Great Western Coffee Shop

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7971969.stm

From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/8353733.stm):

Video report, from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11603687):

Having been in Stuttgart in September an seen the protests I can partly see their point, it will cause ten years worth of disruption to the station and the adjacent parkland. However when finished it will release a huge area of land North of the exisiting station which comprises the exisiting station approaches. Which can be redeveloped as housing/business parks. Stuttgart is a particulay cramped city hemmed in on three sides by quite high hills. 

It is an interesting operating dilemna for DB in that there is now a conflict between the HBF concept (single large station for each city) and the high speed ICE services. This especialy so when the Hbf is a terminal staion which many are. Stuttgart being a case in point. All ICE's from the Rhine/Frankfurt to Munich/Austria have to reverse in Stuttgart thus adding at least 10 minutes or so to the journey times.

By building a through station linking directly to the NBS (Neu Bau Strasse) High speed lines considerable savings can be made to journey times on trains passing through Stuttgart. However these shortened journey tiems are of no benefit to Stuttgart passengers as their journeys will take much the same time whther they get on in the exisitng station or teh new underground through station.

There was an  article in October's editon of Todays Railways Europe outlining the whole scheme

NBS means Neubaustrecke (new build route). I'd be a bit worried about them running ICEs on streets (Strasse)

From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12082035):


Edit to update link - Graham

Deepest sympathy.

I've travelled on that line on several occasions over the years from 1996 and seen the steady upgrade of the old DDR railways.

In 1996 it was still the big Russian 232s Ludmillars , then the DDR's answer to the V200 and WR Warships the 219 U-boat,  and then then ex DB 218's rabbits and now modern units. The operator has also been privatised with Veolia although branded a HEX.

 



 

A little more information on the collision from Deutsche Welle:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14804340,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-rdf

From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32764373):


A video news report accompanies the article. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32764373

I stumbled across this and do not recall it being posted here before, some may find it a pleasant distraction. Seems to be a live feed of various transport in Berlin and although I do not really know the city it is mesmerising.

http://fahrinfo.vbb.de/bin/help.exe/dn?L=vs_mobilitymap&&tpl=fullmap&tabApp=show&initialX=13354846&initialY=52478287&initialZ=3936&

That's fantastic - it's like a ground-based version of Flightradar24!

That reminds me of something that used to be on an obscure analogue Sky channel late at night (no, not that...). They used to just show continuous footage recorded from the front of trams across various European cities, mostly German I think. That also was surprisingly addictive to watch!

We're almost at the point of having something like this with London buses real time arrivals - the data just needs to be plotted out on a map. It would be quite useful/interesting for other forms of public transport.

There is this one for the UK - http://traintimes.org.uk/map/#bhm (http://traintimes.org.uk/map/#bhm)

Not quite the same - but if you chose a station it will show you where trains due to call are at the current time.

Berlin, I had a great time a month ago using the U-bahn and S-bahn to get around

They have a mobile app that lets you use your phone as your tageskarte (1day travelcard). I eventually decided not to use it because the terms and conditions state that you must carry recognised photo ID. I didn't have my driving licence and wasn't prepared to keep my passport on me either. A shame because the Berlin (and every other German city I have been to) S+U bahn ticket machines only take cash or German cards.

From the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36827725):

Police reported to have found an IS flag at his home.

And it is also now reported that he shouted "god is great" in Arabic before the attack, and that Islamic state have claimed the attack.


No doubt the usual exhortations to "be vigilant" on UK public transport will follow, though I am not certain the vigilance would help much in such cases.

News of a further incident in Germany, from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36870874):

Now 9 dead, amd gunman committed suicide. 18yo German/Iranian dual-nationality.

Early reports suggest a collision between a passenger train and a freight train.
Up to 50 persons injured, no word on fatalities, hopefully there are no lives lost.

Near Dusseldorf.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42246087 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42246087)

Slightly later reports put the number of injured at only five, compared to earlier reports of "dozens" or "about 50"

Pictures on social media appeared to show a number of "walking wounded" receiving first aid treatment for cuts.

A report from the German news magazine Der Spiegel can be found http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/zugunglueck-in-meerbusch-a-1181943.html (http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/zugunglueck-in-meerbusch-a-1181943.html), in German. (I'm in Germany at the moment...!)

Google Translate ist your friend...!

Or, for something easier (still dated Wednesday), Deutsche Welle (http://www.dw.com/en/germany-opens-inquiry-after-train-collision-injures-dozens/a-41671489):

I'm puzzled quite how those goods wagons got pushed off the track into that position.

It does look odd.   I would suggest the passenger train rear-ended the freight it happened that the rear vehicle was lifted by the nose and fell right, dragging the next one until couplings broke and 2nd got pushed too.  And I suspect the rest of the freight had been moved forward before the picture was taken, the yellow thing being some sort of engineering or emergency vehicle also brought in later.

It must be along those lines. In fact, as those wagons are empty, the two end ones may have steepled upwards and fallen sideways together, while the train ran underneath to the next. The picture of the leading carriage (not copied) does show that it's taken a big downward push on its nose, enough to bend it in the middle.

The bend/crack in the driving coach looks even more severe in the BBC photo. Twitter/@FWMeerbusch

I think the passenger train was still traveling at quite a high speed when it hit the freight looking at the damage to the leading coach.   The fact the freight was empty and the waggons deflected they way they did absorbed a lot of the energy, I feel if they had been loaded there would have been loss of life and far greater number of injured.

Regarding the derailed goods wagons, is it possible that these vehicles were ALREADY off the track due to some unrelated mishap, such as a defect in the track or the goods wagons.
The division of the goods train would apply the brakes and promptly stop the train.

The signalling system should of course protect the partially derailed and stopped goods train, it would appear that this did not work.

I doubt that a relatively lightweight passenger train could fling the goods wagons some distance into the field where they are situated.
I consider it POSSIBLE that the passenger train struck the goods wagon that was already derailed but more or less upright and in line, and that the two vehicles in the field may not have been involved.

EDIT TO ADD This now looks unlikely, see following post for details.

Having looked a a few more reports, some more recent, the story is as follows (though much of this is really hearsay picked up by journalists, rather than official):

• The goods train had stopped at a signal, but had just started again when struck
• The passenger train had also stopped, but been told to move off again. Some reports have this as a verbal permission, not signalled.
• The last two goods wagons were thrown off the track. The tops of the bodies of some a pretty bent, so they must have been pushed well out of line.
• Here's a video (http://www.rp-online.de/nrw/staedte/meerbusch/zugunglueck-in-meerbusch-so-soll-die-bergung-ablaufen-vid-1.7249292?video=1) of the damage, showing more detail - pause it when those words aren't in the way!
• Wagons don't have buffers any more, the end force will be borne by the coupling alone. These seem to have collapsed, not surprisingly (and perhaps intentionally). The ends of the chassis frames ought perhaps to hold them true, but it only needs one wagon to rise or slew a bit for that to collapse too, asymmetrically.
• There was a near miss not far away (at Gruiten bei Solingen) in similar circumstances in February - attributed to a signaller's error. That time an ICE just stopped before hitting another train.

It is not clear if this was targeting the railway, or if it is a random act of terrorism/criminality that merely happened to be at a station rather than some other public space.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45862091 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45862091)

Some reports state that shots have been fired.

"hostage now safe" later reports state.

From the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/trains-on-time-germans-deutsche-bahn-railway (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/trains-on-time-germans-deutsche-bahn-railway)


I thought that the level of government investment was interesting.

They can't really blame Brexit.

Is that total government investment in German Railways.

Last time I was in Germany I saw signs about German Rail Investment by Federal, State and City authorities (rail link from airport to city).

I believe that DB only runs something like 60% of German rail services. 

DB AG runs (practically)[1] all the Fernzüge, that is the long distance (e.g., Munich - Berlin) trains which cross the borders between the Länder, being the ICE and IC trains. These are sponsored by the Federal Government although the Fernzüge are just profitable.

The trains which run solely within the Länder (or just over the border to the neighbouring Land) are sponsored and paid for by the Land. These run competitions for a package of routes and number of trains over a five or seven year period. Although DB Regio has won some competitions in many cases these routes are run by private operators.

Much freight is still operated by DB Cargo but there are many, in the order of fifty or so, private freight operators. These often concentrate on certain flows for one or a small group of customers and some run long distance freights from, for example, the Alps to Hamburg or Rotterdam.

[1] There are only two or four train-pairs at the moment run by a subsidiary of Flixbus (the long distance coach operator) although IIRC Leo, a Czech operator, is also looking to get into the market. See <https://www.leoexpress.com/de>

On a visit in 2009, my Berliner Morgenpost headline read:

"Chaos auf Bahnhofen - VBB-Chef: 'Situation ausser Kontrolle' "

OTC

...but that, presumably, was about the Berlin S-Bahn (not DB) and its famous "crisis" of 2009:

Of course it's still evidence of how well-run German railways in general have been in the past  ... or not.

Four sprung duck technique, now! I say.

...and there was the Enschede ICE crash in 1998, again with a dodgy wheel, that killed 101.

Amongst other things DB had ignored a Fraunhofer Institute report.

Would we have done any better?

OTC

... at finding wheels that stay intact, or at Schadenfreude?

We went to Munich and back a couple of weeks ago. All three of our long-distance journeys ran late:

    Dec 5 : London - Koblenz : 22 late into Koblenz
    Dec 6 : Koblenz - Munich : 20 late
    Dec 12 : Munich - Bruxelles : 30 late (though that was caused by something having gone wrong on the Belgian high-speed line)

Difficult to tell from our experience why it's all gone wrong.

We were ten minutes late on the Koblenz - Mannheim leg. We ask the train manager whether we'll make the ten-minute connection at Mannheim.  He advises that we move 2-3 coaches up the train so as to be closer to the subway.  Others join us, and we end up like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

And I'm now pretty familiar with the German for "the train is running in reverse order today". Just under half our trains were back-to-front.

But this isn't new - DB has been a poor operator for some time now. In recent years we've endured an overnight in Bruxelles (at our expense) because DB hadn't noticed that there was going to be a strike in Belgium.  And an overnight in Munich because there was no driver in Frankfurt. That one was at their expense, on a Friday night on the last weekend of Oktoberfest and it must've cost DB an arm and a leg.

I'm sure it's the regular drip-drip-drip of this sort of experience that is the source of the anger.

I recounted my poor experience with DB Regio in the summer here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=20149.msg243141#msg243141).

The Brussels-Cologne (and beyond) DB ICE service goes through periods of being very unreliable, and despite 'Railteam' promises the co-operation between them and Thalys on the ground in practice can be very poor during these spells (somewhat like Hull Trains and LNER!). Most common issues are because the DB train is turned round short because of earlier delays elsewhere or that the train throws a wobbly when it changes from German to Belgium standards, especially for ERTMS . Since this is a long thin route, if it has been cancelled out of Germany there is nothing in place to do the return trip.

From DW (https://www.dw.com/en/germany-train-tickets-drop-in-price-as-2020-starts/a-51852140)


Interesting story to pop up this morning on that early January day when RAIL FARE RISES hit the UK passenger and news media ... I have already been on BBC Radio Wiltshire, where recordings of commuters are complaining about the reliability of the service they're buying and the randomness of the fares at times.

Before we hold the German example up as "could UK do this", we should note that it's funded by a cut in VAT on train fares, where in the UK we don't have VAT on travel fares in the first place.

Effectively this only concerns the IC and ICE services run by DB Fernverkehr. The Länder are now responsible for specifying and funding services (suburban services, IR and so on) within their area and the VAT reduction does not apply to these services.

Surely the VAT rate is national, so that will be cut. If the Länder specify fares they can decide whether to pass the cut on, and presumably if they don't they will know where the money saved will end up.

Unless there are different rates according to whether a fare is classed as regional or national?

Just in time for the Euro football tournament taking place in 2024,thats the year not the time.

If we were serious about cutting carbon we'd cut fares and spend the money allocated for HS2 on lengthening trains instead.

However we aren't serious about cutting carbon emissions so it won't happen. Instead we'll have continually rising prices, overcrowded trains and a huge white elephant to move people from Birmingham to London 20 minutes quicker.... and most of the public will love it and keep voting for it.  ;D

Glad I have a reliable new car and don't use Crosscountry trains anymore !  :P

I don't entirely agree. If we were serious about cutting carbon emissions from transport, we would raise rail fares to discourage travel; but not by as much as we'd raise the cost of flying and driving.

But even if we were serious about cutting emissions, we couldn't face the changes needed to reduce travel and consumption, so we'll carry on as we are until we can't.

Agreed. 50km is quite local in a lot of the UK, despite Germany being about 50% bigger. A lot of commuters take their morning ride to work on intercity trains, and our rail regions are somewhat arbitrary. Thus, we can't easily apply the same differences. Plus our peak services tend to be crammed beyond nominal capacity, with fare price being the only form of control of numbers, so we don't necessarily want more people on the most expensive services, much as we might as a nation say we do.

Any cut in VAT amounts to an increase in subsidy.Ask our government for similar, but don't expect a positive answer. At the moment, we are deadly serious about cutting the use of fossil fuels, but not at all serious about doing anything about it.

A BLS (Switzerland, open access) Rollende Landstrasse (carries lorries and their drivers) has hit a large concrete block near Mühlheim which seems to have come from an overbridge that was being demolished. The driver has been killed and at least two lorry drivers in the coach behind the loco injured.

https://www.tag24.de/justiz/polizei/zug-unglueck-rheintalbahn-auggen-breisgau-freiburg-baden-wuerttemberg-1477193

(https://img.techpowerup.org/200402/800.jpg)

There are pictures in the German text here (https://www.tag24.de/justiz/polizei/zug-unglueck-rheintalbahn-auggen-breisgau-freiburg-baden-wuerttemberg-1477193),
and I've found a French one (https://www.20min.ch/ro/news/monde/story/Grave-accident-d-un-train-en-direction-de-B-le-14681420) that say this was a bridge being built and the concrete deck (or a large section of it) fell on the track in front of the train.

As  a contact pointed out different safety standards, not stopping trains whilst construction going on.

They also pointed out no overhead, so was he coasting or on "Last Mile Diesel".

Also note no "Social Exclusion"  everyone standing around in groups!

We shouldn't make any assumptions ahead of the enquiry. However, without straying too far into uninformed conjecture, I might guess that maybe the deck was thought to be securely installed, but somehow failed after the line had been handed back?

Fair point RS, although if that's not the case it seems extraordinary that a running line was operating under active construction site like this.

February's Today's Railway Europe has Februaries Today?s Railways Europe has a very long article (10 pages) on the German Governments  plans for Deutschland Takt 2030, a clock face timetable for all  Germany y mostly based on 30 minute intervals for particular services and regular connections between services.  The article outlines the steps necessary to achieve this goal.  This consists a long list of infrastructure improvements from New High Speed lines some electrification extra-long freight loops etc.
However,  to my mind the most telling principle behind the whole plan is ?first the timetable then the infrastructure planning.
This seems to me a way of planning for rail enhancements in an integrated way rather than looking at individual enhancements in isolation.
Taking Melksham how frequent a service is required from where to where how many freight paths are required etc. Possible services could include.

Shuttle Westbury to Chippenham/Swindon.  30 minute service
So a possible loop/s on line, improvements to Thingley and Bradford Jns and, fourth platform at Westbury,  third platform at Chippenham

From Southampton to Oxford? Hourly  takes one of the shuttle paths.
All of the above but capacity enhancements in Southampton area  Swindon to Oxford.plus  any where else.

Bristol to London via Bradford on Avon stopping service takes 2nd shuttle path.
All of the above with possible exception of Westbury 4th platform. Reinstatement of Bradford North Curve, new station on outskirts of Trowbridge.

This approach needs to be carried for all the stations served or potentially served from Melksham this could reinforce enhancements already planned and suggest further   enhancements. The plan will require great deal of iteration

Having worked out the future timetable and enhancements needed to implement it you can add the clincher to this approach. Electrification
 
At a minimum electrification from Chippenham to Bristol, Didcot to Oxford,  Newbury to Westbury and Bath plus Chippenham to Trowvbridge.  The electrification to take into account the other enhancements so that they can be incorporated in the planning of the electrification.
Implementing Takt is a complicated process and would take many years but the integrated approach of timetable first would I am sure provide a better railway

That sounds like the same concept as Network Rail's "Improving Connectivity" - as examined in their report in 2014 and consultation. I can't see that report available any more, and I don't think it ever led to much at all. It was discussed in this thread (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=15136.0).

Working out the services you want, then working out where you don't have the capacity to run them and looking to add that capacity make sense and - err - has been done in practice for a while, and is the way a lot of the way future requirements are looked at.

Want a half hourly service Exeter to Yeovil Junction, with alternate services onward to Salisbury and onward (when they're a GWR diversion) to Castle Cary?   Take a look at where they'll be passing each other and that's where you need your loops.    But, yet, not as simple as that.  There are places that a loop will be expensive, impossible, delay trains by adding a stop away from stations, and you'll slide the trains up and down, perhaps change stopping patterns, etc, to make best use of existing loops, platforms, etc - there's no point in spending for the sake of a train running 5 minute later throughout provided that doesn't mean adding a train to the cycle or missing a connection.

Another benefit ... clock face = same each hour = you will make really good of the facilities and not have lots of them each used only occasionally.  And another benefit - where there's a good connection it will be a good connection all day and (please!) if you can get it to work as well in the other direction you have a very marketable product on the flow.

Now ... I was actually looking at "Here's the service how do we do it" for the Wiltshire, Somerset and Weymouth.

Hourly trains - six in the cycle:
Weymouth passes trains at ...
* Maiden Newton (existing loop)
* Around Spakford (new dynamic loop, perhaps from Pen Mill - see also services via Yeovil Junction)
* Between Frome and Westbury (on main double line)
... time at Westbury to connect into Bath and Bristol and from Southampton area train (add 4th platform?)
* Between Melksham and Thingley (new dynamic loop most of the way)
* Shrivenham/Grove (on main double line)
... on way to Oxford
With the train having a turn-around of just over 12 minutes at each end

Hourly trains - South Wales or Bristol to Solent, for those Westbury connections (broadly current stops in our area plus Dilton Marsh and Wilton)

Every 30 minutes Bristol Temple Meads to Bradford-on-Avon, alternating on to Chippenham or Swindon and Westbury or Warminster (this is where the "slide it" exercise comes in and perhaps we're looking far, far ahead) or Radstock.

But is starts ... not even from the service but from:
* the passenger journey which gives
* the service pattern which gives
* infrastructure needs
or as Network Rail are saying - "putting the passenger first".

Lets hope the money follows.

There was a discussion of why NR's attempt at doing this ground to a halt at such an early stage here, at Railfuture (https://www.railfuture.org.uk/article1601-Improving-Connectivity). This refers back to the original Swiss Taktfarhplan.

From Mail Online (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-9712493/German-railway-announces-plan-reopen-20-closed-routes.html)


We have looked at a number of railway re-openings on the forum - but based on financial / business cases with an icing of politics - rarely if ever based on an environment and climate change element.  Which are the lines in the UK that are already making the largest environmental difference, and are there others which, if re-opened, could make an outstanding difference?

I still would prefer ticket gates installed at most large stations,

and I am refering to Sheffield station along with Doncaster Chesterfield Rotherham and Meadowhall.

At the last (proper)count 10 million used Sheffield station a year,so the loss must be in the millions of pounds

I think that is a different issue, though.   I don't see ticket gates doing anything for the environment and climate except indirectly by helping in the measurement and financing of rail development through better stats and revenue collection. Might even drive some of the folks who make free train use into other ways ... I can think of places in Wiltshire where a fully enforced daily payment to travel would result in a heavier use of Dad's taxi.

In the case of exisiting lines; the routes making the largest environmental difference are probably the electrified ones... or perhaps some that carry alot of freight (avoiding HGV movements on the road). I think the environmental case for diesel-powered passenger rail is difficult to make - the full-length 125mph IC125s on the Great Western and Midland main lines probably were among the better performing routes in this regard - because the high speeds would probably have been attractive to passengers who may otherwise have gone by private car and the CO2-per-seat figures for an IC125 if I recall correctly are/were quite a bit better than the gas-guzzling Voyager/Meridian units.

At the other end of the scale, a 2-car Sprinter unit probably compares poorly to a bus service - especially since a train cannot easily stop at every gatepost to pick up passengers so you need to run the bus anyway as a socially necessary service for people who don't have access to a car. Unless the buses are running full, traffic abstraction from the bus service is counter productive. For a 2-car diesel passenger railway to make a positive contribution to environmental issues it needs to be successful in reducing private car use - to what degree I'm not sure.

Taunton to Minehead would be my favourite.
The environmental gain would seem considerable since traffic congestion results in much wasted fuel by buses and cars at busy times.
Also provision of through trains to the Butlins holiday camp would encourage rail use from say London or Bristol to Minehead, not just between Taunton and Minehead.

A battery train would be ideal for a Taunton to Minehead shuttle with charging at each end of the line. Through trains would have to be diesel or bi mode.

Witney to Oxford. The A40 is terrible between the two points.
Completion of electrification to Oxford and beyond is an easy target for electric trains that currently end at Didcot, plus fasts that finish at Oxford.

Is Butlins open all year round?
Would there be much demand for a rail link outside the summer months?
Would there be much demand for a rail link within the summer months?

Portishead and Havant-Hayling Island would be my top two on this criteria, as rail is the only realistic alternative in both cases if you were to make a serious attempt to reduce private car use, with the specific local circumstances rendering the bus impotent in tackling it instead.

grahame has previously looked into the varuous traffic flows here (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17237.msg293536#msg293536), including the provision of a platform serving Butlins on Seaward Road on the existing route.

Not ALL year, but it is used for a much longer season than might be supposed.
Outside of the summer holiday season the venue has been used for hugely popular music events, and also for large scale religious gatherings. I would expect an increase in such events if through trains were available.
A major political party considered holding a conference at Minehead Butlins "to show the west that we care about them" but the idea was rejected due to poor transport links.

The video on some of the work after flooding didn't show quite the equivalent of the Orange Army and lots of hi-tech wizardry, more old fashioned bucket and spade.
https://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-bahn-german-rail-strike-comes-to-an-end/a-59105532 (https://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-bahn-german-rail-strike-comes-to-an-end/a-59105532)
The quote at the end from the German Federation of Small Businesses is interesting.

A large WW2 bomb has exploded during tunneling works in Munich, Germany.
Four persons are hurt and one is in a serious condition.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59487910 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59487910)

Such bombs are still found regularly, but are usually dealt with safely and actual explosions are rare. An enquiry is underway in order to ascertain why this one was not detected and made safe.

This topic has been moved to Behind the Counter (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?board=32).

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=26352.0

This is to take the thread out of public view while we consider whether posts within the thread break our membership agreement.

Here's something that I have just spotted on Youtube-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch0w71ovxbM

I cannot see this happening here, and you will see that it's not available on high speed services, and there are concerns at how funding this will affect the finances of participating transport undertakers mentioned towards the end. But with a somewhat higher price (and no threat of industrial action) perhaps something to contemplate for the summer months?

News reports state 4 lives lost and many injured, some are in a serious condition.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61684048 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61684048)

Local reports state no obvious cause for this accident. Video from the scene shows all or most vehicles to be de railed, with some a significant distance from the track.
No other train involved, fine weather.
Fortunately the scene is near a main road, which has speeded access by emergency services. Some UNCONFIRMED Reports suggest 6 lives lost.

The bereaved and injured are no doubt in our thoughts.

An update from Metro (https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/04/bavaria-train-crash-body-of-fifth-person-found-in-wreckage-16769240/?ito=newsnow-feed):

Developing Story with the enquiry into this, widespread (200,000) sleeper inspections across the DB network in progress, construction fault suspected.

More (Use Google Translate)  ....

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/zugunglueck-burgrain-betonschwellen-hersteller-gibt-sich-bedeckt,TFD7zss

From 1 October to 7 April, N95-type face masks will be required during all long-distance travel by trains, buses and planes.

Here's a more accessible report of this; from New Civil Engineer (https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/deutsche-bahn-to-inspect-200000-railway-sleepers-after-fatal-crash-25-08-2022/):

Sleepers are typically spaced about 0.7 m apart, so this affects less than 150 km of track in all - though that could be in short stretches spread over the wider network. It all proves there's nothing so boring and simple it doesn't need to be designed and made right to avoid disasters (see also under "earthworks").

I'm grateful for the advance warning on this. I was supposed to be travelling from Munich to Paris next month, with a seven-minute connection in Stuttgart (the German booking computer says it's OK).  But I'm now taking an earlier train with a longer connection!

I can understand a car spinning off the road due to ice or water, but how does a train spin of the tracks?
Or just more journalese?

Germany has introduced its first hydrogen powered passenger rail services, according to CNN  (https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/coradia-ilint-hydrogen-trains/index.html) and others.


(Continues at source)

This looks like good news, and might even be good news. Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft might not be a name on everyone's lips just yet, but this is a big development, with the promise of more to come across commuter networks. From the point of view of other countries, it is an ideal way to watch someone else test the theories at their expense and risk, rather than your own, to see how well the whole thing works from production of hydrogen to operations, and to evaluate the costs when compared to other options like OHLE or batteries. The latter of those seems to be losing ground in the race to power trains.

The production of the hydrogen is probably the elephant in the room. Germany is a long way from being green in energy, and is getting further away by the day. It may yet keep its nuclear power stations open longer than originally envisaged, but is using more coal to compensate for the loss of the gas imports from Russia. The article doesn't cover this aspect, but if a mountainside is covered with solar panels or wind turbines to produce hydrogen for the trains while more lignite is dug for the grid, it ceases to be an overall contributor to a solution to the carbon problem. But it will remove emissions from where it runs, even if the practical outcome is transferring them to somewhere else.

Cuxhaven, at the end of this route, is another of those places pitching to become an "hydrogen hub" (https://www.afw-cuxhaven.de/en/sectors/renewable-energy/):

Germany as a whole has a large and inherently variable wind power source, the fluctuations of which already dictate generation patterns across Europe, and Cuxhaven is in the middle of prime wind territory - onshore, offshore, and on Heligoland. So the idea of banking electricity when it's surplus to usability in the form of hydrogen might even work there, if it can anywhere. Provided someone stumps up for all those electrolysers, of course.

But basically it's just another step in a long development and proving process for hydrogen trains, and an encouraging one on the whole.

It think you've quoted Metro - home of cheap (or should that be free?) journalism. From what I remember, some carriages did roll down the embankment, which I guess is a sort of slow spin.

A follow up:

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/germany-9-euro-ticket-ending/index.html

Here's a follow-up to that news about possibly defective sleepers - from Railfreight.com (https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2022/09/07/db-to-replace-137000-sleepers-rail-traffic-in-germany-at-stake-again/?gdpr=deny):

That's a bit garbled, but is saying that 70 out of 225 bits of track have been re-sleepered by six weeks ago. This suggests that DB should be just about finished, unless they had prioritised short stretches of track so as so reduce the level of disruption as soon as possible. Of course this also confirms that defective sleepers was a real issue though not, perhaps, that this was certainly the cause of the accident at Burgrain.

...on the other hand, Baden-Württemberg have just decided not to go down the hydrogen route at all - from International Rail Journal (https://www.railjournal.com/fleet/baden-wurttemberg-rejects-hydrogen-as-diesel-alternative/)

They are proposing a mix of electrification and battery EMUs instead.

Hydrogen power undoubtedly works to an extent, but is inherently expensive, complicated, and somewhat dangerous.
OTOH, electric trains are an established technology, and batteries are still improving.

The future is in my view electrification wherever practical, with battery power being used when restricted clearances or extreme conditions make OHLE impractical.

Producing hydrogen is easy, but storage is expensive, as is compressing or liquefying the gas.

Nail hit squarely on the head. NASA's travails with its Artemis spacecraft show that even rocket scientists struggle with hydrogen. I have seen something in one of the tech websites lately about using salts to store hydrogen. The article says the salts yield the hydrogen easily, and it can be effectively replaced for reuse. Whether this is serious or just the desperate withdrawal symptoms of the subsidy junkie is a matter beyond my limited scientific competence. If it is serious, it sounds so basic that one might think it had cropped up as an idea before, but it could be bad news for bakers if sodium bicarbonate suddenly gets popular as a fuel for trains. There remains the question of how the hydrogen is made and transported for use, of course.

There's a rather rambling piece on hydrogen storage system developments, that looks superficially to be about rail transport but actually looks at the wider picture on the BBC News website, Business section - see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62619313

It is difficult to work out from this how close we might be to a breakthrough in low pressure storage, but at least it looks like quite a few groups are working on it.

Over the sea in Canada, and 75 years ago, they were already predicting the demise of the newly adopted diesel locomotives – but not electrification, let alone hydrogen...
https://youtu.be/6_RE2Ku4eCU?t=909

 :o

I have just caught this You Tube video from Sabine Hossenfelder, whose channel I have recently discovered. She is a German scientist with a mission to explain science clearly to those of us with arts or humanities backgrounds and others.  As you will see, she does not share some of her compatriots' enthusiasm for hydrogen, indeed on close analysis there seems little to gain from most methods of hydrogen fuel production in terms of carbon reduction

See - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zklo4Z1SqkE.

That's what happens when you ask a scientist, with their analytical approaches, laws of physics and other inconvenient stuff.

Interesting. It does rather confirm the theory that hydrogen is a clever but expensive way of making a lot of electricity into a lot less electricity.

We should probably just think of it as being like an amplifier but connected backwards…  ???

Paul

between Hamburg and Kiel,
The suspect, aged between 20 and 30, was taken into custody at the railway station in the town of Brokstedt and had sustained injuries.

It's reported in Railway Gazette (https://www.railwaygazette.com/infrastructure/interim-report-finds-faulty-sleepers-caused-garmisch-derailment/64391.article) that an interim report (published on June 1 by the Federal Bureau for Investigation of Railway Accidents) has confirmed those sleepers as causing the accident:

I guess, given the mention of a law firm, that those "internal failures" are human or organisational ones in the procurement area, rather than structural ones inside the sleepers.

Looks like there are concerns in the procurement and or quality control process

From Railfreight.com (https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2023/10/23/db-cargo-on-track-for-layoffs-it-has-already-started-say-employees/)


Sharing on the "Coffee Shop" as a story of another nation's rail system being restructured with stemming losses being a key element to the story - see the link above.

And the situation in Germany has other similarities with us too:

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/14/its-the-same-daily-misery-germanys-terrible-trains-are-no-joke-for-a-nation-built-on-efficiency

From BR24, via European Perspective https://www.rte.ie/news/ (https://www.rte.ie/news/) [Can somebody work out get a direct link, to save a lot of text]

Why disused railroad lines are rarely revived

In recent decades, the German rail network has shrunk. In many places, rail traffic was discontinued for economic reasons and lines were closed. From today's perspective, a mistake, say experts. In order to achieve the climate protection targets in the transport sector, more passenger and freight traffic must be shifted to rail in the coming years. In addition to the rehabilitation and expansion of existing rail lines, many decommissioned lines are also to be put back into service. The government coalition has even written this into its coalition agreement.
Experts see great potential
For the industry association "Allianz pro Schiene", there is great potential in this. According to the expert report, at least 1,300 kilometers of rail track could be reconnected to the rail network in this way, says Dirk Flege, managing director of the association. He estimates this figure to be even higher and speaks of 4,500 kilometers that could be reactivated.
Only eight kilometers of track put back into operation
The general conditions for bringing decommissioned lines back into service would be good. For example, the federal government funds such projects through the Municipal Transportation Financing Act at 90 percent of the cost. In the federal states, this has arrived. They know that reactivating old rail lines can connect millions of people to the rail network. "The number of commissioned feasibility studies is growing practically every day," informs Martin Henke of the Association of German Transport Companies. Positive results are available for just under 80 of around 100 routes investigated nationwide. So putting such a line back into service would be worthwhile.
Nevertheless, little happens in practice. Last year, only eight kilometers of railroad line were reactivated. "This year, it will also be in single digits," predicts Dirk Flege of the "Pro-Rail Alliance."
Who will cover the cost of running the train?
The reason: although funding for the construction work is secured through the Municipal Transport Financing Act, it is often not clear who will bear the costs for train operations on the reactivated lines, says Dirk Flege. It calls on the federal and state governments to provide more funding for train operations. Flege: "What is needed here is a federal subsidy program" that provides the states with financial support for train operations on the reactivated lines. The federal and state governments will have to find a way "to create reliable financing conditions for ten or 15 years. Operators and passengers must be able to rely on the fact that train services on such routes are secured in the long term, says the head of the industry association.
Freight traffic should also benefit
In addition to passenger transport, there must also be a greater focus on freight transport. For this area, many lines could also be reconnected to the rail network. The need is likely to be great because, according to a forecast by the Federal Ministry of Transport, freight traffic will increase sharply in the coming years.
Restart can take up to ten years
But even if the federal and state governments pull the lever, put more money in their hands and quickly reactivate disused lines, it will probably be years before the lines can actually be used. In "simple cases," it is likely to be one to two years before a line is back in service. Where the rails have been removed and major construction is required, it may take five to ten years.
Particularly high hurdles in Bavaria
In Bavaria, the Pro-Rail Alliance believes that the hurdles to reviving disused rail lines are particularly high. Only if at least 1,000 passengers per working day are to be expected, a reactivation is considered at all, reports association managing director Dirk Flege. Such a high demand limit does not exist in other states. Flege: "Bavaria is still stuck in the past. According to the motto, everything has to pay off."
In view of the climate crisis, people's changed mobility behavior and the challenge of how rural areas can be better connected to neighboring cities, the Bavarian approach is no longer up to date. The Ministry of Transport in Bavaria sees things differently and wants to stick to the current regulation. If demand is lower, he said, it would be more environmentally friendly to use a bus along the route. In addition, it is anyway only "one of several criteria to be able to initiate the process of a line reactivation in Bavaria," according to the ministry.
Pressure from the population and local politics
Although the call to bring old lines back into service is not new, experts are optimistic that this time the appeals from the industry will not go unheeded. The pressure from the population and from local politics is much greater than in the past, he said. "People want their rail back," says Dirk Flege.

I remember the days when people looked up and used the German rail network as an example of how things should be done….. in fact, many still do!  Oh dear.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/euro-2024-trains-germany-england-fans-gelsenkirchen-b2563683.html

Not sure if any of the fans could have used the tram 107 that is a bit slower and a different route but could have got some of them to Essen.

They could - sorta-did


But is this worse that the British system which is simply to close a public transport facility if they fear it would overcrowd?  Latest example (I think) I saw of that was Falmouth Town closed over the weekend, closed because of the Sea Shanty festival. Across the world, it seems, railways have slimmed down their fleets so they cannot easily cope with special events; time was that there were trains kept in the sidings for a round trip or two on Friday or Saturday that could also be used for event specials.  To be fair to GWR, decisions to close are also lack of line capacity - GWR *do* run Glastonbury and Gold Cup extras, though they sacrifice some services that run on "normal" days to have the trains to do it. 

Ironically the fans experience would have been pretty similar had they stayed at home and attempted to travel by rail on Sunday across wide areas of the UK!

You couldn't make it up though....

Services on that tram 107 ground to a halt before the game because.....

The fan park that England fans had been encouraged to gather in pre-match was organised such that coaches galore would be laid on to the ground from an adjacent space to the fan park.....BUT to get there, all those fans had to....cross the tram tracks to reach the buses......

Cue hundreds of drunken fans wandering on & across said tram tracks meaning that the trams came to a halt for safety's sake.....

As some one who was actually there on the afternoon/evening of the game,these are my comments.

The fans park had more divots that I have ever seen at a public venue.

Regarding getting the fans away from Gelsenkirchen to Essen after the England game,

I think advice to travel on the 107 tram to Essen would have helped.

From the Arsenal FC website:

"Please note: Holloway Road station will be exit-only before matches and closed for up to 2 hours after the match. Pre-match eastbound trains non-stopping. Drayton Park is also closed on match days. "

Obviously far too convenient unsafe for the travelling public to have them available for use !

The German railway system leaves a lot to be desired,no ticket gates/barriers from Augsberg to Essen via Munich/Dusseldorf and Dortmund.

Plenty of DB staff walking about in groups of fours not sure what they are there for

"Security staff" walking around pairs

and the police also walking around in groups of fours and fives

All local trains seems to be driver only,and very few ticket checks carried out on the trams and trains.

I agree that German stations are open.   I strongly disagree that this is a bad thing.

In the UK, we choose to check tickets at major stations ... and just look at how many extra staff have been added at places like Chippenham, Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads to man the barriers, and at all the extra equipment needed as well, in many cases being awkwardly engineered in to the old buildings and at busy times not having the capacity to cope with surges without people having to queue to get through on arrival at their destination.

In Germany, they choose to spend their money / deploy staff to check that the public are following the rules in a different way.  They have ticket checks on (some) trains, and staff who - sadly and as with RPI teams in the UK - rarely work alone. Their enforcement / fines are not something I have personal experience of, except from very occasionally seeing a team "having a chat" with a member of the public.

Different systems.   Why, and what is the common objective of the system?   The common objective is to ensure that people, for the most part, pay for the journey they make.  Whether that's done by occasional checks with strong sanctions if you are found to be knowingly in breach of the rules, or by checking absolutely everyone on every journey, is something of a political decision. 

I suspect, Infoman, that you are or have been in Germany recently and at first the lack of ticket checks feels disconcerting.   Actually, I love it once used to it.  It's wonderful, if ticketed, to be able to walk up to or from your train without a feeling that you are being processed and checked to see if you are a criminal every time (especially if the barrier refuse your valid ticket 'cos the system is too complex!) and it's really helpful having staff "hanging around in groups" who can answer questions and provide customer care.  Contrast that with barrier staff who, especially after a train has just arrived, are so busy processing the queue throughs their bottleneck that they don' have the resource to answer queries.

Across Europe, you'll find that some countries (France, Spain) are barriered at major stations, but that most countries are not.   The objective of ticket checking has to be to ensure fare collection and there are different ways. The chosen / best method depends on the size of the flows, the time between stations and journey metrics for checking between stations, the strength of the penalties, national psyche, the ease of purchasing tickets and the complexity of the fare system, and also the proportion of unticketed travel the operator is prepare to accept.

There is nothing much to be gained from checking law abiding travellers in and out.  Actually much more effective to have stiff enforcement on those you are certain are knowingly repeatedly offending - and (yes) staff get to know who they are, and the experienced ones [staff] can actually target their checking.   But, sure, it can disappoint to have gone to a lot of trouble to get the right ticket only to not even have it looked at.

Edit - to correct typos

I can only speak for the Hamburg U/S Bahn system which I know quite well but on all my visits there the "on train" revenue protection teams were organised and not infrequent...on that evidence alone I wouldn't have risked travelling without a ticket had I been so minded.
That said, I was never there during a major international sporting event with the associated extra demands on the transport system.

Having only stations barriered and largely abandoning onboard checking drives behaviour of some to simply buy the cheapest tickets available to operate the barriers on their journey (or evade them in other ways).

The estimated fare evasion rate in Berlin is 3.3% and in London 3.9%, across all modes.

From Euronews (https://www.euronews.com/travel/2024/07/26/difficult-but-necessary-germany-undertakes-nationwide-railway-repairs)
Also covered here :  Rail Target (https://www.railtarget.eu/technologies-and-infrastructure/hamburgberlin-line-to-undergo-extensive-upgrades-in-2024-and-2025-5745.html)

From the Independent, via MSN (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/the-cost-of-germany-s-popular-transport-ticket-will-rise-significantly/ar-AA1r2xzX?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=7ce8d89380c6484e8eadec4fd2fcc1ed&ei=297)

Ah, that's a shame but not unexpected.

The ticket is great value for anyone who's planning to use local transport reasonably frequently on a trip to Germany - I seem to recall that the Berlin day travelcard was about €15, so you can fairly easily make your money back if you're in Germany for a week, with the added advantage that you basically just walk onto any service that takes your fancy.

There's quite a lot written online, the main things are that you have to buy it for a minimum of one calendar month and pay attention to when you need to cancel (some providers say you need to cancel by the 10th of the month). We found an online service that let us buy online with a credit card and got a barcode that we could pop in our Apple wallets, but to be honest, we hardly ever had our tickets checked and there are minimal, if any barriers on German public transport.   

 

Even with the increase in cost, it strikes me a pretty good value still.

From the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjr30351gzro)