European Railroad Discussion > Train time at Maastricht and more questions

1. What class of train is this? Is this uniquely Dutch?

2 & 3. The only freight train photographed on my entire European trip. It looks German, but is it? I know DB Schenker has operations in several countries, including the U.K. What would this train be carrying.

Both shot at the main Maastricht station on May 4th, 2015.

John Reay
Toronto, ON

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1.  Yes, unique to NS;  it looks like a six car VIRM, variants of which are a mainstay of Dutch Intercity service.  Some of these started life as 3 and 4 car sets, and were later lengthened, while some were built ab initio in the longer formats, including the six car variant.  An internet search for 'ns VIRM' should explain all.

2.  There were 120 of the NS 6400 class, and all ended up with DB Schenker.  I'm not familiar w/ that picture on the side, eg, whether that's a common DB-S display or something special.  It makes me wonder if these units are assigned to Railinfra, the Dutch [ wait for it ] rail infrastructure builder/maintainer.  If so the wagons might be carrying ballast rather than, say, cement or limestone........

Please keep the photos coming !

Best regards, SZ

 

The hoppers would be carrying crushed Limestone or Dolomite primarily for the steel industry. The MaK built roadswitchers all went to Railion Netherlands when DB Schenker bought NS' railfreight operations. DB Schenker sold two of the locomotives to Eurotunnel for modification to Tunnel Rescue locomotives. Some are stored after DB Schenker failed to gain homologation of the locomotives in Germany. Some of the locomotives numbered in the high 64xx series and all in the 65xx series are equipped and authorised to operate into Belgium.

SOO6617 Wrote:
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> Some are stored after
> DB Schenker failed to gain homologation of the
> locomotives in Germany.

Do you know the reason why the homologation was revoked? As far as I remember, this class was originally homologated also for Germany. The picture below from my collection shows one of the test runs in 1990 performed by DB for that (NS 6431 together with DB 753 001 an s 002, also known as 217 001 & 002).

Thanks! E111

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Could someone explain this concept of "homologation"?  I've never heard that before.