European Railroad Discussion > From the Before Time: Germany 1998 Random Passenger Edition

This is a collection of four random passenger trains across Germany. Since I was using a simple point-and-shoot camera, there is some blur depending on the speed of the train. Trains along the Rhine River were definitely too fast and all but one of those images are not included.

The German railway system is known as ‘DB,’ which stands for Deutsche Bundesbahn, which means German Federal Railway. All images are from September 1998.

1. As viewed from a boat on the Rhine at the town of Rüdesheim, an electric-powered train rolls geographically westward before turning northwestward.

2. We had a lunch stop in the southern town of Lindau which allowed this interesting shot of a push-pull train at the station and a mystery steam locomotive in the background. ‘HBF’ stands for Hauptbahnhof, which means main railway station. That is Lake Constance in the background and the other side of the lake is Switzerland at this angle. Austria is farther to the left.

3. Here is another shot that I do not remember how it came about. We were driving northwest from Lindau towards Freiburg. For some reason we stopped within sight of the disused train station at the microscopic town of Birnau-Marauch. And not only did we stop there, I had enough time to wander down to the station and catch a passing train in push mode with a Class 218 diesel-hydraulic, possibly the train seen earlier (above) in Lindau.

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4. As far as I can tell, I think this has to be in the Wurzburg area, but I have no memory of how this shot came about. This is the only shot from this area so I was not there long. Note that the first car is a cab car that would be normally used in push-pull operation. I think it was unusual to have such a mismatched train consist. Maybe it was a non-revenue move.

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Great place Lindau. I always enjoyed the ride from Munich to Lindau.

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NMlurker Wrote:
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> The German railway system is known as ‘DB,’
> which stands for Deutsche Bundesbahn, which means
> German Federal Railway.

That was the case from October 10, 1946, to December 31, 1993.  But on January 1, 1994, upon the merger of the former Deutsche Bundesbahn and Deutsche Reichsbahn, the organization became simply Deutsche Bahn, retaining the initials but with a modified logo.
 

I think your non-revenue hypothesis for the final picture will be right. The train's on one of the non-platform tracks and I believe all revenue passenger trains call at Wuerzburg (apologies for the lack of umlaut).

Hello NMlurker,

may I help out a little? Birnau is a quite well known church of pilgrimage. And beautiful it is, also affording a nice view over Lake Constance. Maybe this was the reason that you ended up going there. It is something like 30 miles west of Lindau along the line to Radolfzell and eventually Basel. These days seeing a 218 class here is something special, especially a beige one. Times do change. A few years ago rerouted freights and later a steam special made me go there after postponing possible trips for a long time.
1. A 232 class of Ukranian origin formerly owned by the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn is seen with an eastbound freight passing the former stop of Birnau-Maurach on September 22, 2017.
2. 01 202 returns to Switzerland from the Märklin days in Göppingen passing westbound on September 14, 2019. If I remember right they had some issues with the flues and were running late. So the sun had more time to move to a better angle.
3. And a view of the church in September 2017.

Cheers

kbs651

 

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