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A Couple of Days in Germany


Claude_Dreyfus

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About a week or so ago I travelled out to Germany for a couple of days; visiting Heilbronn. My journey included arriving at Stuttgart airport, and gave me an hour or so to take a look at these two town's respective stations. Below are a few photos which may be of interest...

 

Stuttgard

 

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This was my evening train from Stuttgart to Heilbronn. These 143s get everywhere in Germany!

 

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146205 lurks in the gloom. One thing I have noticed is that the check numbers do not appear on all locos any longer. Are these being phased out?

 

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143 880-3 still carries its check number however...

 

There was not too much opportunity to get some decent pictures during this first visit, so we move on to Heilbronn; which has a really interesting - and fairly busy - station. These were taken during the evening of my first full day.

 

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There is a freight yard to the south of the station, which saw a number of locos run up to the station and reverse back to the yard. One such example was 155 267-8

 

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185 307-6 had done the same thing a few moments before

 

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Heilbronn also has some carriage servicing facilities. This little yellow tractor was shunting a double-decker set through a shed whilst I was there...

 

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Evening is setting in a 146 209-2 pauses with a double-decker set.

 

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146s and 143s are the stock-in-trade through Heilbronn - along with a few 111s

 

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A portrait of 143 239

 

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Heilbronn has trams!

 

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Which do odd things just outside the station. They cross the main lines on a diamond junction; which also includes the freight lines and access roads to the carriages sidings... Just as well these things have some rapid acceleration!

 

The next day - following my second round of meetings, it was home time.

 

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146 221-7 on a Stuttgart train

 

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My steed back to Stuttgart

 

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I settled down in to the rear trailer carriage - I had this to myself for the entire journey...

 

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..and I was pleased to see it was spotlessly clean. A very enjoyable 45 minute trip lay ahead!

 

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Just before we left, something interesting passed us!

 

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I didn't see too many units through - most stuff was push pull.

 

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Something else was a large number of shunters - Heilbronn had about four!

 

Back towards Stuttgart, with some interesting stuff along the way.

 

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115 383-2 hauling a single mess coach

 

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ICE sets approaching Stuttgard

 

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En route

 

Finally a few shots at Stuttgart during day light hours...

 

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181 205-6 departs with a rake of SBB carriages

 

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218 830-8 stabled on the west side of the station.

 

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Another 218 - this time 218 439-8

 

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A 101 and 146 rest at the stops.

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That looks like you had a great trip. Thanks for sharing!

 

attachicon.gif146205.jpg
146205 lurks in the gloom. One thing I have noticed is that the check numbers do not appear on all locos any longer. Are these being phased out?
 

 

They are indeed, though slowly!

 

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Heilbronn has trams!

 

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Which do odd things just outside the station. They cross the main lines on a diamond junction; which also includes the freight lines and access roads to the carriages sidings... Just as well these things have some rapid acceleration!

 

 

Ah yes, the Karlsruhe tram-trains. They caused quite a stir when they were introduced, though they are limited to 95 kph for the GT8-100C/2s type as seen in your photo of car 807, or 100 kph for the GT8-100D/2S-M as seen in your photo of the Heilbronn station approach, due to their hybrid tram/railway wheel profiles. However, ridership numbers suggest this concept is entirely viable.

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Simply wunderbar Claude, thanks for sharing these. Spent a lot of time in Germany in my youth and loved riding on the DB!

Those hybrid tram/trains are a great idea. I once suggested this to Brighton council as a solution to public transport and congestion relief. Tram trains from Falmer and Withdean to the town center and seafront insead of park and ride and that awful oneway system they introduced. Isn't the London to Brighton journey time still an hour? No improvement in over a century.   

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Hello C_D,

 

Great pics. Regarding the loss of the check digit showing on the front of the loco although the check digit is disappearing from the front of the loco it still appears on the side of the loco as part of an extended UIC (think that's the right term) number as shown below:

 

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The loco in question is an OBB Railjet loco (made by Roco!!) with 1116 218 on the front - so the check digit is not being lost completely

 

Keith

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Thanks for the comments all...

 

I didn't know about the museum at Heilbronn. That might be a worthwhile visit if I return with a little more time.

 

The check numbers have always fascinated me. I used to know the calculations for coming up with the check number (yes, I am that sad!), but my memory has filed that peice of information to some dusty drawer in the far reaches of my mind.

 

The trams immediately got my attention when researching my travel arrangements. I rather like their tram-train arrangement, and they did seem very popular. One or two were marked up with DB stickers, which seemed to imply at least some sort of tie-in.

 

I do keep eyeing up N gauge DB locos...I am planning to get hold of a Fleishmann 143 in the near future. ...and then a push-pull set will have to turn up, and hey presto...another slippery slope is encountered!

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The check numbers have always fascinated me. I used to know the calculations for coming up with the check number (yes, I am that sad!), but my memory has filed that peice of information to some dusty drawer in the far reaches of my mind.

 

The trams immediately got my attention when researching my travel arrangements. I rather like their tram-train arrangement, and they did seem very popular. One or two were marked up with DB stickers, which seemed to imply at least some sort of tie-in.

 

You need to alternately multiply the six digits before the hyphen with 1 and 2; add up the resulting digits (if any of them yield a result greater than 10, you must add up each digit individually); and then check what's missing till the next number divisible by ten.

 

Four of the GT8-100C/2S cars are indeed owned by DB Regio and numbered as class 450.

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Since 2007 we have a new classification system, called the UIC system. German locos now have 4-digit Baureihe numbers, the 4th inofficially called "EBA-Ziffer" after the Eisenbahn-Bundesamt (EBA) which holds the list of all German locos. The Prüfziffer is now calculated from all 11 numbers. When introducing the system, the EBA was nice and gave Deutsche Bahn matching EBA-Ziffern so that the Prüfziffer before and afterwards are identical. But this do not apply to locos introduced after this date. See here for more infos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UIC_identification_marking_for_tractive_stock

 

146 205's old Prüfziffer was 1 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 0 + 1+0 = 20 => 0.

Its new number is 91 80 6146 205, so the new Prüfziffer is 1+8 + 1 + 1+6 + 0 + 1+2 + 1 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 0 + 1+0 = 40 => 0. The 6 in 6146 is the EBA-Ziffer and would result in a different Prüfziffer if it wasn't a 6.

 

Front numbers aren't standardised since 2007. Deutsche Bahn uses its traditional numbers, but here in Berlin local operator ODEG numbers its DMUs beginning from VT01, VT02 ... (VT being an old German abbreviation for Verbrennungstriebwagen, meaning DMU).

 

Kind regards

Felix

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