European Railroad Discussion > European Railway Stations Part 17

More Poland. This is Poznan Glowny. The modern building to the left is the current station attached to a huge two level shopping mall. The older non descript looking building with the name on it is to the right is the former station, now a very dark and decrepet looking bar/restaurant. The track layout there is quite confusing with some tracks across a street and other below the station itself. Some tracks have direct access to the street above which has an excellent tram system with many older looking trams. Steam runs to Poznan from Wolsztyn on weekends. As I recall, I was there to take an overnight sleeper to Frankfurt Flughaffen  to catch my Delta flight home.  The overnight trains in Europe are the best,  avoiding an expensive airport hotel the night before departure. 

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andersonb109 Wrote:
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> More Poland. This is Poznan Glowny. The modern
> building to the left is the current station
> attached to a huge two level shopping mall. The
> older non descript looking building with the name
> on it is to the right is the former station, now a
> very dark and decrepet looking bar/restaurant. The
> track layout there is quite confusing with some
> tracks across a street and other below the station
> itself. Some tracks have direct access to the
> street above which has an excellent tram system
> with many older looking trams. Steam runs to
> Poznan from Wolsztyn on weekends. As I recall, I
> was there to take an overnight sleeper to
> Frankfurt Flughaffen  to catch my Delta flight
> home.  The overnight trains in Europe are the
> best,  avoiding an expensive airport hotel the
> night before departure. 

To the best of my recollection, the last direct service (overnight or otherwise) between Poznan and Frankfurt were the Russian and Belarusian through-sleepers that ran Basel - Frankfurt - Berlin - Poznan - Warsaw - Minsk (- Moscow in the case of the RZD sleeper). They ran with the Basel - Copenhagen service as far as Hannover, where they were transfered to the Jan Kiepura (at that time, Amsterdam - Cologne - Hannover - Berlin - Warsaw) for the trip to Warsaw and then to the Warsaw - Minsk - Moscow for the continuation of their journey. These were unfortunately discontinued around the time of the introduction of the direct RZD Paris - Berlin - Moscow "TransEurope Express" service in 2011.

Thereafter, the only direct trains between Poland and western Germany were:

• the aforementioned RZD train Moscow - Paris
• the aforementioned Jan Kiepura Warsaw - Cologne (- Oberhausen/-Amsterdam depending on the year)

Since the RZD train only ran 1 - 2 times per week, is difficult to book, and had inconvenient timings for travel to Frankfurt, I'm guessing you took the Jan Kiepura, which would have entailed a transfer to an ICE to get to Frankfurt airport. Is that possible?

Interesting!  Is there a standard gauge (1435 mm) line to Moscow?  Gerry

GPutz Wrote:
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> Interesting!  Is there a standard gauge (1435 mm)
> line to Moscow?  Gerry

No, there is a break of gauge at the Polish/Belarusian border town of Brest. Broad gauge operators have special fleets of cars that fit the more restrictive European loading gauge (i.e. are narrower and shorter) and whose bogies (trucks) can be swapped for standard gauge ones at gauge changing facilities, such as this one in Brest: https://goo.gl/maps/UvsuaEa72WbwMoEEA

There are both standard and broad gauge tracks in Brest station. Trains arriving on standard gauge from the west are first platformed on the standard gauge tracks, so that passengers with the destination Brest as well as through passengers who wish to spend some time stretching their legs/walking around the station and town can do so. The cars are then switched into the gauge changing facility, lifted up on jacks, the standard gauge bogies are rolled out and broad gauge ones rolled underneath the cars, the cars are lowered, and then switched back into the station (this time on broad gauge). The whole process takes about two hours, so it's understandable why some would rather spend that time in the station rather than inside the gauge changing facility (where officially one is supposed to remain in the cars during the process but often can stand on the shop floor instead; their are typically many local sellers of small, homemade baked goods and other delicacies who enter the facility to try to pawn their wares to the passengers). Oh, and the tracks in the gauge changing facility "split the difference" between standard 1,434 mm and broad 1,520 mm gauge, so that both sets of bogies can be rolled on the same rails (at low speeds the tolerances suffice for that).

A couple of years ago a Talgo service Berlin - Moscow was started by Russian Railways. For this purpose, a Talgo "roll-through" gauge changing facility was installed in Brest, which avoids the more invovled process of raising all the cars to swap out the bogies.

Train was EN 446 to Koln. The ICE to Frankfurt Flughaffen. DM sleeper as I recall but not certain. It could have been a Polish sleeper.

Per Wikipedia "Brest, Belarus":formerly Brest-Litovsk

TransportBeing situated on the main railway line connecting Berlin and Moscow, and a transcontinental highway (the European route E30), Brest became a principal border crossing after World War II in Soviet times. Today it links the European Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States.The city of Brest is served by Brest-Tsentralny railway station. Because of the break-of-gauge at Brest, where the Russian broad gauge meets the European standard gauge, all passenger trains, coming from Poland, must have their bogies replaced here, to travel on across Belarus, and the freight must be transloaded from cars of one gauge to cars of another. Some of the land in the Brest rail yards remains contaminated as a result of the transshipment of radioactive materials here since Soviet days although cleanup operations have been taking place.[citation needed]The local airport, Brest Airport (code BQT), operates flights on a seasonal schedule to Kaliningrad[18] in the Russian Federation and seasonal charter flights to Burgas and Antalya.[size=100][19][/size]

 

pennengineer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> GPutz Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Interesting!  Is there a standard gauge (1435
> mm)
> > line to Moscow?  Gerry
>
> No, there is a break of gauge at the
> Polish/Belarusian border town of Brest. Broad
> gauge operators have special fleets of cars that
> fit the more restrictive European loading gauge
> (i.e. are narrower and shorter) and whose bogies
> (trucks) can be swapped for standard gauge ones at
> gauge changing facilities, such as this one in
> Brest: https://goo.gl/maps/UvsuaEa72WbwMoEEA
>
> There are both standard and broad gauge tracks in
> Brest station. Trains arriving on standard gauge
> from the west are first platformed on the standard
> gauge tracks, so that passengers with the
> destination Brest as well as through passengers
> who wish to spend some time stretching their
> legs/walking around the station and town can do
> so. The cars are then switched into the gauge
> changing facility, lifted up on jacks, the
> standard gauge bogies are rolled out and broad
> gauge ones rolled underneath the cars, the cars
> are lowered, and then switched back into the
> station (this time on broad gauge). The whole
> process takes about two hours, so it's
> understandable why some would rather spend that
> time in the station rather than inside the gauge
> changing facility (where officially one is
> supposed to remain in the cars during the process
> but often can stand on the shop floor instead;
> their are typically many local sellers of small,
> homemade baked goods and other delicacies who
> enter the facility to try to pawn their wares to
> the passengers). Oh, and the tracks in the gauge
> changing facility "split the difference" between
> standard 1,434 mm and broad 1,520 mm gauge, so
> that both sets of bogies can be rolled on the same
> rails (at low speeds the tolerances suffice for
> that).
>
> A couple of years ago a Talgo service Berlin -
> Moscow was started by Russian Railways. For this
> purpose, a Talgo "roll-through" gauge changing
> facility was installed in Brest, which avoids the
> more invovled process of raising all the cars to
> swap out the bogies.

So I take it that there's nothing like belt driven generators or Spicer Drives on these cars?

That looks well kept like I would expect.
Thanks for your great depot posts.
ALLEN

To continue with the gauge change discussion, see tomorrows post. Overnight train from Warsaw to Kiev.

andersonb109 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Train was EN 446 to Koln. The ICE to Frankfurt
> Flughaffen. DM sleeper as I recall but not
> certain. It could have been a Polish sleeper.

Well, add that one to your list of "can't do that anymore": the Jan Kiepura (EN 446) was discontinued in December 2016 along with the City Night Line network, as it was jointly operated with the Cologne - Prague CNL service as far as Berlin.

So if you wanted to repeat that journey today, you'd have to time your travel to catch the RZD train to Paris, as that's the only long-distance service from Poland that doesn't end in Berlin. Otherwise you'd need to take the EuroCity formerly known as the Berlin-Warsaw-Express and change in Berlin.

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> pennengineer Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > GPutz Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Interesting!  Is there a standard gauge
> (1435
> > mm)
> > > line to Moscow?  Gerry
> >
> > No, there is a break of gauge at the
> > Polish/Belarusian border town of Brest. Broad
> > gauge operators have special fleets of cars
> that
> > fit the more restrictive European loading gauge
> > (i.e. are narrower and shorter) and whose
> bogies
> > (trucks) can be swapped for standard gauge ones
> at
> > gauge changing facilities, such as this one in
> > Brest: https://goo.gl/maps/UvsuaEa72WbwMoEEA
> >
> > There are both standard and broad gauge tracks
> in
> > Brest station. Trains arriving on standard
> gauge
> > from the west are first platformed on the
> standard
> > gauge tracks, so that passengers with the
> > destination Brest as well as through passengers
> > who wish to spend some time stretching their
> > legs/walking around the station and town can do
> > so. The cars are then switched into the gauge
> > changing facility, lifted up on jacks, the
> > standard gauge bogies are rolled out and broad
> > gauge ones rolled underneath the cars, the cars
> > are lowered, and then switched back into the
> > station (this time on broad gauge). The whole
> > process takes about two hours, so it's
> > understandable why some would rather spend that
> > time in the station rather than inside the
> gauge
> > changing facility (where officially one is
> > supposed to remain in the cars during the
> process
> > but often can stand on the shop floor instead;
> > their are typically many local sellers of
> small,
> > homemade baked goods and other delicacies who
> > enter the facility to try to pawn their wares
> to
> > the passengers). Oh, and the tracks in the
> gauge
> > changing facility "split the difference"
> between
> > standard 1,434 mm and broad 1,520 mm gauge, so
> > that both sets of bogies can be rolled on the
> same
> > rails (at low speeds the tolerances suffice for
> > that).
> >
> > A couple of years ago a Talgo service Berlin -
> > Moscow was started by Russian Railways. For
> this
> > purpose, a Talgo "roll-through" gauge changing
> > facility was installed in Brest, which avoids
> the
> > more invovled process of raising all the cars
> to
> > swap out the bogies.
>
> So I take it that there's nothing like belt driven
> generators or Spicer Drives on these cars?

Nope, it's all train-line power with backup batteries as far as I know. Which is why things tend to go dim when the switching starts. That being said, that kind of hardware is uncommon over here even on rolling stock that doesn't swap bogies.