How often did CSD, MAV or PKP appear on GDR Rails?

[BillB]

Hi, I am wondering whether Czech, Polish, or Hungarian wagons and vans appeared on East German rails in the 1950s, and what other "visitors" might have appeared (e.g. Austrian?). And how frequently. Might they pop up on a branch line?

And am I right to assume that non iron curtain counties wagons would not appear, and neither would Russian wagons because of the gauge difference.

Grateful for any info,

Bill.

[Mol_PMB]

 

From a rival forum (sorry!):

https://www.modelrailforum.com/threads/deutsche-reichsbahn-east-germany.28597/page-2?nested_view=1&sortby=oldest

 

"Another aspect of Soviet planning was the emergence of railway standardisation throughout the allied countries. Whereas, in the West railways adopted the UIC standards, behind the Iron Curtain there emerged the OSShD standards which in many respects were a parallel of the UIC, an important element if there was still to be maintained a degree of through running between the two systems. This will become all too apparent when we turn our attention to coaching stock.
Another milestone was the pooling of freight vehicles in 1964, a rather modest 93,000 wagons complying with the OSShD standards for the movement of goods between the member states. It was also at about this time that the DR started to restore electric traction and introduce new electric locomotives, once again produced in the Hennigsdorf factory, Lokomotivbau-Elektrotechnische Werke (LEW), situated just to the northwest of West Berlin."

 

This would suggest that the appearance of foreign wagons on DR would have been more numerous from the mid-1960s.

However, prior to that I'm sure some wagons would have run through multiple countries from origin to destination unless there was a change of track gauge or other significant technical feature (e.g. braking, coupling, loading gauge) which forced trans-shipping of the load.

 

 

 

[jonhall]

there is a nice photo of a BR VIX ferry van in sidings at Bad Shandau on the German/Czech border probably late 1960's

 

https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/EKT543AXEECE3NVOWHHMFEG3YLZ7P6VH

 

Jon

[rekoboy]

If you look at the goods wagons in this Piko catalogue from 1960 on Conrad Antiquario's website you can get a good idea of which 'foreign' freight vehicles could be seen on the DR at that time. As a caveat, though, Piko had export in mind, too! If you click on the initial picture of the catalogue cover you can scroll through the pages.

http://conradantiquario.de/content/katalog/piko-1960.html

Edited March 21 by rekoboy

[Gordonwis]

8 hours ago, jonhall said:

there is a nice photo of a BR VIX ferry van in sidings at Bad Shandau on the German/Czech border probably late 1960's

 

https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de/item/EKT543AXEECE3NVOWHHMFEG3YLZ7P6VH

 

Jon

 

 

It should just be clarified that at the time of the photo the border at Bad Schandau was between the DDR and Czechoslovakia. Also, the source says 'around 1965' which matches my guess that it is 'mid 60s' rather than late 60's. 

 

It's a great photo, I would not have thought that a BR ferry van would have been circulating 'intra-Warsaw Pact' as early as the mid 60s, although I did see such a van in Sopron (Hungary)  marshalling yard in 1985 (being passed by a Hungarian steam loco!) 

[BillB]

Thanks for your replies. Re the Piko catalogue, I was in fact looking at the current Piko TT catalogue and wondering which of the Ep III ex-Prussian "G" vans lettered for neighbouring countries might legitimately turn up on a Saxony branch line, as the number of DR vans available is small. Piko have five vans for the CSD, which is very close by (two standard brown vans, two green for different breweries, and one blue, maybe insulated?), plus one standard brown van for the MAV. I'll take your comments to mean "any of them, but not all at once". Thanks again, Bill.

[Bernard Lamb]

10 hours ago, BillB said:

Thanks for your replies. Re the Piko catalogue, I was in fact looking at the current Piko TT catalogue and wondering which of the Ep III ex-Prussian "G" vans lettered for neighbouring countries might legitimately turn up on a Saxony branch line, as the number of DR vans available is small. Piko have five vans for the CSD, which is very close by (two standard brown vans, two green for different breweries, and one blue, maybe insulated?), plus one standard brown van for the MAV. I'll take your comments to mean "any of them, but not all at once". Thanks again, Bill.

The G10 van could turn up almost anywhere. One even got as far as Jerusalem. Is it still there?

The Piko model from circa 1960 can still cut it alongside more modern items. With new wheels and couplings I still run them. Picked up for next to nothing a very long time ago. They were pretty good when compared to what Triang were making in the UK around that time.

I don't know about the 1950s, but Bad Schandau was a busy place in the 1970s. I used to visit the sandstone rock outcrops. You could sit in a restaurant and look down on the freight trains from high up and they looked like models.

Bernard

[Bernard Lamb]

There was a mention upthread of pooled stock in the east.

This is the only picture I can locate showing the OPW markngs.

Very poor quality as it is a blow up from a scan.

I suppose that I am asking for trouble if I say that I have never seen a model in pool livery.

Bernard

 

[hank]

Greetings from Czechia. Let me make a few comments to the topic.

 

Re OPW: OPW was a common pool of East European freight wagons. It was established in 1964 and in 1989 it managed approx. 240 000 vehicles. Naturally, outside the former USSR territory you could meet numerous mixtures of the OPW wagons of the other member railway administrations using standard gauge of 1435 mm in any member country, i.e. DR (GDR), PKP (Poland), ČSD (Czechoslovakia), MÁV (Hungary), CFR (Romania), BDŽ (Bulgaria). Important: All the member administrations were allowed to handle the OPW waggons as their own. That means: They were obliged to return the unloaded wagons by the shortest route back to their home administration territories but along the way home they could be loaded and unloaded ad libitum inside transit countries. Thus you could see every day e.g. long block trains laden with Hungarian bauxit en route from Hungary via Czechoslovakia to an East Germany aluminium plant composed from wagons of all the three administrations.

 

Re the Bernard Lamb's image: It apparently shows the old Soviet OPW vans taken probably somewhere in East Germany or Poland. It is a rare view: The van type is very old (probably coming from WW II years or even earlier) and I cannot remember seeing it in Czechoslovakia even in the 1960s, let alone later. (Anyway, I may be wrong, of course. Old man's memory is a rather tricky bitch...) BTW: Some TT models of the Soviet stock were made by the Russian Peresvet but here in Czechia it is now almost impossible to get them due to the trade restrictions.

 

Re Prussian G 02 and/or G 10 in the blue ČSD livery: Blue and green ČSD livery since 1950s indicates engineers' freight stock. Green livery = track construction and maintenace, blue = signalling and automation. However, the PIKO green ČSD brewery van of a Prussian origin is a "freelance" one and does not match any actual vehicle.

 

Re Děčín/Bad Schandau ČSD/DR border crossing: It was (and is nowadays as well) definitely the busiest railway border crossing between Czechoslovakia/Czechia and GDR/Germany.

 

Re iron curtain: Even in the worst cold war years the neighbouring administrations helped each other out in cases of freight wagons and vans emergency shortages. This co-operation worked even over the iron curtain. (But I am not sure referring to the DB/DR border - maybe a better expert on German-German relations could specify.)

 

Facit:  As we say in Czech, it is "nothing against nothing" if you run trainsets mixed of various OPW administrations' wagons on a GDR-showing layout from the period of 1964 to 1991. Before the OPW period, it depends. The GDR borders (except West Berlin before 1961 - another interesting topic) were more or less closed and DR were exploited hard by the transportation of the USSR spoils of war let's say until 1955-56; then the situation loosened up a bit.   

 

If you have more questions do not hesitate to ask me. 

Edited April 13 by hank

[hank]

I 've still forgotten to mention the GDR/USSR Kolonnenbetrieb.  See here and here (in German). Indeed, up to 1954-55 the DR freight transportation fully served the Soviet needs. 

[BillB]

Hi Hank, thank you very much. Your info helps me a lot. Piko TT have 2 brown Czech vans and 1 brown MAV, so I will stick to those! I don't need many, as it is just a branch line, and I suspected beer might not travel from Popavice as far as a small village in the DDR in the 1950s!

Best Regards,

Bill.

[SimonBoulton]

On 13/04/2024 at 15:04, hank said:

Greetings from Czechia. Let me make a few comments to the topic.

 

Re OPW: OPW was a common pool of East European freight wagons. It was established in 1964 and in 1989 it managed approx. 240 000 vehicles. Naturally, outside the former USSR territory you could meet numerous mixtures of the OPW wagons of the other member railway administrations using standard gauge of 1435 mm in any member country, i.e. DR (GDR), PKP (Poland), ČSD (Czechoslovakia), MÁV (Hungary), CFR (Romania), BDŽ (Bulgaria). Important: All the member administrations were allowed to handle the OPW waggons as their own. That means: They were obliged to return the unloaded wagons by the shortest route back to their home administration territories but along the way home they could be loaded and unloaded ad libitum inside transit countries. Thus you could see every day e.g. long block trains laden with Hungarian bauxit en route from Hungary via Czechoslovakia to an East Germany aluminium plant composed from wagons of all the three administrations.

 

Re the Bernard Lamb's image: It apparently shows the old Soviet OPW vans taken probably somewhere in East Germany or Poland. It is a rare view: The van type is very old (probably coming from WW II years or even earlier) and I cannot remember seeing it in Czechoslovakia even in the 1960s, let alone later. (Anyway, I may be wrong, of course. Old man's memory is a rather tricky bitch...) BTW: Some TT models of the Soviet stock were made by the Russian Peresvet but here in Czechia it is now almost impossible to get them due to the trade restrictions.

 

Re Prussian G 02 and/or G 10 in the blue ČSD livery: Blue and green ČSD livery since 1950s indicates engineers' freight stock. Green livery = track construction and maintenace, blue = signalling and automation. However, the PIKO green ČSD brewery van of a Prussian origin is a "freelance" one and does not match any actual vehicle.

 

Re Děčín/Bad Schandau ČSD/DR border crossing: It was (and is nowadays as well) definitely the busiest railway border crossing between Czechoslovakia/Czechia and GDR/Germany.

 

Re iron curtain: Even in the worst cold war years the neighbouring administrations helped each other out in cases of freight wagons and vans emergency shortages. This co-operation worked even over the iron curtain. (But I am not sure referring to the DB/DR border - maybe a better expert on German-German relations could specify.)

 

Facit:  As we say in Czech, it is "nothing against nothing" if you run trainsets mixed of various OPW administrations' wagons on a GDR-showing layout from the period of 1964 to 1991. Before the OPW period, it depends. The GDR borders (except West Berlin before 1961 - another interesting topic) were more or less closed and DR were exploited hard by the transportation of the USSR spoils of war let's say until 1955-56; then the situation loosened up a bit.   

 

If you have more questions do not hesitate to ask me. 

Would the green wagons with SPV on the side, be engineering freight wagons too?