Today I'm leaving Germany and travelling to my next destination - the Netherlands.
My train to Amsterdam is leaving Hannover at 12:40 so I have time to visit a destination related to my train interest. I will visit a memorial in the town of Eschede, where in 1998 an ICE1 derailed and 101 people died.
Traxx P160 AC1. I'm taking Metronom RE2 Göttingen-Uelzen.
Upper deck
35min journey and I'm in Eschede
Metronom train is continuing to Uelzen
The station is occupied on Hamburg-Hannover railway. It was this type of train (ICE1) that was involved in the accident.
10min walk from the station and I'm visiting the Eschede disaster memorial
Memorial opened 2001
Defective wheel design, wrong decisions made by the train crew caused the accident. The train derailed and crashed into a bridge which also contributed to the fatality of the accident.
It remains the worst high-speed-rail disaster worldwide
The memorial consists of 101 Wild Cherry trees each representing one fatality.
A rooster had escaped from some nearby farm and was walking on the railway
Poor bird was trying to escape from the high speed train
It could survive this train by jumping on the platform
But then it decided to go back to the railway
I'm not sure about if it survived the next trains
Intercity
Metronom back to Hannover
View of memorial from the train window
I'm arriving back to Hannover
The lower deck of one of the coaches is exclusively made for bicycles
The platform is higher than the train floor, normally it's the other way around.
Bicycle coach
enno von metronom company with Coradia Continental train
enno operates here line RE30 Hannover-Wolfsburg
IC2 (to the left) and IC (to the right)
My next train is an Intercity service Berlin-Amsterdam
It is a classic Intercity train with old coaches. Deutsche Bahn plans to replace most Intercity and Eurocity rolling stock with ICE 4 trainsets by 2025.
I'm taking a seat in ARkimbz coach - which is a combined Bistro Café / 1st class compartment & open
Stopping at Minden station
Passing by Porta Westfalica and monument of Kaiser Wilhelm I
A stop in Osnabrück
ARkimbz coach is the only in the whole trainset where you can open windows
Lint from Eurobahn Niedersachsen
Stadler Flirt from Westfalenbahn
Old type of door that you have to open yourself, but which closes automatically.
Approaching the last stop in Germany
Traxx F140 MS from LOCON Benelux
Traxx F160 MS painted in NS livery.
The station is a border station between Germany and the Netherlands. Dutch and German locomotives change here as the voltage is different in the countries. Germany is using 15kV AC, while Netherlands is using 1.5kV DC
Adtranz DB Class 101 locomotive is supporting only 15kV electrification system
So, the locomotive has to be disconnected from the train set
Class 101 is then replaced with NS Class 1700 which only supports 1.5kV. The station is designed so that NS and DB locomotives that supports different voltage can be exchanged. For this part of the rail yard, the voltage can be switched between 1.5kV DC (Dutch) and 15kV AC (German).
NS Class 1700 was manufactured by Alstom during 1990-1994 and it is based on French SNCF Class BB 7200
According to the timetable, the whole process should take 7 min
Finally, the dutch locomotive is attached to the train and we are ready to leave
Inside 1st class open coach Apmz, where it was very hot inside this day (and no window could be operened).
NS Class 1600 locomotive from 1982 operated by LOCON Benelux
The last German railway mast
The first Dutch railway mast
First stop in the Netherlands is Hengelo. Unfortunately my journey took an abrupt end here, since the train was suspended here
"Niet Instappen"
Passengers were directed to the dutch Intercity to Schiphol airport that were on the other side of the plattform. But the full IC Berlin-Amsterdam (10 coaches) could not fit into a three-part ICM EMU.
My DB Application was telling that there were "Technical failure in train"
Same day I received a sarcastic notification in my phone: "We hope you had a pleasant journey"
People that could not get a seat (including me) in the other train were waiting for the next one
Meanwhile some dutch trains were passing by, here is Syntus Twents Lint DMU which operated Stoptrein line Zutphen - Hengelo - Oldenzaal
NS Class 3400 or DM'90 Buffel operates here Stoptrein line Zwolle-Enschede.
At last my train is arriving, it is a VIRM double deck EMU and most common for Intercity services in Netherlands.
In Amersfoort I have to make a change
This time it is a ICM train
Passing by NS Class 1600 numbered 1615 "Zandvoort" operated by DB Cargo
NS Sprinter Lighttrain (SLT)
Amsterdam Metro
Final stop for me today is Amsterdam Zuid
No comments:
Post a Comment