Since Monday a major situation has been going on on the suburban network around Frankfurt. Late on Sunday one or several unidentified persons broke into a house next to Niederh?¶chstadt Station, which is located to the northwest of Frankfurt. Now, that house, which was the original station building and has had the first and second floor converted into apartments many years ago, also houses the signalling equipment for the entire lines 3615 (Frankfurt R?¶delheim-Kronberg) as well as 3640 (Frankfurt H?¶chst-Bad Soden) and 3641 (Niederh?¶chstadt-Bad Soden). The burglars, however, perhaps not finding what they had hoped for inside the house, thought it to be a good idea to vandalize the plumbing, resulting in the entire signalling control room being flooded and the equipment being damaged beyond repair. As a result regular services on the branches to Kronberg and Bad Soden have been suspended for the time being, with backup shuttle services being provided from R?¶delheim to Niederh?¶chstadt as well as Niederh?¶chstadt to Bad Soden. Traffic on the branch to Kronberg is being replaced by buses as Niederh?¶chstadt cannot handle more than the shuttles to Bad Soden and R?¶delheim with the signalling out of order.

As the weather was fairly good yesterday I decided to head out and check how these backup services were being handled. Following up are several images I took on that little excursion.

Traffic at Niederh?¶chstadt is being shared between the two tracks. Track 2 handles the shuttle to Bad Soden, operated with a class 420 double unit, while track 1 is used by the service to R?¶delheim, operated with a class 423 triple unit.

I first caught the S 7332 shuttle to Bad Soden, which is where I took this picture. The train requires some ten minutes for the trip, with a turnaround time of five minutes at both ends. As the trackside train protection circuits are permanently armed due to fail-safe requirements, home signals - though being disabled - may be passed only with the "Befehl" or order switch depressed, resulting in a speed limit not greater than 40 kph at these locations.

A look at the eastern end of the platform in Bad Soden. As you can see, the signals are unlit. The right-hand track is the branch to Frankfurt H?¶chst, which was actually operated with class 420 EMUs as part of the S3 line in the past. Nowadays it is operated by private TOC HLB with DMUs, however.

Having returned to Niederh?¶chstadt I then caught the Bad Soden shuttle on returning from its next trip as service S 7335. The level crossing I was waiting at was closed for road traffic as the damaged signalling equipment also includes the crossing safety and CCTV camera circuits.

Just a little over five minutes later the Bad Soden shuttle returned as service S 7336. This train was composed of units 420 295 and 337.

I then headed down to R?¶delheim on the other shuttle, which would run its entire trip to R?¶delheim on the left-hand track. Turnaround time in R?¶delheim was just three minutes, which is why this shuttle has two drivers on board - one at each end - in order to allow instant returns. On the trip back up I disembarked at the Eschborn S??d stop, which basically serves only the commercial area located in its surroundings.

At Eschborn S??d I waited for the shuttle to return. It uses the same track in both directions as, obviously, the points cannot be set. The leading unit is 423 401.

I then returned to Niederh?¶chstadt on the next up trip and took my car down to Eschborn Station in order to take one last image of the R?¶delheim shuttle.

Note that it is not possible to select every programmed station as a destination on the 423's passenger information system, which is why the R?¶delheim shuttle ran with "Sonderfahrt" (special) on its destination boards.

All in all, however, I did have the impression that the DB was earnestly doing its best to reduce the inevitable inconvenience going along with this sort of situation.