and east again, following the river to Zamberk (three low-level platforms, three tracks, station to the north), then turning southeast again, past a lumber yard on the south side and a coal/rock loader on the north side, through Letobrad (four low-level platforms, four tracks, station to the north), and turning from southeast to northeast and then north through Jablonne nad Orlici (three low-level platforms, three tracks, station to the north).
The line turns east again, with overhead catenary from Jablonne to just west of Lichkov, leaving the Orlici valley before reaching Lichkov, which has three low-level platforms, serving three tracks, and a station building on the south side of the line. East of the latter, the line passes within yards of the Polish Border to the north side of the line, there is a wye connection with a line north to Miedzylesie, in Poland. The Czech line continues through Dolni Lipka, a station with two low-level platforms, one on a passing track, a station building on the south side of the line, and another line departing to the south at its east end. The main line continues eastward, entering wooded rolling hills with gurgling streams in the upper end of the Morave river valley, passing through a tunnel and turning south, as another line trails in from the north and one from the northeast, to enter Hasunovice.
Hanusovice has station buildings on the east side of the layout, several low-level platforms, and a freight yard on the west side of the passenger tracks. The line to Jesenik departs from the same end of Hasunovice as that at which the Prague line arrives. (The train changes locomotives for through workings.) The Jesenik line is the line heading northeast from the junction, while a short branch to Stare Mesto heads due north.
The Jesenik line immediately starts to climb out of the Morave river valley, with grades up to 2.5% through heavily wooded countryside, with the trees changing to a mix of deciduous trees and evergreens, and then to pines along near the maximum elevation of 2,500 ft. The single track, jointed-rail, wooden ties line has much lower speeds, as it twists and turns along the wooded valley and passes through many small stations along the way: Jindrichov na Morave (two low-level platforms, two tracks, station to south/east, up on the southeast slope of the valley above the village below), where it turns north and then runs along the other side of the valley, climbing steadily, Branna (two low-level platforms, two tracks, station to the north, elevation 1,918 ft.), where it turns east briefly and then north again, Ostruzna (single platform to the south, el. 2,360 ft.) just before the 2500 ft. elevation summit, where the line turns northeast, and Ramzova (single platform to the north), where the line turns east with evergreen forests on the far slope of the valley. The line makes a big clockwise horseshoe on the north edge of the valley, with the valley fllor (and town) well below. Below Horni Lipova (two platforms, two tracks, station to the south, el. 2,000 ft.), there is another clockwise horseshoe along the valley side as the line descends reaching a valley floor before Lipova Lazne, where another line heads off to the north, and Lipone Lazne zast., before turning northeast again, past a large industry on the south side of the line, into Jesenik.
Jesenik has three low-level platforms, with station buildings to the south. The line onward departs northeastward again, along a ledge above a bowl in the mountains, through Ceska Ves (station on the south side), Ceska ves bazen (station on the south side), Pisecna (station on the south side) and Hradec Nova Ves (station on the south side) to Mikulovice (station on the south side), which is again almost into Poland. The branch to Zlate Hory then leaves the “main” line onward into Poland to turn due south and climb steeply around the northeastern and eastern edges of the bowl, staying on the Czech side of the border through Ondroejovice and Ondrojovice Zast., to Zlate Hory, a small town just a little further away from the border than the line has been running. Zlate Hory has two low-level platforms and a station on the southwest side of the line.
At Lysa nad Labem, we pass a moving coal train alongside a stationary coal train, while passing through the station. At Chlumec nad Cidlinou, we have to wait for two westbound trains to clear tehs ignle track to the east, causing a nine minute delay. Eric Fogg and David Minnerly both head into the station during the locomotive change process at Tynište nad Orlici, and David almost misses the train waiting for his coffee to be fixed. Later, we have to ride a bus between two adjacent stations (Lichkov and Dolni Lipka) right at the first encounter with the Polish border (well short of where we’re going), because of a washout in the embankment between them that isn’t quite repaired yet. The last segment of the trip out to Jesenik, after the reversal at Hanusovice, crosses a 2500 ft. mountain pass through an area known as the “Czech Semmering”, but while it does have several horseshoe curves around the ends of mountains valleys, its engineering is nowhere near as spectacular (especially for the time) as that southern Austrian line.
At Jesenik, we have almost an hour to wait for our onward railcar to Zlate Hory, and most of us spend this time hanging around the station. There is food and cold drink at a kiosk, and coffee in a machine in the waiting room. The round trip to Zlate Hory is through interesting scenery, much the same as on the descent into Jesenik, becoming open fields with a herd of cattle grazing, albeit between tall trees, on the more easterly portion of the line, but we don’t have time to visit the town at the end of the line (any more than there was really time to visit Jesenik), and the trip is memorable mostly for Tommy Harper’s conversation with a 17 year-old schoolgirl who spoke excellent English but was quite shy.
From Jesenik to Hasunovice, the line is the same used on the way out. South from Hasunovice, the single track jointed-rail line runs through the deep, mixed (deciduous and conifer) wooded, valley of the Morave river, through Bohdikov (four tracks, four low-level platforms, station to the west) and Ruda nad Moravou (two tracks, low-level platforms, station to the west), turns southeast as the valley broadens out, and joins with another line coming in from the northeast to head southwest into Zabreh na Morave. Just before reaching the latter, the branch line makes a junction with the main line coming from the west and turns southeast into the station at Zabreh na Morave
(The route description from Zabreh na Morave to Prague is provided, in the other direction, as part of the Prague to Krakow description on June 15th.)
Back in Jesenik, we have a five-minute connection to our next train, which takes us back over the mountain pass, meeting several trains along the way, and then south to the CD main line at Zabreh na Morave, where we change to an InterCity train for the fast run back to Prague. At least, it would have been fast were it not for the extensive engineering works going on on the first segment of the line to upgrade it to a higher speed line and, in places, create an entirely new right-of-way for that higher speed line. Part of these works have one of the main tracks closed, requiring single-line working on the other tracks for a distance of several miles.
After the train reaches Prague, some seven minutes late (on timings that have been adjusted for the trackwork), I challenge Werner to find the convenient Mustek subway station entrance from inside the station, but the best he can do is actually across Wenceslaus Square from the exit Chris and I had found the previous night! We never do find the way to that convenient entrance/exit when leaving the station. Chris and I eat at an Italian Restaurant on Wenceslaus Square, pack for the next day’s move to Krakow, and go to bed.
The Czech Republic covers essentially the same lands as the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, which at the dawn of railways formed part of the Habsburg Empire. The provinces were unaffected by the events that created the kingdom of Hungary in 1867, and thus the emphasis of railways on transportation to and from the imperial capital in Vienna remained unchanged. With the collapse of the Habsburg Empire at the end of WWI, and the subsequent creation of a Czechoslovakian state that incorporated the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, as well as Slovakia and Ruthenia from the Kingdom of Hungary, transportation routes in the Czech lands were not so much reoriented as truncated to focus on the new national, formerly provincial, capital in Prague. The reduction of Czechoslovakia to cover solely the Czech lands in 1993 simply reinforced this trend.
The first (horse-drawn) railway in Bohemia was the line from Česke Budejovice (in southern Bohemia) to Linz (in Austria), opened in full by August, 1832.
The railways in Bohemia and Moravia were almost all Austrian, focused in Vienna, including:
Kaiser Ferdinand’s Nordbahn (KFN), reaching into Moravia at Břeclav and extending thence to Brno in one direction and Ostrava (and on into Galicia) in another, with the section from Vienna to Břeclav and Brno opened in July, 1839, nationalized (in Austria) in 1908;
the Nordwestbahn, opening its first section in Bohemia between Golčuv Jenikov and Kolin in 1869, ultimately running from Vienna to Prague via Znojmo, Jihlava, Havličuv Brod, Velky Osek, Nymburk and Lysa, and east from Nymburk to Hradec Kralove and Usti nad Orlici, and nationalized (in Austria) in 1908;
the Franz-Josefs Bahn, crossing into Bohemia at Gmünd and extending thence to Prague and beyond, opening its initial segment in 1869 and throughout from Vienna to Česke Budejovice, Pilsen and Lazne in 1872, and nationalized (in Austria) in 1884;
the Kassa-Oderberg Railway (KsOd), later the Kosice-Bohunin Railway (KBD), from Zilina to Bohunin (Oderberg) along the Moravian/Galician border in 1870-72, nationalized by Czechoslovakia in 1921;
the Staats Eisenbahn Gesellschaft (StEG) coming north along the east side of the Morave from Bratislava to reach Brno, the first line in the Prague area in August, 1845, and the complete line from Brno to Prague via Česka Trebova and Kolin in January, 1849, and onwards to Dečin on the border with Saxony, as well as east to Olomouc; and,
some indigenous lines, such as the Buštehrad, whose first section from Kladno to Dubi opened in 1855, and ultimately ran to Cheb on the border, the Czech Western, whose entire line between Prague and Furth was opened in 1862, and the Bohemian Northern, which covered its eponymous area and opened its first line in 1867, the latter two nationalized (in Austria) in 1908, the former nationalized by Czechoslovakia in 1923.
The Austrian nationalized lines that fell within the boundaries of Czechoslovakia were transferred to Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD) in 1918. Later major line constructed in Czechoslovakia was the line across the Little Carpathians from Zilina to Lipnik nad Bevou, whose last segment was completed in 1940 (and electrified at 3kV DC starting in 1949), and the line between Havličuv Brod and Brno, completed in 1953. On the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in 1993, the railways in the Czech republic became part of Czech Railways (ČD).
The first electrification of lines crossing into Bohemia took place in 1914, at the Austrian standard 15kV 16⅔ Hz AC. Regular electric operation on Prague’s commuter lines started in 1928, at 1500 V DC, converted to 3000 V DC in 1962, when the full electrification of the line between Usti nad Laben, Prague, and areas west of Prague went into operation on that system. Electrification of the KBD to Bohunin at 3000 V DC was completed in 1964, and the entire ‘northwestern border’-Prague-Olomouc/Přerov-Zilina-Kosice freight artery in the same time period. The first junction of the 25kV 50 Hz AC electrification being installed in the south and the 3000 v DC lines in the north was completed at Kutna Hora, just south of Kolin, in 1965. The line from Kutna Hora through Brno and Břeclav to the Slovakian border and beyond was all electrified at 25 kV 50 Hz AC in 1965-69. Electrification of the Brno-Česka Trebova and the Brno-Přerov/Olomouc lines was completed in 1999, with the southern portions at 25 kV 50 Hz AC and the northern at 3000 V DC. About half of the total Czech route length is electrified, and about half of that is at 25 kV, 50 Hz, AC, with the rest at 3000 V DC. Steam traction in the Czech Republic ended in 1981.
Segments of the Pan-European Transportation Corridors being funded by the European Union as an aid to the development of transportation infrastructure in central and eastern Europe that lie within the Czech Republic include: (from Nuremberg) Cheb-Pilsen-Prague, (from Dresden) Dečin-Prague and Prague-Česka Trebova-Brno-Břeclav/Kuty on the Slovak border (and on to Bratislava), on Corridor IV; and (from Warsaw and Katowice) Petrovice u Kravine-Ostrava- Břeclav (i.e., the KFN), on Corridor VI.
ČD’s main-line services in 2005 are operated mainly by the following motive power. All electric traction operates either on the international standard of 25kV, 50 Hz, or on 3000 V DC, or in some cases both, as stated. In Both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, 3000 v DC electric locomotives are painted predominantly green, 25 kV AC predominantly red, and those that can operated on both sets of power, predominantly blue.
Class 110, built 1971-73, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 960 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 111, built 1981-82, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 760 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 113, built 1973, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 800 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 121, built 1960, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2344 kW power, 99 km/h max. speed
Class 122, built 1967, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2040 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 123, built 1971, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2040 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 124.6, built 1972, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2472 kW power, 160 km/h max. speed
Class 125.8, rebuilt 1976, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2340 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 130, built 1977, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2040 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 140, built 1953-58, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2344 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 141, built 1957-60, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2032 kW power, 160 km/h max. speed
Class 150, built 1978, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 4 MW power, 140 km/h max. speed
Class 151, built 1996-2002, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 4 MW power, 160 km/h max. speed
Class 162, built 1991, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 3378 kW power, 140 km/h max. speed
Class 163, built 1984-92, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3260 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 180, built 1958-59, Co-Co wheel arr., 3048 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 181, built 1961-62, Co-Co wheel arr., 2610 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 182, built 1963-65, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 3 MW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 183, built 1971, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 3 MW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 210, built 1972-83, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 984 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 230, built 1966-67, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3080 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class 240, built 1968-70, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3.2 MW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 242, built 1975-81, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3080 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 263, built 1984-88, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3060 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 340, rebuild intro. 2004, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3080 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 363, built 1980-90, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3060 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 371, rebuilt 1996-2001, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3080 kW power, 160 km/h max. speed
Class 372, built 1988-91, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 3080 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 470 (5-car), built 1991, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1104 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 471 (3-car bi-level), built 1997-2004, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 2 MW, 140 km/h
Class 680, introduced 2003, 1A-A1 wheel arr., 1MW power, 230 km/h max. speed
Class 704, built 1988-92, Bo wheel arrangement, 250 kW power, 65 km/h max. speed
Class 708, built 1995-97, Bo wheel arrangement, 300 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 710, built 1961-72, C wheel arrangement, 301 kW power, 60 km/h max. speed
Class 714, rebuilt 1992-97, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 600 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 720, built 1958-61, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 551 kW power, 60 km/h max. speed
Class 721, built 1963-68, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 551 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 725, built 1959-65, B-B wheel arrangement, 515 kW power, 70 km/h max. speed
Class 726, built 1963-67, B-B wheel arrangement, 515 kW power, 70 km/h max. speed
Class 730, built 1978-89, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 600 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 731, built 1988-92, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 600 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 735, built 1971-79, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 926 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 740, built 1973-89, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 883 kW power, 70 km/h max. speed
Class 743, built 1987-88, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 800 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 745, built 1981, B-B wheel arrangement, 736kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 749, rebuilt 1992-96, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1103 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 750, rebuild introduced 1991, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1325 kW, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 751, built 1964-71, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1102 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 752, built 1969-70, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1102 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 753, built 1968-77, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1325 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 754, built 1975-80, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 1460 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 770, built 1963-79, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 993 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 771, built 1968-72, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 993 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 809, built 1994-96, A-1 wheel arrangement, 155 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 811, introduced 1997, A-1 wheel arr., 155 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 812, rebuilt 2001-2, A-1 wheel arrangement, 240 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class 820, built 1963-64, B-2 wheel arrangement, 206 kW power, 70 km/h max. speed
Class 830, built 1958-60, 2-Bo wheel arrangement, 100 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 831, rebuilt 1981-91, 2-Bo wheel arrangement, 301 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class 842, built 1989-94, 1A-A1 wheel arr., 424 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class 843, built 1995-97, Bo-Bo wheel arr., 600 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class 850, built 1962-67, B-2 wheel arrangement, 515 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class 851, built 1967-68, B-2 wheel arrangement, 588 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class 852, built 1968-69, B-2 wheel arrangement, 588 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 853, built 1969-71, B-2 wheel arrangement, 588 kW power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 854, built 1996-2003, B-2 wheel arrangement, 596 power, 120 km/h max. speed
Class 860, built 1974, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 180 kW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Passenger cars from the communist era are easily distinguishable by their vertical parabolic roofs compared to the elliptical roofs used on newer cars from western sources.
The weather in Prague this morning is steady rain. We check out of the hotel and take a minibus over to the main station (the same one we had used the day before) for our train to Poland. As also the day before, we have time in the station to buy coffee. On the platform, there’s a minor excitement, as we discover that Platform 1 is being used to emulate a ca. 1900 station in Paris, with a steam tank locomotive (in some sort of steam)—ČSD 310.0134, 0-6-0T, BMMF 1913— and a train of four-wheel vintage carriages, being used to film scenes for some sort of movie.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-15-2005 |
CD/PKP (EC 107) |
1100 |
Prague-Katowice |
PKP InterCity |
151018-9 |
|
6-15-2005 |
PKP (D63100) |
1742 |
Katowice-Krakow |
PKP Regional |
EP09 |
The entire route is electrified at 3000 V DC. At least as far as Olomouc, the line has been fettled for a maximum speed of 160 km/h (except, perhaps, where a new segment of line is being built to raise the line speed to that level). The line from Prague to Kolin is the same as the line from Bratislava to Prague (unless the train is using the through station across the river on the north side of Prague). Trains heading towards Kolin take the tracks that descend at the north end of Prague Hlavni station, descending to join the line coming east out of the stub-end Prague Masarykovo station, the oldest station in Prague, which has a transfer table, serving electric locomotive servicing (and maintenance, until 2000) facilities, at its west end. The connection between the north end of Hlavni station and the line coming out of Masarykovo station was constructed as recently as 2001.
The line between Masarykovo and the junction of the two lines to its east has on it a wye junction with the line north through Prague Holešovice (across the Vltava to the north), the east leg of which serves the long distance trains passing through Prague that use Holešovice station. The line east continues east-northeastward along a shelf above the industrial buildings on the south bank of the river, below, and then follows the curve of the river around, turning northeast as the river turns north.
The higher line from Prague Hlavni comes close, but above, on the southeast side, and almost immediately turns north and crosses overhead; there is a junction at which the freight bypass line, which crosses the valley of the Rokytka, a small tributary flowing westward into the Vltava on its way from the north side of Prague, descends from the bridge crossing that valley and trails in from the northwest. As the Kolin line, built by the StEG, heads directly east on the south side of the valley, east of that junction, it reaches Prague Liben (three platforms, six tracks, station below), where there are extensive diesel locomotive and railcar servicing and maintenance facilities on the south side of the line.
The double track welded-rail line crosses over the Rokytka as a continuation of the freight bypass line turns away to the south, passes through Prague-Kyje, where another line to the freight bypass turns away to the south, and Prague Dolni-Počernice, where a line east from the freight bypass trails in on the south side. East of Prague Behařice, there is a major yard on the south side of the line. The line, now with quite a high permitted speed, continues east through Uvaly, and turns northeast briefly to reach Pořičany, whence a line heads northeast to Nymburk and the main line turns east southeast through Pečky, and then southeast to Kolin in the Labe (Elbe) river valley, with the river running alongside to the north. Northwest of Kolin, a line from Velky Osek trails in from the north. Kolin station has four platforms serving seven tracks with station buildings to the south.
East of Kolin, a non-electrified line departs to the southwest and the electrified main line to Brno departs to the southeast. The main line curves gently along the Labe valley, heading generally east through Přelouč (four low-level platforms, four tracks, station to the southwest), where a non-electrified line heads southeast. After passing under a non-electrified line, an electrified curve from that same line south from Hradec Kralove trails in from the northwest and the line passes through Pardubice (four platforms, seven tracks, station to the north, with freight yard and coach yards on the south side). It continues eastward, no longer in the Labe valley, through Moravany, where a non-electrified line trails in from the southwest and one departs to the northeast to Tynište nad Orlici. At Chocen (three platforms, five tracks, station to the south), an electrified coal-carrying line trails in from Tynište nad Orlici to the northwest. The main line continues east, turning south and then east again before Usti nad Orlici, which has five low-level platforms serving five tracks with station buildings on the north side, and the river alongside to the north.
East of Usti nad Orlici, a branch turns northeast to Letohrad while the main line turns south up the Orlici valley to reach the large industrial city of Česka Trebova, where the station has four platforms with umbrella sheds serving seven tracks, with station buildings to the east and a freight yard to the west.. On the south side of Česka Trebova, the west side of the line is occupied with a large electric locomotive depot and maintenance facility, with two separate roundhouses and long dead-lines of older electric locomotive types. South of Česka Trebova, a line heads straight ahead to Opatov (and on to Brno) at a wye junction where the main line turns east to Třebovice v. Čhechach, where a non-electrified line heads southeast, northeast to Rudoltice v. Čhechach, where a short branch heads northeast, and the main line turns southeast, curving back and forth through heavily wooded hills and valleys across the watershed between the Orilici and Morave river valleys. From Česka Trebova to Zabreh na Morave, a new double-track high-speed line is being built, often on a different right-of-way from the existing line (on the north side, towards the west), complete with new tunneling where the new line has crossed and now runs just south of the existing line, as well as widening the existing right-of-way on the south side, further east. All new track has concrete ties.
Just west of Zabreh na Morave, the line turns south as the line from Hanusovice trails in from the north. Zabreh na Morave has two island platforms serving four tracks, with umbrella sheds on both platforms. Station buildings are to the east side of the line, with a freight yard on the west side, south of the station. From Zabreh na Morave, the line continues south to Mohelnice, southeast to Červenka, where a non-electrified line curves in from the south and then curves south-southeast to Olomouc (Olmütz), which has four umbrella-shed covered platforms serving seven tracks, with station buildings to the southwest and freight and carriage yards to the northeast side of the platforms. At Olomouc, non-electrified lines trail in from the north and east and depart to the west and southwest. There is a roundhouse on the northeast side, east of the station, complete with a stuffed-and-mounted steam locomotive (0-6-0T 310.001, built by Wiener Neustadt in 1883).
From Olomouc the line continues south for a relatively short distance before curving east. At Přerov, where a large grain elevator is located south of the tracks, there is a flying wye junction with the four tracks of the erstwhile Kaiser Ferdinand’s Nordbahn, coming north from Břeclav. North of the wye, the line heads north-northeast and is a double track, welded rail, heavy-duty main line with lefthand running, in the Bečva river valley, turning east-northeast through Lipnik nad Bevou and passing through Hranice na Morave (three platforms, five tracks, station buildings to the southeast, where a line with portions built as recently as 1937 departs to the southeast to head over the Little Carpathians to Zilina in Slovakia.
The main line curves northeast, east, north and then northeast again, now in the Odra river valley, through Suchdol nad Odrou, where a non-electrified line trails in from the northwest, one leaves to the southeast, and a branch curves away north, Studenka, where non-electrified lines curve away to the north and the south, and Polanka nad Odrou. There is a wye with a line heading east to Chotebuz before the now north-northeasterly line reaches Ostrava-Svinov (three platforms, five tracks, station to the northwest, carriage sidings to the southeast), where it turns northeast again, as a non-electrified line heads away to the north, passes a huge factory on the south side, and reaches Ostrava main station (two platforms, four tracks, station to the east), where a non-electrified line curves away south, and passes through a wye with the line north to Chałupki in Poland (on the way to Wroclaw) before reaching Bohunin (ex-Oldenburg), where the entire station is being rebuilt (it currently has four platforms serving eight tracks, with station buildings to the north), turning east and then southeast after the latter to run along the Czech side of the border for a short distance, turning east-southeast at Detmarovice, as the ex-KsOd, later KBD, line to Chutebuz (and on to Zilina) continues to the south-southeast. At Petrovice u Kravine (three platforms, five tracks, station to the south), the station closest to (within a few dozen yards of) the Czech-Polish border, the ownership changes from Czech Railways (ČD) to Polish Railways (PKP), the front car is removed from our train, and locomotives are changed.
After crossing into Poland, the line passes through Zebrzydowice (three platforms, five tracks, station to the south), where a line trails in from the north, west of the station, and one turns away to the south, east of the station, and then turns north very briefly before continuing almost due east through Chybie, where again a line trails in from the north, west of the station, and one departs to the south, this time at a wye, east of the station. The line continues east to a large wye junction near the village of Czechowice-Dziedzice, whose station is on the east apex of the wye, and then turning north on the west to north curve avoiding the station to head into Katowice. (The line ahead at that point curves northeast to pass through Oswiecim of holocaust infamy and then joins to the line to Krakow at Trzebinia.)
The line north passes through Pszczyna, after which a line leaves to the northwest, Tychy, where lines trail in from both east and west on the south side of the station, and lines depart to the east and northeast on the north side of the station. The main line heads north-northwest, and turns northeast as another line trails in from the southwest, turning north as another line trails in from the east just before Katowice Ligota, after which a connector leave to the northwest to join an east-west line that passes overhead. In Katowice, the line turns east at a junction with a line coming in from the west-northwest. Katowice’s main station has four island platforms serving eight racks, with umbrella sheds covering the platforms. There is a signal control tower at the east end of the station, on the north side. The whole layout is elevated above street level, with the station facilities below.
The line to Krakow heads east. Another line trails in from the northwest before Katowice Szopienice Poludnie station, east of which is a wye where another line heads northeast and the Krakow line turns southeastward, passes under a freight bypass line, past a large coal mine on the north side, and through Myslowice (two platforms, four tracks, station below, roundhouse northwest of station area), where it turns east at a junction where another line heads due south. The landscape in the whole Katowice area is filled with rundown industrial facilities and several coalmines, and has air quality problems not seen in the USA since the sky became visible on weekdays in Pittsburgh in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. (UK readers should substitute UK and Sheffield in the previous sentence, but I’m not sure of the dates in that case.) Another line connecting from that southward line trails in at the west end of Sosnowiec Jezor, and a line leaves to the east-northeast as the Krakow line heads northeast on the east end of that station, with the departing line climbing on an embankment and eventually passing over the Krakow line as the latter curves southeast, under the bridge, to a junction where a line trails in from the northwest and another line trails in from the northeast, all of them passing beneath the line on the embankment.
A non-electrified line trails in from the southwest, immediately after the preceding junction, as the line passes locomotive shops and then a hump yard on the north side and enters Jaworzno-Szczakowa (two platforms, two tracks). Southeast of that station, another line departs to the east. The line continues southeast, past a large coal mine north of the tracks, to Trzebinia (two platforms, three tracks, station to the north), where another line trails in from the southwest and a branch line trails in from the north, on the west side of the station, and another line departs to the south on the east end, as the Krakow line turns east-southeast.
The line curves gently eastward, past a collection of decaying steam locomotives on the east side of the line, to Krzeszomice (three platforms, five tracks, station to the east, yard to the southwest), through. agricultural countryside, turns southeast and then east again. Approaching Krakow, a line departing northeast at a flyover junction heads for Krakow Batowice, the line passes through Krakow Lobzow, the tracks heading for the station turn away from tracks continuing eastward, cross over a road on a bridge, pass a large carriage yard on the south side of the line, pass under a tramway bridge and on a bridge over another road, and turn south at a large wye junction where the northern apex crosses over that previous line headed eastward, to head into Krakow Glowny station. At the south apex of the wye, passing underneath a road crossing overhead on a concrete bridge, lines go off on the west side to what looks like a former stub-end terminal of the same name as (or platforms of) the present through station.
Krakow Glowny has five relatively new island platforms serving ten tracks, with umbrella sheds covering the platforms. A pedestrian subway leads to the west side of the north-south oriented station, with a footpath heading south on that side of the line to a classically-designed station building on the west side of the line adjacent to the south station throat. There is a signal control tower on the east side of the tracks across from the station building. Beyond the station buildings, the four tracks cross above a Krakow street on a concrete bridge. There is a massive construction site to the west of the station platforms, where the former terminal station’s stub-end tracks and platforms once were.
The first part of today’s trip is over the same route as we had used back into Prague the previous evening, complete with delays on the segment where the new track is being constructed, especially where single-line working is required. These delays must have been factored into the timetable, however, since we’re just about on time at the stations east of this track work. Once again, we ride in compartment stock (with Bob and Shirley Carter, and Tommy and Carol Harper, in the other seats), this time from the Polish Railways (PKP), and once again our fellow group members feel the need to go to the Restaurant Car to eat lunch, whereas Chris and I have had sufficient breakfast that we don’t need to do this. However, we would like more to drink, but the only source is the Restaurant Car, and the attendant there will not serve us drinks while people are eating lunch! (Werner uses his key to lock the compartments that are left completely empty while their occupants are off at lunch.)
When we turn north onto the segment of track on the line north from Vienna (the erstwhile Kaiser Ferdinand’s Nordbahn), two things are immediately evident: the line is operated with left-hand running (as the Austrian Südbahn is), and the trackbed and rail line is in magnificent fettle for smooth, high-speed running. Entering Poland leads to a change of locomotive from the Czech one to a PKP EP09 electric. At the border station, only one set of border control agents stamps our passports, which is a source of much confusion as we expect another set of people to appear.
In Katowice, a gritty industrial area with large areas of derelict industrial wilderness, we leave this train heading for Warsaw and change onto a regional train for Krakow that, conveniently, leaves from the same track on which we had arrived. East of Katowice, we see trains of coal everywhere. We had seen trains of lignite (brown immature coal) further south, but this appears to be the real black gold. Along the way, a line of steam locomotives rusts away on the east side of a station.
In Krakow, a private bus takes us from Krakow Glowny station, which appears—at least in the platform area—to be quite new and whose vicinity is in the process of total reconstruction, to the hotel on the southwestern side of the old town area, directly across from the wooded parkland that sits where the city walls once where. It is now early evening, and we have our included group dinner at the hotel not long after arrival.
Krakow was the traditional site for the coronation of Polish kings. However, from 1795 to 1919, Krakow was not even in Poland, but rather was the provincial capital of Austria’s province of Galicia. Since 1919, Krakow has merely been a provincial city in the “little Poland” area of Poland, to the north of the Carpathian Mountains on the border with Slovakia. It’s main claim to fame in recent years has been as the city in which Karol Woytila was Archbishop and then Cardinal prior to his election as Pope John Paul II in 1978. The historic part of Krakow is centered on the 200 m. square Old Market Square, the largest market square anywhere in Europe, dominated by the 16th-century Renaissance Cloth Hall and the free-standing tower that is all that is left of the old town hall, while the castle and cathedral are located on Wawel hill to the southwest of the old town, adjacent to the river Vistula. To the north of the Old Market Square, a fragment of the defensive walls around the old town is still in place, punctuated by St. Florian’s Gate and the Haberdashers’ Tower, and fronted on the outside of the defensive perimeter by the late 15th-century Barbican, which once had walls alongside the passageway connecting it to St. Florian’s Gate. The area outside the walls on the north side and the former location of the walls on the west (primarily) and other sides is now a park, called Planty, with grassy areas and many trees.
From the old town, Wawel is approached along Kanonizca Street, lined with the erstwhile palaces of the members of the court. Wawel Castle is a large building comprising four wings around a central courtyard, with multi-level cloisters or galleries facing onto the courtyard. Originally built in the early 16th-century, the interior was almost completely destroyed by a fire caused by invading Swedish soldiers in 1702, only the tapestries surviving in toto. The interiors of the original wings were decorated with coffered ceilings and sculptures of a couple of hundred human heads, with the walls decorated with painted friezes and hung with arras tapestries. The north wing was transformed into an early Baroque residence after 1597, the interior of which was also destroyed by the 1702 fire. The buildings survived, to be used as a garrison for the next two centuries, but after 1905 were reconstructed as they might have been in the 16th and early 17th- centuries, based on extensive architectonic and archeological research. The tapestries and many other historical items, removed from Poland by the Russians in centuries past, were returned to the castle after a treaty with the Soviet Union in 1921, along with many artworks, not originally in this location, which formed the basis of today’s palace interior. Today’s Wawel has walls and multi-storey buildings around the whole perimeter of the hills, as well as the gardens, royal palace and cathedral on the top of the hill.
The present Gothic Cathedral was erected between 1320 and 1364, with St. Leonard’s crypt and the southern tower remaining from the 11th-century. The north tower is contemporaneous with the rest of the exterior. The cathedral is surrounded by a number of royal, bishops’ and magnates’ chapels., including the sepulchral chapels of the Jagiellons and Wazas (the ruling dynasties) flanking the southern entrance. The Jagiellonian chapel of King Sigismund was designed by Bartolomeo Berecci, and built between 1519 and 1533; the soaring dome was gilded in the late 16th-century The cathedral is also to the three-nave basilica design with taller central nave. In the nave there are late 15th-century statues in the wall recesses. The high altar dates to the mid 17th-century. The early Baroque confession of St. Stanislaw, including his reliquary, occupying the center, was built between 1626 and 1629. There are many medieval royal tombstones in the cathedral. The Gothic altar with the Holy Trinity triptych dates from 1467.
St. Mary’s Church, a Gothic edifice located on the northeast corner of the Old Market Square, achieved its final form in the 14th-century. Chapels were added in the following century. The towers alongside the west front are of unequal height, with different topping styles. The church is in the three-nave style, with taller central nave, and medieval stained glass windows (late 14th-century) as well as neo-Gothic stained-glass windows (late 19th-century). The focal point of the whole church is the late Gothic high altar with its folding panels that are opened during the day to expose its centerpiece, created by Wit Stwosz between 1477 and 1489. Italian architect Francesco Placidi transformed the interior into the Baroque style in 1753-54.Venetian painter Giambattista Pittoni produced five altar paintings between 1740 and 1750. Francesco Placidi built the polygonal main porch in 1750-52. The Baroque interior lining (but not the altars and sculptures) was removed in favor of a neo-Gothic interior from 1889 to 1891. Every hour, on the hour, a trumpeter plays an interrupted fanfare from the upper windows of the north tower, to commemorate the defense of the city against Tartar hordes between 1241 and 1259, and the death of the bugler when a Tartar arrow pierced his neck.
The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul faces onto St. Mary Magdalene’s Square, with Grodzka Street intervening, about halfway between the Market Square and Wawel. The early Baroque church was built in 1597-1619, by (in turn) Joseph Brizio, John Maria Bernardoni and John Trevano, and consecrated in 1635. The late Baroque fencing was built between 1715 and 1722. The crypt is an important burial place for Jesuits, containing the remains of the leader of the first Jesuit colony in Poland. The church has a simple single-nave layout, with six side chapels in the nave and one off the apse beyond the transept (with the opposite location serving as the vestry). There is a dome over the transept, built in 1619.
Krakow’s trams were built to standard gauge, starting as horse trams in 1885, and in 2005 have a total route length of 83 km. Many of the 21 lines run on reserved right-of-way alongside the roads in the outer portions of the city, and in the center of town. The rolling stock dates from various times between 1962 and 2003.
The morning of our single day in Krakow is taken up with the bus and then walking tour, with our local guide Barbara. After a clockwise turn around the outside of the old town on the bus, from castle (just south of the hotel) back to the other side of the castle, we leave the bus and walk slowly up the ramp to the castle ramparts which overlook the Vistula River from Wawel rock. After a look around the outside of the cathedral and castle buildings, we have a tour through the royal apartments in the castle at a pre-appointed time. While this is very interesting, Barbara clearly knows far more historical information about these rooms than there is supposedly time to impart on this tour, so other groups are continually passing us as we move slowly from room to room. One item of interest is a painting of Polish Princess Marina Mnishek, who was connected with the false Dmitri in the Boris Godunov story from the early 17th century in Russian history.
After an opportunity to buy the picture guidebooks at the bookstore, we go into the cathedral where the Kings of Poland had been crowned for centuries (prior to the partition of Poland in 1795 at which the Galicia area of which Krakow is capital became part of the Habsburg Empire). The interior of the cathedral is overcrowded (a US fire marshal would never permit this), with about half the people being schoolchildren under the age of ten, who will never remembers there visits here. While this visit on our part is interesting, the space is too crowded for real enjoyment.
Leaving the Wawel area, we walk north into the Old Town, passing a baroque church that Chris and I will return to later, and an adjacent small Romanesque church, and entering the Old Market Square. On the northeast corner of this square is St. Mary’s Parish Church, which is every bit as lavishly appointed as the cathedral we had seen earlier. Our visit to this church focuses on the magnificent sculptured altarpiece depicting the life of Christ. This has opening panels, and is open from 10 am to 5 pm daily, so we see it in its open form. Even the picture guidebook (in English, by the way) does not show the full closed form. Back outside the church, we listen to the hourly performance of the trumpeter up in the church tower, giving his interrupted fanfare (which signifies the death of a historical trumpeter during a siege centuries earlier) from each of the four corners of the tower.
At this point, the guided tour is over, so Chris and I stop at a set of tables in the square and have drinks and ice-cream sundaes before continuing. After a visit to the hotel to drop off the guidebooks we have bought, we walk back over to the baroque Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, and visit its interior. Walking north from this church, there is an arcaded area where a restaurant has tables. Here, a man sitting at one of these tables has a kitten with him, which Chris is pleased to have the time to pet. Then we walk north to the street intersection where the trams cross the old town, and board a tram out of the area. On the tram, we’re looking at our maps trying to determine where we’re going, when a beautiful, platinum blonde, stylishly-dressed young woman asks if she can help us (in perfect English). She is somewhat dumbfounded when we tell here that it doesn’t matter which tram we’re on, since we’re just going to ride them, but we would like to know where this one is going!
We spend the rest of the afternoon (almost three hours) riding trams, which mostly run on private right-of-way along the roadside, except in the city center. First, we ride line 18 across the middle of the old town and then around the southeast corner of the old city, onto a boulevard with tramlines in the center grassy strip, across the Vistula, past a large shopping center and out to Lagiewniki, a major tram intersection on the southwest side of town. Here, some routes turns around on a circle and return north, some pass across the outer end of the turning circle along the north side of a major street, and some turn between the line we cam in on onto the line along the major street, one way or the other (both possibilities are used while we’re changing trams here).
We continue on line 8, along the north side of the major street heading outwards to Borek Falecki, further out to the southwest, and return from there on another tram on line 23, continuing past Lagiewniki and across the south side of the city, out along the center and then the east side of another major street, on a line that serves many “Socialist Realism” apartment housing blocks set in rundown open grounds, to Biezanow Nowy, a southeasterly tram terminal. On the way out to Biezanow Nowy, at Dworcowa station we see a disused tram line on the street (Dworcowa) heading northeast, with connections both ways to the line we’re on, and at Prokocim we see a disused turnaround loop on the east side of the line.
From Biezanow Nowy, we ride back in on line 3 on the same route as we had ridden out on, but continuing across the Vistula into and around the east side of the old town and out on the north side, past the street market we had seen during the morning’s bus tour, to Krowodrza Gorka another area of residential apartment blocks just north of the main rail yard west of Glowny station. At Dworzec Tow, on the line out to and back from Krowodrza Gorka, there is a complete tramway circle at a spot adjacent to a railroad freight station where the trams we’re on change from a northerly heading to a westerly heading, and vice versa, northwest of which the line rises up and crosses over the railway lines on a dedicated tramway bridge. Finally we return from that terminal on Line 7, past the street market and around the west side of the Old Town area to the hotel, where we leave the tram.
For dinner, we walk back into the Old Market Square and eat at a table provided by a restaurant there. Dinner is excellent, if a little interrupted by rain, and we get to hear the trumpeter’s fanfare again at 8 pm. Returning to the hotel, we pack for the transfer to Warsaw and go to bed.
Poland’s historical existence as a strong entity effectively ended with the Swedish invasion in 1702. Decades of manipulation by strong adjacent powers led to a first partition in 1772, a second in 1793 and a third in 1795, which lasted until the end of WWI. Prior to the first partition, Poland extended to the border of Silesia, in the southwest, with a segment in the northwest reaching the Baltic between two parts of Prussia, and to the east covering all of Lithuania, Belorussia and western Ukraine to the outskirts of Kiev. The eastern part of the southern border was with the Ottoman Empire in southern Ukraine and Moldavia, with the western portion of the southern border running along the crest of the Carpathians as it does today.
From 1793 to 1920, Poland was partitioned amongst Germany, Austria and Russia, with Galicia (and the southeastern part of Silesia) controlled by Austria, western Poland controlled by Prussia (later, Germany, after the reunification of Germany in 1871), and eastern Poland controlled by Imperial Russia. Galicia extended in the east all the way around the northeast side of the Carpathian mountains to the Bukovina region on what is now the Moldova-Ukraine border, and incorporated the cities of Lemberg (later Lvov and now Lviv) towards the eastern border and Krakow towards the west, reaching beyond Katowice to incorporate the Moravian salient north of Jesenik and the borders of Prussian Silesia (which had been Austrian in the 17th-century) not far west of Gliwice, just west of Katowice. The Austrian-controlled area did not extend much further north than Krakow and Katowice after 1815, but in 1795 had included all of “little Poland”.
The Prussian segment included both its own Silesia, extending past Breslau (now Wroclaw) and Opole, but with a border quite a bit further east than either, and then extending northward, incorporating Posen/Poznan (with a boundary near Konin after 1815, but extending to Warsaw in 1795), and finally east-northeastward across the whole northern Polish plain, so that Bydgoszcz, Torun and Olsztyn were in the Prussian-controlled area, along with Danzig (Gdansk) and Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad), in Prussia itself. The remainder of the former Poland, including Warsaw and territory to the west of it (after 1815); Bialystok, Lublin and Brest were in the Russian-controlled area
After 1920, with the treaties ratifying the conclusions of World War I, Something smaller than its 1772 area was reconstituted as a new Polish state, regaining Galicia and the Katowice area, plus the areas to the west around Poznan and extending north in the infamous “polish Corridor to the west of Danzig (but not including Danzig or the Prussian area around Konigsberg), and again including chunks of today’s Lithuania (around Vilnius), western Beloroussia (but not Minsk) and western Ukraine (including Lvov, but reaching nowhere near Kiev)..
The Poland that was established in 1920 was destroyed as a result of the German and then Russian invasions of 1939. The new state of Poland that was established under Soviet auspices at the end of WWII is located quite a bit further west than were any of its predecessors, including the most recent one of 1920-39, taking over all of Silesia and additional parts of Prussia as far as the Oder and western Neisse rivers, but losing eastern regions to Ukraine, Belorussia and Lithuania, with the eastern border now at, but not including, Brest, and quite a bit west of Lviv.
The Poland of 2005 covers the same land area as at the end of 1945.
As usual, on these trips, we’ve been asked to put the luggage outside the room for collection some time before the group will leave for the station, so that Werner can check that all the bags are present, correct, and labeled before they are loaded onto the bus or van for transportation. As we start to gather in the lobby for departure, it is clear that there is a problem, since as we all report, our luggage had not been collected yet. Werner has been expressing his displeasure with the management in his usual inimitable fashion, and the operation is now under way. Nonetheless, this means that Werner will not be able to depart for the station at the appointed time.
The decision is made that the group will leave at the appointed time, on the appointed regular service tramcar from next to the hotel, and Werner will have the bus transporting the luggage drop him off at the station. To calm those who seem to need a leader, he tells them that I will be leading them to the station. We go outside and board the tram on line 2, when it arrives. This tram takes us around the northwest side of the old town, and I’m expecting we will get off at the stop on the northeast corner of the old town. But Pete Smykla points out that this tram doesn’t turn south at that point, but goes straight ahead, past the end of the station building. We expect there to be a stop at the station, and thus we say on the tram. However, there isn’t a stop directly at the station, and we’re able to get off only some distance past the station.
The group elects to walk back, rather than ride a tram in the opposite direction, and since there are no major street crossings to negotiate (compared to at least one from the previous tram stop), this seems to be the right thing to do. We determine the platform (5) from which our train will depart and walk out there. However, we don’t know which car to board on the train until Werner appears. He says that, while we all have first class railpasses his reservations nonetheless are for a second-class car. The first class car is currently empty, so we go ahead and board it, and I head to the front of the train for pictures. On the way, I realize that this is an “express” train, not just an Intercity, and that there is probably a supplement to the normal fare for riding it. This would make it correct for those having paid only normal first class fare to be accommodated in second class. As I walk back towards the train, it is immediately apparent that the group is moving up to the second class car, riders with reservations having appeared for the first class one. Even the second-class car on this train has compartments, not open plan seating. Our companions this time are the Harpers and Jim Compton.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-17-2005 |
PKP (EX 3114) |
0900 |
Krakow-Warsaw |
PKP ICCC |
EP09 046 |
The line towards Warsaw turns east-northeast at the junction north of Krakow Glowny where the Katowice line heads west, passing over the east-west line on a bridge, after which a connecting line trails in from the southeast, and then passing over two arterial roads on bridges above them. The line across the north side of Krakow trails in from the west, as the line turns east-northeast at Krakow Batowice. East of that station, another lines heads southeast at a wye junction, while the Warsaw line continues east-northeast for a short distance. Outside the urban area, the line turns generally north and then north-northwest, with some turns back and forth to follow the contour of the land, passing through Slomniki, Miechow, where a narrow gauge line passes underneath, Tunel, where a line from Katowice trails in from the west-southwest, and Kozlow, where another line (the historic line from Krakow to Warsaw) continues north-northeast and the main line turns north-northwest, passing through Szczekociny to Psary, where a line continues straight ahead, the main line turns northeast, and a line from the Katowice area trails in from the southwest.
From Psary, the line to Warsaw uses a heavily-engineered piece of double-track infrastructure that was built after WWII as a 200 km/h line, but spent the first 40 years of its existence as an artery to convey loaded coal trains from the mines in the Katowice area to coal consumers in the Warsaw area and beyond, and to carry empty coal trains in the return direction. With the decline in the use of coal as a fuel, except in electricity generating stations, the line’s function as a coal conveyor declined, and it was rebuilt as a ‘high-speed’ line connecting southwest Poland (Krakow and Katowice) with the Warsaw area.
This former “Central Coal Line”, now known as the “Central Main Line” heads generally north-northeast across the generally flat countryside. A connecting line departs to the northeast to join an east-west line passing underneath, and another connector from that line trails in from the southwest at Wloszczowa. The line continues through Olszamowice, a freight-only (or closed) station at Opoczno Poludnie, after which a non-electrified line passes underneath, a freight-only (or closed) station at Idzikowice, where a connector departs to the east to join a line passing beneath at Radzice, and turns almost due north. There are freight-only (or closed) stations at Biala Rawska and Szeligi, where a connector leaves to the northeast to join and east west line from Skierniewice that passes below, and then crosses above the original Vienna-Warsaw main line from Skierniewice, to the west-southwest, into Warsaw, on a through-truss bridge, and heads east-northeast.
At Grodzisk Mazowiecki, the former “Central Coal Line” makes a flying junction with that main line. For some distance east of the junction, the resulting four tracks are divided into a pair on the north side serving fast passenger trains, with no station platforms along them, and a pair on the south side for slower trains served by platforms at the intermediate stations, such as Milanowek and Pruszkow, where another line trails in from the south. A line leaves to the north to head for Warsaw Jelonki. Another flying junction brings the line from Poznan, Konin and Kutno onto the main line into Warsaw from the west. There is a large freight yard on the north side of the tracks. The historic main line from Krakow through Warsaw Okecie trails in from the south, and another line comes alongside from the south but does not join. A line departs to the north to Warsaw Wola and Warsaw Gdanska, joining there the line through Warsaw Jelonki.
Warsaw Zachodnia has six island platforms, each provided with an umbrella shed, serving twelve tracks. In addition, the WDK “ metro” (a high-speed tram line that was the line that came alongside but didn’t join) has an island platform serving two tracks on the far south side of the station. A pedestrian subway connects all five platforms. Carriage yards line the north side of the tracks east of the station, and the spur to the former Warsaw Glowna goes off on the north side of the line, before the tracks descend into the tunnels leading to Warsaw Centralna station and beyond it continuing eastward under the city center.
Warsaw Centralna has four island platforms serving eight main line tracks, all two-levels underground. On the south side of the east-west station, beyond a curtain wall, is another island platforms serving two through tracks for local trains. Beyond that, on the southwest corner of the station, is a single side platform for the WDK “ metro, far enough west that the tracks at the west end of the main stations are visible between supporting pillars that have replaced the curtain wall. Escalators connect the platforms in the main station to a mezzanine level, replete with shops and restaurants, from which stairs lead directly to streets on the north and south sides of the station, along the main street that crosses overhead at this point (on which the tramway station is located). Above the mezzanine, connected by escalators, are the ticket hall and ground-level entrances in a modern-looking pavilion-style building with glass walls and a curving roof. This building has a bus station adjacent on its north side, and is adjacent to the east side of the street with the tramway station.
No trains originate or terminate at Warsaw Centralna. Trains to/from the west originate/terminate at a station on the east side, across the Vistula, and those to/from the east originate/terminate on the west side, at Warsaw Zachodnia. There are four tracks east of Centralna (two main line, two suburban with at least one station), passing under the city in tunnel and crossing the Vistula on a high bridge
Before we reach the high-speed segment of the line, we run through an area where the line is being upgraded (rebuilt), and our train runs first on one side of the formation (giving the appearance of lefthand running for awhile), and then on the other. When we get onto the high speed portion of the line (the “Central Main Line”), Jim Compton uses his GPS receiver to keep us appraised of the speed we’re doing, which tops out at 100 mph. Carol Harper finds this astounding, apparently unaware that speeds of 125 mph have been routine on high speed lines since 1964 (in Japan) and 1977 (In England). Even higher speeds have been routinely attained on the high-speed lines in Europe since the first LGV route opened in the 1980s. The Polish countryside along the high-speed line is flat, with fields and lines of trees separating them. Where there are afctories alongside the line, many seem to be abandoned.
On the final stretch into Warsaw, those on the north side of the train (in the corridor) catch sight of a string of steam locomotives across an open area from the north side of the track. These prove to be at the Railway Museum we will visit on Sunday morning.
Warsaw is the capital city of Poland, and has been since Poland was reconstituted in 1919. From the 1790s to 1919, Warsaw was in the Russian part of ‘Poland’. At times prior to that, Warsaw was a city in Poland (sometimes its capital, but more often that role fell to Krakow), a city in Lithuania, when that country and ‘Poland’ were merged, and a city in a Swedish province when Sweden controlled ‘Poland’. Little of that matters when visiting today’s Warsaw, because little that is historical remains for the present-day visitor to see.
Contemporary Warsaw is strange. The current center of the city comes close to having no there there. It comprises wide boulevards, some but not all with tramlines down the center, and the area surrounding the Palace of Science and Culture (a Soviet “gift” to Poland in the 1950s) is a wide paved area with no saving graces. Although there are commercial buildings and/or hotels on the other three corners of the central intersection, they are so far separated from one another that no coherent connection exists. The “Old Town” has the same kind of feeling as the old areas of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague and Krakow (and, in fact, Vienna), but it has no soul. Everything there is a postwar reproduction of a building destroyed during the final year of WWII. The result is like a massive, full-scale, Disneyland.
Warsaw’s trams originated as horse trams in 1865, and now have 122 route-km of standard gauge track, much of it on reserved right-of-way. About 500 cars date from the 1962-66 period, with newer cars up to 2002. There are 32 tram routes, mostly running through the central city from one radial direction to another, three of which are less than full time operation. The north-south single line of Warsaw’s subway was finally opened in 1995, and extended at its north end in 2005.
The Rail Enthusiast Group Museum at Skierniewice (Polskie Stowarzyszenie Miłośników Kolei) is located in a roundhouse, with fully-operational turntable, built in the 1940s on the site of one built at the opening of the railway in 1845, and has in its collection eight standard gauge steam locomotives:
0-4-0T TKb nr 2, built in 1925 by Orenstein & Koppel, Berlin for Dobrzelinie
0-6-0T TKh 2949, built in 1952 by Fablok Chrzanów
0-8-0T TKp 102, built in 1942 by Oberschlesische Lokwerke in Krenau
0-8-0T TKp 6042, bult in 1962 by Fablok Chrzanów
2-6-0T TKi3-137, built in 1909 by Union Giesserei in Konigsberg for KPEV
2-6-2T OKl27-10, built in 1930 by H. Cegielski in Poznan for PKP
[mounted at the front gate]
as well as two electric locomotives:
AEG 4184, built by AEG in 1925 for Witaszycach
EP03-08, built by ASEA in 1953 for PKP
Four diesel locomotives:
Ls40-4572, built in 1956 by Fablok Chrzanów
Ls150, built in 1944 by Humboldt for the German Army
409Da-734, built in 1981 by “Mystal”
SM03-151, built in 1966 by Fablok Chrzanów for PKP
and railcars:
090802 Ma, built in 1913 by Waggonfabrik Görlitz, with AEG equipment, for KPEV
SN51-02, built in 1939 by WUMAG, Gorlitz
along with 17 carriages (including a rare Wagons-Lits restaurant car), 36 goods wagons, and a number of cranes and MoW vehicles.
The Polish National Railway Museum in Warsaw, located in the former Warsaw Glowna station, has in its collection 24 steam locomotives:
0-4-0T TKb100-10, built in 1893 by Henschel for KPEV
0-6-0T TKh 9336, built in 1903 by Orenstein & Koppel, Berlin for KPEV
2-6-0T OKi1-28, built in 1904 by Borsig for KPEV
2-6-0 Oi1-29, built in 1905 by Schwarzkopff for KPEV
2-6-0T TKi3-119, built in 1913 by Union for KPEV
4-6-4T OKo1-3, built in 1920 by Vulcan for KPEV
2-8-0 Tr6-39, built in 1923 by Linke Hoffman for PKP
4-8-0 Os24-7, built in 1926 by Fablok Chrzanów for PKP
2-2-2T OKa1-1, built in 1931 by Krupp for LVD (Latvian State Railways)
2-6-2T OKl27-26, built in 1931 by HCP for PKP
0-4-0T TKbB-10282, built in 1934 by Hanomag
2-6-2T TKi100-16, built in 1934 by Borsig
4-6-2 Pm2-34, built in 1936 by Schwarzkopff for PKP
2-10-2T TKz-211, built in 1938 by Borsig
4-6-2 Pm3-5, built in 1940 by Borsig for PKP [streamlined]
0-8-0T TKp-4147, built in 1942 by La Meuse for SNCF
2-8-0 Tr203-421, built in 1945 by Lima for USATC (S-160)
2-10-0 Ty2-572, built in 1946 by Schichau for PKP
2-10-0 Ty42-120, built in 1946 by Fablok Chrzanów for PKP
2-10-0 Ty43-17, built in 1947 by HCP for PKP
2-8-2 Pt47-104, built in 1949 by HC for PKP
2-8-2T TKt48-36, built in 1951 by HCP for PKP
2-6-2 Ol49-21, built in 1952 by Fablok Chrzanów for PKP
2-10-0 Ty51-228, built in 1958 by HCP for PKP
three electric locomotives:
EP02-02
EU20-24
ET21-66
and four diesel locomotives:
ST44-001, and
three diesel switchers, two built by Fablok
In Warsaw Centralna station, our local guide, Marek Jankowski, is present to met us an escort us to the hotel, which is only a block away from the northwest end of the station building, on the north side. Our hotel room has the upper part of the Palace of Science and Culture squarely in view, and clearly shows that an adjacent high-rise building is now taller than the palace (which for many years was the highest building in Warsaw). Once again, the bags are not here when we arrive (the bus certainly wasn’t making 100 mph), but are being delivered before we leave for the afternoon’s activities (which include lunch).
We head off in a bus (not the one the luggage came in) north after turning from the westbound one-way street in front of the hotel, and later east and then north again to get us to the south edge of the reconstructed old town pedestrianized area. Here, we leave the bus and Marek begins his lectures. (He has a degree in History and has been with the Tourist Agency since his graduation in 1981, so he was once a communist-era tour guide, with all that that implies.) He talks about the square at the south edge of Old Town, and the palace alongside that wasn’t reconstructed until the 1970s. Then we walk to the outside of the cathedral, and he talks about it. Then he asks if we want to eat lunch or go inside the cathedral. Assuming we’ll come back to the cathedral, Pete and Sylvia Smykla say “eat”, and we go to a cellar-level restaurant just one street away, behind the cathedral.
In the restaurant, Bob Carter, sitting next to me, scarfs his food (when it arrives) as if he hasn’t eaten for two or three days. Since we know he had breakfast, this seems passing strange (even though it’s now 2:30 pm). After lunch, instead of returning to the cathedral, Marek takes us one street further away, to a terrace overlooking the Vistula (with little scenic merit), where he gives us a history lecture on the fate of Poland under foreign occupation and domination. Then we walk two streets back west, to the market square (and within 100 yards of the cathedral), and gives another lecture in the middle of the square, not describing the former existences of the buildings we see, but on how everything was laid bare by the Nazis in 1944 (during the Warsaw Uprising of late that year), and reconstructed meticulously starting in the 1950s. (The group spent two nights and one free afternoon within 40 miles of Auschwitz, and no one went there, so this group clearly is not interested in details of the tragedies of WWII. Werner has informed Marek of this, and his advice has been ignored.)
We leave the square on its northwest corner, and stop in a side street to talk about the house that is built into the reconstructed city wall. In days of yore, this would have been the executioner’s house. We then pass through the gate and across the moat into New Town (still a reproduction of centuries-old buildings) for another lecture, and then walk north to a street corner where there is a baroque church and up the street is the house in which Marie Curie was born. Then we walk west, past some reconstructed baroque and rococo palaces, to an intersection near the northwest corner of old town, where we get another lecture at the Warsaw Uprising (1944) memorial. Walking north and then west again beyond another city gate, we reboard the bus and take it over to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) Monument in a park that occupies the leveled (by the Nazis) site of the old Warsaw Jewish Quarter, later the center of the sealed Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi occupation before the Holocaust.
From here, the bus takes us to the Wilson Plaza (after Woodrow Wilson, architect of Poland’s recreation after WWI, whom Marek refers to as “Thomas” Wilson) station at the north end of the Warsaw subway, which we then ride for five stations south to the Polytechnik station, where we rejoin the bus. Rain is now falling quite heavily, so the rest of the tour is on the bus, in which we pass, but do not visit, the massive Chopin Statue in a park.
Back at the hotel, we have a group dinner in the restaurant, to the strains of a lousy salon pianist attempting standard American songs, celebrate Jim Compton’s birthday, and get an explanation from Werner of the railway museum, outside Warsaw (which he had mentioned to us on the train) that many in the group will visit on the free day, Saturday.
We meet at 9:30 am in the lobby, and leave for the station a block away without Marek, who catches up with us in the station to receive and admonition about timeliness from Werner. Some of us do not have days on our railpasses for today, so we must buy tickets. The lines for tickets are long, but Marek knows of a place one level down where there are no lines, and buys the needed tickets there. Since he is paying for his ticket, he buys second-class tickets, leading Werner to decide that the whole group will ride second class today. There is time for coffee before descending to the second-level subterranean platform to catch the train heading west-southwest.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-18-2005 |
PKP |
1019 |
Warsaw-Skierniewice |
PKP Regional |
EP07-450 |
|
6-18-2005 |
PKP |
1340 |
Skierniewice-WArsaw |
PKP Regional |
EU07-102 |
As far as Grodzisk Mazowiecki, the line is the same as we came in on on Friday. Beyond Grodzisk Mazowiecki, the line continues in the same west-southwestward direction through Zyrardow, where the station has two platforms serving three tracks with station buildings to the north, and past a junction where a line trails in from the east. to Skierniewice. Skierniewice has two platforms serving three main tracks, with stairs up to a footpath on a road bridge connecting the two. The station buildings are to the south, west of the road bridge, and umbrella sheds shelter the platforms. West of the station there is a signal control tower on the south side of the tracks, and a brick roundhouse on the north side of the tracks that is no longer used by PKP.
The museum we’re going to is run by a group of amateur preservationists (much like those who run Orange Empire or Illinois Railway Museums), and has been located in an old steam roundhouse just to the west of this station since 2002. On our arrival here, we wait in the station until Werner receives a ‘phone call indicating the group is ready for our appearance, and we then cross the tracks on the footbridge and walk west to the museum entrance. This museum is not yet ready for opening to the public, but Werner has made special arrangements for this group to visit on a day that the museum’s volunteers are there working on the facility.
The collection includes a few steam locomotives in various states of disrepair, a few diesel locomotives likewise, and many historic carriages and wagons dating back to the Prussian State Railways period (pre-1919), in which this roundhouse was built (as part of the Vienna-Warsaw line, in 1845) and later up to the 1970s. The current form of the roundhouse dates to the 1940s, and operational steam was here until the 1970s. One set of wagons is restored, and was used in the making of the film ‘Schindler’s List’. We receive an excellent guided tour, in and around the workers who are rebuilding part of the roundhouse floor. Once the tour is over, we walk back to the station and return to Warsaw. Second class seating is tight, so we all ride in the Bistro car and have drinks and sandwiches there.
On the way back into the center of Warsaw, Werner spots a display of modern Polish electric locomotives in Warsaw Zachodnia station, too late for the group to get off the train there. Chris and I elect to go back, and Marek shows us how to buy tickets for the WDK “metro” line, and where to get on its half-hourly (this is Saturday) trains. One leaves almost immediately, and we view and photograph the array of locomotives in one of the platforms at Zachodnia, returning to the hotel about an hour later than everyone else.
After dropping off some of the bags we’re carrying, we walk over the long blocks east to Warsaw Centrum (southeast corner of the soulless grounds of the hideous Palace of Science and Culture), whence we take a subway train north two station to Rathus (“town hall”), whence we walk east on Solidarity Boulevard to the south end of Old Town. We try to go in to both the cathedral and St. Anne’s, the large baroque church across the road bridge to the south (where we had left the bus on Friday), but both are jam packed with weddings with lines of couples waiting for their turn to marry. So, we descend to the road level below the bridge, and take a tram on line 13 two stations west (the first station being at the subway station), and then another tram on line 10 two stations south, to the closest station to the hotel.
Chris and I eat Polish-style duck, this evening, at a French Restaurant just northeast of the hotel.
At 10 am on Sunday, group members board the usual bus outside the hotel for the short drive west to the Polish Railway Museum. When we get there, it proves to be in the erstwhile Warsawa Glawna station, once the terminus of the lines coming into Warsaw from the south and west, prior to the construction of the connecting line across (actually, under) the city in 1915 (according to Marek). This station remained in use for commuter traffic until the present Centralna station was built after WWII. Looking at the name makes it obvious that the main stations (or one-time main stations, in Warsaw’s case) in the four Slavic cities we have visited all, in fact named exactly the same, since their names stem from the same old-Slavic root word (Hlavna in Slovak, Hlavni in Czech, and Glowny/Glowna in Polish).
The old station buildings now comprise the indoor portion of the museum, with many scale models and informative displays of both past and future (all in Polish, of course, but the maps can still be understood). Outside, the remains of the old station comprise four tracks on one center and two side platforms. On the tracks adjacent to these platforms are arrayed three lines of locomotives (mostly steam, but a few electric and diesel), only one line of which (with the least interesting locomotives) can be seen from passing trains, as we had done on Friday and Saturday. As I walk around these lines, photographing each and every artifact, Chris is educating Marek on the working of a steam locomotive (as she had done with Susan at the similar but much better laid out museum in Budapest). Marek is very informative on some subjects, such as the provenance of this facility, in response to questions where he has not had to develop a memorized spiel on the subject!
The Budapest museum beats this one in another way, also: it has both catalog and history in English, whereas the museum catalog and history of Polish steam locomotives that I buy here are both in Polish, albeit with standard comprehensible technical data. There appears to be no available reference book on the locomotives and/or rolling stock of the current Polish Railways, although the museum had one copy each of books on those subjects developed 20 years previously in the communist era—for 100 zlotys apiece, a price I was not prepared to pay.
We’re back at the hotel by noon, with our next scheduled activity beginning at 2 pm. I’m tempted to head for Old Town to see if we can get into the two churches, but as today is Sunday this seems pointless, so we use the kettle in the room to make tea and relax for awhile. At 2 pm, we gather on the bus to head out to Zelazowa Wola, the birthplace of Chopin, for a visit to the museum and grounds there. Eric and Jane Fogg bring their luggage with them since we will be dropping them off at the airport on the way back to town. The place we’re going is about 32 miles WNW of Warsaw, along 2-lane roads, and we get there just before 3 pm. By the time we’ve negotiated the entrance (our Warsaw cards are good for admission, but the staff doesn’t seem to know this without proof), its just after 3pm, and a concert has just started in the museum, preventing our admission to that building. (It would seem that the schedule planners at the tourist agency should have known about this, but . . .) Marek decides to fill the time by giving us a historical lecture on Chopin and his origins, which takes up about half an hour, and loses the attention of about half the group. The concert ends after about 45 minutes, and the remainder of the group then enters the museum. The five rooms on view have pictures on the walls, and musical instruments within them (including the piano we had just heard through the lousy sound system carrying the music outside). There seem to be no Chopin-specific artifacts in the museum! The gift shop has the current critical editions of the Chopin scores, but nothing I want to buy. Chris, however, has bought a postcard she will use as a birthday card for Bob Carter, whose birthday it is, and is busy getting the signatures of the other group members on this card. Outside the park, Chris and I buy ice-cream cones before reboarding the bus, and we set off back for Warsaw at 4:15 pm. North of our route to and from Zelazowa Wola is the Polish Forest, the largest remnant of first growth forest left in Europe.
After dropping off Eric and Jane at the airport, we return to the hotel at 5:30 pm with a departure time of 5:40 pm for our next event, prior to which we have to change for dinner. We’re back down at 5:37 pm, but the last folks aren’t down until almost 5:50 pm, including one woman who has obviously washed her hair! L We drive back to the Old Town area, leaving the bus at the Soviet War Memorial and walking east to the reconstructed palace that houses the National Archives. Here, a piano has been set up in an upper-level salon, and we’re treated to a concert of Chopin’s music by Maria Skerjat-Silva, for which no program is provided. At intermission, there is champagne and Coca-Cola available, but nothing for those who drink neither. The concert ends with a rousing performance of the most famous of the Polonaises. We buy a copy of her CD that is on offer.
Rejoining the bus north of the war memorial in the same place as the last time, we head across the Vistula to a restaurant called Dom Polski (Polish House), on the east bank of the river. (Werner has not been provided with the name, address, or phone number of this restaurant in advance, so he can’t check up on whether the staff knows about various people’s food restrictions. He is quietly furious about this treatment. Clearly, the Warsaw Tourist Agency still harbors Stalinist ideas about how to handle tourists.). The food is excellent, as is Bob Carter’s reception of his card and later his birthday cake. In conversation during dinner, I realize that Pete Smykla must be the “Alcohaulic” private locomotive owner featured in the Pentrex program on Alco Diesels, and he confirms this. (My eyes must have widened when I realized this, to judge by Pete’s reaction.) The tour effectively ends as the bus returns to the hotel, and since some people will be leaving very early for 7 am flights, we say our goodbyes on leaving the bus.
At the dawn of railways, Poland was partitioned amongst Germany, Austria and Russia. This remained the case until 1920, with the treaties ratifying the conclusions of World War I. The Poland that was established in 1920 was destroyed as a result of the German and then Russian invasions of 1939. The new state of Poland that was established under Soviet auspices at the end of WWII is located quite a bit further west than were any of its predecessors, including the most recent on of 1920-39. The Poland of 2005 covers the same land area as at the end of 1945.
I know less about Polish State Railways than about those of any other country we visited. This is largely because I obtained no material whatever, in English, on the history or current state of Polish railways. The unavailability of such material may be due, at least in part, to the very mixed nature of the history of these railways, since until 1919 all railway history in this region occurred in the countries then covering the area: Germany (Prussian State Railways), Austria (one or more of the railways built in the Habsburg Empire, especially in that part of Poland that was then the Austrian province of Galicia) and Russia (whose broad gauge no longer features on any passenger line in Poland). Indeed, part of present day Poland (in the west and southwest) was a full part of Germany (not a conquest of WWII) until as late as 1945! All of the northern part of present-day Poland was Prussian/German territory prior to 1919. Russian influence is doubly felt: as the ruler of eastern Poland until 1919, and through the Soviet communist domination from 1945 to 1989.
Lines into Galicia were built by King Ferdinands Nordbahn (KFN)—west-east across the province from the western border east of Ostrava all the way to the then eastern border beyond Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv, through Krakow, Tarnow, Rzeszow, Przemysl and Medyka in the 1850s and 1860s (a line nationalized by Austria in 1908), the First Hungarian-Galician Railway—completed from the border coming north from Kosice and Plaveč (in Slovakia) to Tarnow and Przemysl in 1874, and later part of the StEG in Galicia (a line nationalized by Austria before this takeover), and the MAV-constructed/KBD-operated link between Zilina and Krakow through Zwardon and Zywiec, opened in 1884 and still in private hands in 1920. Named expresses such as the one running through four countries between Bucharest and Warsaw use the former First Hungarian Galician line, in 2005.
Lines built purely in Galicia included the Trans-Galician Railway (running between places in today’s Poland and today’s Ukraine), East Galician Railway (now purely in Ukraine), Trzebinia-Skawce Railway (in the Katowice-Krakow area), Lemberg-Czernowitz-Jassy Railway (now purely in Ukraine), and Galician Karl Ludwig Railway (Krakow-Lemberg/Lvov/Lviv-Podwoloczyska and branches).
Lines in extended Prussia (including Silesia) were built by Royal Prussian Railways (Königliche Preusische Eisenbahn Verwaltung—KPEV), later Prussian State Railways, and naturally enough were largely focused on routes radiating from Berlin (through Görlitz or Frankfurt-an-Oder to Breslau/Wroclaw, Opole and on to Katowice, through Frankurt-an-Oder to Posen/Poznan. and beyond to Warsaw (the Poznan-Kutno line did not exist until after 1919, so this line went further north via Torun), northeast from Posen/Poznan to Torun, Tczew, Danzig/Gdansk, Elblag and Konigsberg), along with cross-country lines such as that from Katowice north to Gniezno on the Posen-Torun line. The Austrian StEG built a line coming north from Chocen via Tynište nad Orlici and Mezimest, all in today’s Czech republic, entering Silesia at Mieroszow and then heading northeast to Breslau/Wroclaw, and the Moravian-Silesian Central Railway built north from Olomouc and Opava to Jindřichov (all in Moravia), Glucholazy and Glubczyce (both in Silesia).
A dense network was built before 1919 in what was then Germany, and a much thinner network in what was then Russia. The Vienna-Warsaw line, north of the Katowice area, was built through an area that in 1795 had been the border between the Prussian partition and the Austrian partition, yet by the time the line was built (or at least started in the Warsaw area) in 1845 seemed firmly to be in the Russian partition. Yet the line was built to standard gauge and apparently to Austrian railway standards (with a view to running through trains in conjunction with KFN, no doubt). Similarly, the line from Torun to Warsaw via Kutno appears to have been built as a branch off the Prussian line from Berlin to Frankfurt-an-Oder and Posen to Danzig and Kaliningrad. Apparently, there were no Russian 5ft. gauge lines built west of the Vistula.
In the Russian area of control, east of the Vistula, railways were built to the 5 ft. gauge as part of the development of Russian railways. Lines southwest from Minsk and west from Kiev that came together at Brest to head west to Warsaw via Lukow, and from Kaunas to Bialystok and Warsaw were built to serve Russian interests, not to serve Warsaw’s interests.
A long cutoff line was built in the 1920s between Poznan and Kutno, to shorten the main line between Warsaw and Poznan now that the latter was within Poland. Lengthy sections of new lines were built in the 1950s. The former “Central Coal Line”, now known as the “Central Main Line” is a heavily-engineered piece of double-track infrastructure that was built after WWII as a 200 km/h line, but spent the first 40 years of its existence as an artery to convey loaded coal trains from the mines in the Katowice area to coal consumers in the Warsaw area and beyond, and to carry empty coal trains in the return direction. With the decline in the use of coal as a fuel, except in electricity generating stations, the line’s function as a coal conveyor declined, and it was rebuilt as a ‘high-speed’ line connecting southwest Poland (Krakow and Katowice) with the Warsaw area. Another new line was built north from Katowice, crossing the Warsaw-Poznan line at a grade-separated intersection with connectors in all four corners, and joining the Poznan-Gdansk-Gdynia line at Torun, mainly for carrying coal from the Katowice area to Gdansk and the harbor at Gdynia.
In Prussian Poland, a small section of line was electrified in 1898. In the 1920s, a Warsaw suburban line was electrified. The Warsaw cross-city tunnel was electrified in 1936. Poland’s overhead electrification is at 3000 V DC, just like those in northern Slovakia and Czech Republic. English Electric, Metrovick and ICC developed the main-line electrification, including overhead, substations and locomotives, in the 1930s. For this reason, Polish electric locomotives are patterned after those developed in England at about the same time, although assembled under license in Poland. The last locomotives based on English types were the EU06, based on British Railways’ AC-3s in 1960, and built in East Germany or at Wroclaw. The later Polish EP08 is based closely on the EU06.
Segments of the Pan-European Transportation Corridors being funded by the European Union as an aid to the development of transportation infrastructure in central and eastern Europe that lie within Poland include: Gdansk-Elblag-Memonovo/Branievo (and on to Kaliningrad) and Warsaw-Bialystok on Corridor I; Brest-Lukow-Warsaw-Lowicz (and the Lukow-Lowicz line passing south of Warsaw)-Poznan and Frankfurt-an-Oder on Corridor II; (Lviv and) Medyka/Mostiska-Rzeszow-Tarnow-Krakow-Katowice-Opole-Wroclaw (with two routes between Katowice, Opole and Wroclaw)-Legnica-Görlitz/Zgorzedec (and on to Dresden) on Corridor III; and Gdynia-Gdansk-Tczew, and then either Warsaw-Psary and either Katoowice or Bielsko-Bala via the Central Main Line, or Torun to Katowice and Bielsko-Bala via the other cross-country freight artery built post WWII, and thence to Zebrzydowice/Petrovice u Kravine (and on to Ostrava, from the Katowice line only) or Zwercin/Cdca (and on to Zilina) on Corridor VI.
PKP’s main-line services in 2005 are operated mainly by the following motive power. All electric traction operates either on the international standard of 25kV, 50 Hz, or on 3000 V DC, or in some cases both, as stated.
Class EP05, built 1973-77, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2 MW power, 160 km/h max. speed
Class EP07, rebuilt 1995-2003, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2 MW power, 125 km/h max. speed
Class EU07, built 1965-94, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2 MW power, 125 km/h max. speed
Class EP08, built 1973-76, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2 MW power, 150 km/h max. speed
Class EP09, built 1986-97, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 2.92 MW power, 160 km/h max. speed
New locos, based on the Italian E412, introduced in 1997, 6 MW power from both 3000 V DC and 15kV 16⅔ Hz AC, 200 km/h max. speed, built under license from Adtranz
Class ET21, built 1957-71, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 1.86 MW power, 100 km/h max. speed
Class ET22, built 1969-89, Co-Co wheel arrangement, 2 MW power, 125 km/h max. speed
Class ET41 twin, built 1978-82, Bo-Bo wheel arr. (each half), 4.48 MW, 100 km/h
Class EN57, built 1962-88, 3-car (center powered), 580 kW power, 110 km/h max. speed
Class EN94, built 1968-72, 2-car articulated, 226 kW power, 80 km/h max. speed
Class SM31, built 1958-69, Co-Co switcher, 880 kW, 80 km/h max. speed
Class SM42, built 1965-93, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 590 kW power, 90 km/h max. speed
Class SU45, built 1988-97, Bo-Bo wheel arrangement, 1.25 MW power, 120 km/h max. speed
PKP has these, but we never saw any of them.
Passenger cars from the communist era are easily distinguishable by their vertical parabolic roofs compared to the elliptical roofs used on newer cars from western sources. Most of this rolling stock was built by VEB in East Germany (as it was for the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary).
We could have arisen early this morning, and gone back to Old Town to see if we could get in those churches this time. But our three-day transportation passes have expired (Warsaw is the only place we’ve been where these are for three calendar days, not 72 hours from first usage) and I don’t want to mess with paying transportation fares in zlotys, so we don’t. We do get up early enough to say goodbye to those leaving the hotel at 10 am (including Werner), and say one last goodbye to the Harpers (whose train to Vienna leaves at 2 pm) as we leave the room with our luggage, a little after 10:30 am. We check out and walk the bags over to Centralna station, staying at ground level to avoid the stairs until we can get to ones that have escalators. We determine the platform for our train and go down the two levels to that platform to wait for our train, and the find our reserved seats in the compartment when it pulls in.
|
Date |
Train Operator |
Time |
From-To |
Train Stock |
Loco |
|
6-20-2005 |
PKP/DB (EC 44) |
1120 |
Warsaw-Berlin |
PKP ICCC (5 cars) |
EP09-035 |
|
6-20-2005 |
DB |
1824 |
Berlin-Frankfurt |
ICE |
401 |
The line to Poznan and Berlin takes the more northerly route at the flying junction just west of Zachodnia station (although the westbound line doesn’t actually take the through-truss bridge flyover). After heading northwest for a short distance, the line then crosses over the line heading north from the Skierniewice line to Warsaw Jelonki and turns west as a connecting line from Warsaw Jelonki trails in from the east, and heads almost due west out of the Warsaw urban area. The line is double track with welded rail and electric overhead, and passes through Błonie and Sochaczew, where it turns southwest at the main line station adjacent to the station of a 750 mm gauge line that heads north. Many of the intermediate stations have two side platforms. Some of these have staggered platforms, with one each side of a road crossing.
Approaching Lowicz, the main line curves to the west southwest, a line continues in that direction to Lodz while the main line turns northwest, and a line from Skierniewice and another connector from the Lodz line trail in at the south end of Lowicz Glowny station. At Zychline, the line turns west again. Approaching Kutno, a line from Lodz trails in as the main line turns northwest through the station. Kutno station has four platforms serving six tracks with station buildings to the north. Carriage sidings, yard and locomotive depot are to the southwest of the line northwest of the station. Kutno is the eastern end of a dedicated container train service from the port of Rotterdam. At the northwest end of the station, a line to Plock Trzepowo heads northeast, the original main line to Torun heads northwest and then north, and today’s main line turns due west again., and soon crosses above a 750 mm gaueg line running north south that has branches running just north and just south of the main line heading west.
West of Kutno, but east of Klodawa, there is a coalmine off to the north side of the tracks. At Klodawa, the main freight artery from Katowice to Gdansk crosses overhead, with connecting lines in all four corners of the intersection, and the west junction of the connectors at Barlogi. At Kolo, where another branch of the 750 mm gauge system heads north from and adjacent station, the main line turns north-northwest for a short distance, and then back west again. Approaching Konin, a non-electrified short branch trails in from the north. Konin has two platforms serving three tracks, with station buildings to the south. There is a large yard west of the station on both sides of the line, which now heads west-northwest. Near Wrzesnia, a line crosses beneath, with a connecting track from Wrzesnia in the southwest quadrant only. There is a yard on the south side of the line at Podstolice, where that connecting track trails in to the main line.
At Kostrzyn, the line turns due west again. There are BP storage tanks on the south side of the line east of Swarzedz. Immediately west of the latter, a freight connector diverges to the southwest to join a freight bypass line coming southwest from the Gdansk and Turno line, passing overhead. At Poznan Wshod, the main line from Gdansk and Turno (and thus the original line from Warsaw) trails in from the east-nprtheast., with a non-electrified line trailing in from the north. The line into Poznan Glowna from the east is elevated, with many bridges over streets and waterways, turning sout-southwest just before the station, with another line trailing in from the northwest at that point. Poznan Glowna has four platforms serving seven tracks, with a road bridge carrying tramlines overhead at the east end. The three island platforms have umbrella sheds, and the modern station buildings are on the north side of the line. West of the station, there is a large locomotive depot on the north side of the line. There is a freight bypass line around the south side of Poznan, avoiding the main station, and the area’s freight yard is on that bypass line.
South of the main station, there is a three-way junction, with a line heading south-southeast to Katowice, a line heading southwest to Leszno, and a connector from the Katowice line and the freight bypass (which connects to that line on a wye just east of this junction) crossing the Leszno line (with a connector to that line heading southwest also) to trail into the Berlin main line as that line turns west again. Most of the line passes through open fields bordered by trees, on a flat landscape, but west of Poznan there is a segment of evergreen forest and then mixed forest. At Opalenica, a 750 mm Gauge line heads north from an adjacent station, and a non-electrified line turns away southwest to the west of the station. The main line passes through Novy Tomysl, where it turns west-soutwest. Approaching Zbasyn, non-electrified line trail in from the north-northeast (freight only) and the south-southeast.
There is a major freight yard on the south side of the line between Zbasyn and Zbasynek, with carriage sidings on the north side and then a stuffed-and-mounted steam tender engine at the west end of Zbasynek station on the south side. Approaching Zbasynek, the main line turns southwest as a non-electrified line trails in from the north, and west of the station, a non-electrified line departs to the south as the main line turns northwest and then west again to Swiebodzin. West of Swiebodzin station, where a non-electrified line turns away to the south, the landscape finally has some rolling hills in it. At Toporow, a non-electrified line trails in from the north-northeast, and the main line turns west-northwest. Approaching Rzepin, a non-electrified lin trails in from the north-northeast and an electrified on from the southeast.
There is another stuffed-and-mounted steam locomotive on the southeast side of Rzepin station. Rzepin has two platforms serving four tracks, with the station buildings on the south side. Here, the electrification system on the main line (but not the line heading north) changes from the Polish 3000 V DC to the German 15kV 16⅔ Hz AC. West of the station, a line departs to the north, and a bypass line around the south of town from that line southeast crosses over the main line to join that northward line. At Kunowice, the last station in Poland, a non-electrified line departs to the south.
The line bridges over the Oder River into Germany, and turns northwest, with an electrified line trailing in from the south along the west side of the river, and a non-electrified line trailing in from the southwest. Frankfurt-an-Oder Pbf has six platforms serving twelve tracks under a barrel-shaped overall roof, with station buildings to the northeast. Northwest of the station, a non-electrified line heads north along the west side of the river as the main line to Berlin turns west, and then a west connector from that line trails in from the northeast at Rosengarten. West of Frankfurt-an-Oder, the German landscape is more of the same, although with a higher fraction of forest rather than agriculture.
The line continues west, through Pillgram, Jacobsdorf, Briesen and Berkenbruck. A non-electrified line from the south crosses overhead, turns west, and descends to trail into the main line at Fürstenwalde (Spreewald), edging west-northwest, the line passes through Hangelsberg, edges back west to Fangschleuse, and then turns northwest to Erkner, east end of the S-bahn line that now runs alongside to the north. The S-bahn has stations at Wilhelmshagen, Rahnsdorf, as the lines turn west, Berlin-Friedrichshagen, Hirschgarten, Berlin-Köpenick, where the line turns northwest, and Wuhlheide. A line around Berlin crosses overhead, with both southeast and southwest connectors to the main line east. Berlin Karlshorst has an interchange station with platforms on both main line and S-bahn. A northwest connector from the line around Berlin crosses over the S-bahn and trails into the main line from the northeast. The S-bahn has stations at Bbf. Berlin-Rummelsburg and Berlin-Rummelsburg. A main line segment crosses overhead, followed by an S-bahn segment at the S-bahn interchange station at Ostkruez. There is an S-bahn station at Warschauer Strasse, and both lines reach the major station at Berlin Ostbahnhof (formerly Hauptbahnhof).
Berlin Ostbahnhof has five platforms serving ten main tracks, with two additional stub tracks at the east end, with the whole being covered by a two-barrel overall roof. The S-bahn platforms are the most northerly. The whole array of platforms and tracks is elevated above street level. Pedestrian subways at street level connect the platforms, with station facilities below the platforms.
The five-car “Berlin-Warsaw Express”, for which there is a supplemental charge that is higher than the normal seat reservation rate, is full from Warsaw to Poznan, and almost empty thereafter (at least in First Class). There is a catering trolley, so we don’t need to go to the Restaurant Car for drinks along the way. Since we’re in the last car in this short train, I spend much of the time near towns along the way taking photos of railway artifacts from the rear vestibule (the “poor man’s observation car”). In a yard on the west side of Poznan there is a steam locomotive, perhaps one of those operating from Wolsztyn. Low overcast in Warsaw has changed to high occasional clouds in western Poland.
The train changes locomotives at Rzepin, the last stop in Poland, to an unknown DB electric locomotive. Both sets of border control agents pass through the train together at Rzepin. We get off at Berlin Ostbahnhof, although the train goes to Berlin Zoo, since our following ICE starts at the former before calling at the latter. We don’t take the earliest possible train to Frankfurt, since it serves the Hauptbahnhof, but not the Airport station, taking a train that gives us a one-seat ride with our luggage instead. During the wait, I go down into the station to change my residual Hungarian, Czech, and Polish paper money to Euros, so that we can both pay for dinner on the train (rather than using the card) and have some cash for incidentals in the Frankfurt area.
Both the S-bahn and main lines west of Berlin Ostbahnhof were closed from 1961 until after 1989, and the main line was only been electrified some time after 1994. As both line curve north and then west, the S-bahn has stations at Jannowitzbrücke, Alexanderplatzand Hackescher Markt. At the major crossing of S-bahn lines at Berlin Friedrichstrasse, the main line passes right through the upper-level of the abuilding Berlin Central station, complete with an overall barrel roof that crosses the existing tracks. (When this station is finished, trains to and from Frankfurt will use the lower level platforms, orthogonal to the upper-level platforms, while trains to and from Cologne, which use the same tracks west of the city, will continue to se the upper level tracks.)
The lines turns northwest to the S-bahn station at Lerter Stadtbahnhof, and then southwest past S-bahn stations at Bellevue and Tiergarten. Berlin Zoo (Zoologische Garten) main line station has two platforms serving four through tracks under a box-shaped overall roof. The lines turn west past the S-bahn stations at Savignyplatz and Berlin-Charlottenburg. There are major S-bahn junctions and interchange platforms at Westkreuz, where another S-bahn line passes underneath with an east quadrant connector also passing underneath the main line. A main line connector passes below, as the main line west turns northwest and another segment continues ahead to the southwest.
West of Eichkamp, the S-bahn line crosses overhead to Heerstrasse, and then turns away to the west. The main line turns west as a line trails in from the east, having looped around the north side of the city, and the S-bahn crosses overhead and then descends to parallel the main line on the north side at Berlin Spandau, another main line and S-bahn interchange station with several platforms and an overall roof. There is a large freight yard on the south side of the line east of Berlin Spandau. The main line runs west on a line that was not even electrified ten years before 2005, much less fit for high-speed train travel.
The main line west passes through Staaken, the west end of the S-bahn, Dallgow, Wustermark Bbf, an intersection with an outer loop line around the city that passes below heading north-south, with a connecting track in all four quadrants, Wustermark, where a line curves away to the north and a non-electrified connector from that line trails in a little further west, and Neugarten, where a branch turns away to the south and the main line turns west-northwest to Gross Behnitz and then west through Buschow, Nennhausen, and a closed station at Samme. A line from the north crosses over and then trails in from the south at the east end of Rathenow, and departs to the south, west of the station. The main line passes through Grosswudicke and a closed staion at Schönhauser Damm. A line from the north crosses over and then trails in from the south, and another trails in from the south to join that line, at the east end of Schönhausen. The main line then passes through Hämerten.
A branch line trails in from the southeast, and an electrified line coming north from Magdeburg trails in from the south at Stendal. West of the station, that electrified line curves away on the south side and then turns north to cross overhead and head to Wittenberge, with a non-electrified line leaving it to the northwest to go to Salzwedel. The main line continues west-southwest, through Möringen, Vinzelberg, Uchtspringe, and Jävenitz.A branch line from the south passes overhead and turns west to join the main line at Gardelegen. The main line continues through Solpke, Mieste, Miesterhorst, and a closed station at Bergfriede. At Öbisfelder, the former border crossing between East Germany and West Germany, lines trail in from the northeast (from Wittenberge) and southeast (from Magdeburg).
A short distance west of Öbisfelder, a short branch trails in from the south, and the main line then passes through Vorsfelde, before reaching Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg station has a single island platform serving two tracks, with a river to the north side and beyond that the VW automobile factory. The area between Wolfsburg and Braunschweig has rolling hills and heath land between the wooded areas. West of Fallersleben, the line to Hannover (and onward to the Ruhr and Cologne) continues westward, while the line towards Frankfurt turns south, through a freight-only station at Ehmen, and then turns southwest at Lehre. After passing through a closed station at Braunschweig Ost, the line turns south as other lines trail in from the north and northwest, to pass through Braunschweig-Gliesmarode, and then turns west on a wye junction with a line trailing in from the east.
Brunswick (Braunschweig) Hauptbahnhof has five platforms serving nine tracks, with carriage sidings northeast of the station and station buildings on the northwest side of the tracks, a non-electrified line turns away to the south and a freight bypass line coming from the area’s main freight yard (with a connection at the eastern end from the other leg of that wye junction) trails in from the east. The line passes through BraunschweigBroitzem. A non-electrified line turns away south at a wye junction. At Gross Sleidingen, immediately west of that wye, a line turns away to the northwest to head for Hannover, and the main line continues west-southwest through a closed station at Salzgitter, under a north-south line crossing overhead, through Bbroistedt-Salzgitter-Nord, Woltwiesche, Hoheneggelsen, a freight-only station at Garbolzum, and another at Bettmar. Approaching Hildeshein, an electrified line from celle trails in from the north, and a non-electrified line trails in from the south.
Hildesheim has five platforms serving nine tracks with station buildings to the south. West of Hildeshein, in rolling hills, the route curves south to join the high-speed line coming south from Hannover, while the historic main line continues west through Emmerke to join the historic north-south line at Nordstemmen. On the Hannover-Wurzburg high-speed line, 37% of the line is in wide arc-roofed tunnel, with a further 9% on sleek concrete viaduct cutting through the rolling hills of central Germany. In the Kreiensen area, the high-speed line (“neubaustrecke”) passes above or under two local non-electrified lines just east of the historic line through that location. Two tunnels further south, the high speed line passes above the historic main line, and a connection between the two trails into the high speed line, as both continue due south through Northeim. The lines run parallel to one another through Norten Hardenberg and Boyenden (stations on the historic main line only). A non-electrified line from the west passes under the high-speed line to trail into the historic main line, and the two main lines parallel one another into Göttingen
Göttingen station has six platforms serving eleven tracks, with station buildings to the east, of which two platforms serving four tracks are on the high-speed lines on the west side of the main station. Just south of the station, the high-speed line turns southwest while the historic main line continues due south. The hills get a bit higher and the valleys a bit deeper as the line heads southwest from Göttingen to Kassel through many tunnels and across many bridges, including one right alongside the autobahn. The line comes out of tunnel onto a high bridge to cross a river headed southeast to northwest. Near Hedemünden, the high-speed line in tunnel passes beneath the historic main line between Eichenberg and Kassel.
At a freight-only station at Ihringshausen, that historic line trails into the high-speed line from the north side as the two line join into a single right-of-way through the area, turning west and then south at Niedervellmar. The high-speed line crosses to the west of the historic main line as a line coming south from Warburg throws off a connector that trails into the high-speed line line. There is a major freight yard on the east side of the line, where it parallels the west side of the historic line just north of Kassel. The historic main line from Eichenberg turns away to the east, and that from Warburg crosses overhead to join it into the stub-end Kassel Hauptbahnhof, while the high-speed line continues into the interchange station alongside the southern leg of the historic main line, a bit further south.
Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe has six platforms serving twelve tracks in a trench with retaining walls, of which two platforms serving four tracks are on the high-speed lines on the west side of the main station, with the station buildings above the tracks at ground level. Two non-electrified lines depart the historic main line south of this station, and both main lines continue south together as far as Kassel Oberzwehren before the historic main line turns away to the southeast and starts curving around. South of Kassel, the high-speed line passes through more tunnels as it separates from the historic line again, passing under the historic main line in one tunnel, passing just east of it at Guxhagen on that line, and crossing above it on viaduct as it runs between Beiseförth and Altmorschen.
There is a massive distribution facility below the line on the east side—it looked like Fedex, set among the steeply wooded hills. A non-electrified line passes below near its freight-only stations at Niederaula and Niederjossa. The high-speed line curves south-southeast and then south again, and the historic main line coming south passes underneath from east to west, with a non-electrified line trailing into it from the northwest, approaching Fulda. Fulda sattion has five platforms serving nine through tracks with two bays. South of Fulda, the route to Frankfurt leaves the high-speed line to use the historic main line, a non-electrified line departs to the east, and the line turns away southwest across (rather than through) the rolling wooded hills of the region. After passing through Neuhof, the Frankfurt line separates from southward historic main line the at Flieden, and with a short section of new line heading southwest through a tunnel, joins the historic main line trailing in from the east and heading southwest, just north of Schlüchtern.
Now on historic main line all the way, the Frankfurt line passes through Steinau, Bad Soden-Salmünster, Wächtersbach, where a short non-electrified branch heads away southeast, Wirtheim, Haitz-Höchst, Gelnhausen, where a non-electrified line turns away northwest, Hailer-Meerhotlz, Nidermittlau, Langenselbold, Niederrodenbach and Wolfgang. A connecting line departs towards the south, and a line coming south passes overhead to join it. The main line then turns northwest into the more northerly platforms at Hanau, with other lines making complex junctions just to the south of that station.
From Hanau, the route back to Frankfurt Airport is the same as on the outward journey on June 3rd, on which Hanau station and those other junctions were described.
Dinner on the ICE is good, at a reasonable price (not train-inflated). High-speeds on the dedicated line heading south through central Germany are taken with ease. Darkness falls, with a full moon replacing the setting sun, as we leave the high-speed line south of Fulda and turn west to Frankfurt. Incidentally, having finally seen the hilly terrain both north and south of Fulda, we now know what the infamous “Fulda Gap” of the cold war era was a gap in! At the airport, the hotel shuttle is still running at nearly 11:30 pm, and we’re in the room before midnight. The room, however, is very hot due to having been closed up all day, even with the curtains closed, and it is some time before the air is cool enough for sleep. (The only air conditioning we experienced in Europe this spring was in the two hotels in Poland!)
When the development of railways started in the second quarter of the 19th-century, “Germany” comprised a group of separate states, rather than the integral country of today. Railways thus developed to meet the needs of these states: Royal Prussian Railways (Königliche Preusische Eisenbahn Verwaltung—KPEV), later Prussian State Railways; Royal Saxon State Railways (Königliche Sächsische Staatseisenbahn—KSStEB); Royal Bavarian State Railways (Königliche Bayerische Staatseisenbahn—KBStEB); Baden State Railways; Württemberg State Railways; and others. Until 1871, then, railway development was based on the needs of the individual states and their railway histories proceeded independently.
Although the separate states were combined into an integrated Germany in 1871, the various railways kept their identities until after WWI. However, from 1871 the development of railways was based on the needs of Imperial Germany and thus became more and more centered on Berlin with lines radiating outwards to the far borders of the Reich (now including the lands west of the Rhine that had been taken from France in 1870). After WWI, the Reich was dissolved in favor of a democratic German state, the lands west of the Rhein were returned to France, and the Prussian part of Poland and parts of echt-Prussia became part of the reconstituted state of Poland. The territory in which the history of German railways unfolded from 1871 to 1918 was thus larger than that in which it unfolded after 1918.
Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft (DRG, or just DR) was created in 1920, and lasted until its 1938 expansion on the anschluss with Austria to include Austrian railways, at which it became Deutsche Reichsbahn—Gesellschaft (DRB, or just DR). From 1938, the remit of DR expanded to include railways in those annexed and conquered lands incorporated into Germany itself, which lasted until those lands were reconquered as the war came to a close. There was thus an anomalous period from 1938 to 1944/45 in which the history of German railways unfolded on a larger canvas than from 1918 to 1938.
After WWII, with the loss of more eastern territory to the new Poland (moved bodily westward by the Soviet Union) and the split of Germany into separate countries in the territory occupied by the Soviet Union and that occupied by the three western allies, the name Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) was retained by East Germany and the new name Deutsche Bundesbahn (DBB) was created for the railway in West Germany. During the period from 1945 to 1991, DBB re-oriented its main lines to focus on the axis between Frankfurt and the Ruhr, with lesser routes northward to Hamburg and southeastward to Munich (and, in particular, determining the routes of the new high speed lines within the context of West Germany only) while DR made route adjustments mainly to avoid using trackage that crossed the Iron Curtain between East and West Germany (as well as to accommodate its new eastern border at the Oder-Neisse line, losing large portions of Prussia and all of Silesia). Necessarily, the histories of the two railways were separate during this time period.
After the reunification of Germany in 1991, the lines of DR were integrated into DBB, and then later in the 1990s, were privatized as Deutsche Bahn, and later Die Bahn (both just DB). In the years since reunification, steps have been taken to rebuild and redevelop some of the lines radiating from Berlin that had fallen on hard times due to their outer centers of traffic being on the far side of the border from Berlin.
We arise at 9:30 am, in time to eat the included breakfast and providing plenty of time to get over to the airport for our 2 pm flight to the USA. We take the 11:15 am shuttle bus, and are in line to check the baggage by 11:30 am. At this point, one of our bags is selected as the ‘random check’ for that hour, and the kit we use for handling European electricity to our US gadgets is checked for explosives, causing us a 20-minute delay. We pass through the first security checkpoint and passport control without difficulty, but the second security checkpoint for flights to the USA is performing complete patdowns for every passenger today. Then, the gate is set up so that boarding pass inspection is required to enter the seating area. When we’re finally seated in the gate area, and announcement says that loading the food on the aircraft is running late, so we will be boarding at 1:50 pm, not the advertised 1:05 pm! This means departure is at about 2:30 pm, a half hour late. On the plane, our booking for aisle and middle seats causes difficulties for three Germans who are placed in the window seat and nearby center-section seats (including the aisle) in the same row. I swap seats with the man in the window seat, so he can sit across from his wife, cautioning him that he will have to get up frequently when either of us wants to visit the facilities.
The route taken by the flight is interesting. We reach 71°N latitude, the highest I remember on such a flight, passing up the North Sea without crossing any part of the British Isles, going north of Iceland, across central Greenland, Canada’s Baffin Island, and the open sea to the south of that island (without crossing any part of Hudson’s Bay), and then crossing the Northwest Territories and the full length of Saskatchewan, entering the US at Montana, passing over Great Falls, and then flying just east of the mountains all the way along the Wasatch, over Las Vegas and turning west over Devore to land in LA on the usual path from Pomona on in.
Amazingly, given the late departure, we’re on the ground on time, and at the gate earlier than on May 21st. Heading for the immigration control area, the whole load of passengers is diverted so we can pass the drug-sniffing dog. As usual, the checked baggage controls the time, not passing through immigration, but we’re up in the arrivals terminal an hour after landing. Chris calls Max, and we walk outside to see a Flyaway bus right there. This compensates for the extended travel time to Van Nuys due to the LA rush “hour”, but we’re in our car, leaving Max’s house by 7:20 pm, and home by 9:20 pm after picking up dinner at a fast food place in Mojave. What a wonderful trip this has been!