Hellas Express

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The Hellas Express was a long-distance train that ran between Dortmund and Athens from 1963 to 1988 and between Munich and Athens until 1989. It was the first connection after the Second World War that was specially tailored to the traffic between the Federal Republic of Germany and Greece. Previously, the Greek capital could be reached with the Tauern Express and the Simplon Orient Express , which primarily served the traffic on the routes between Paris and the ports of the Channel coast and south-eastern Europe. The Hellas Express covered its 3,000 km route in around 50 hours. During the more than four decades of German division , there was no other regular train that reached a place even further away from West Germany .

Train run

Train run 1969

The train traveled consistently over the years on the following route: Dortmund - Duisburg - Cologne - Mainz - Mannheim - Stuttgart - Munich - Salzburg - Villach - Ljubljana - Zagreb - Belgrade - Niš - Skopje - Thessaloniki - Athens . Subtleties such as B. the use of the left or right Rhine route or the occasional small detour via Oberhausen changed over the years.

The train was operated jointly by the German Federal Railroad , the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), the Yugoslavian Railways (JŽ) and the Greek State Railways (OSE).

prehistory

After the Second World War, the trans-European long-distance train network that emerged from the luxury trains of the Belle Époque was gradually rebuilt in Germany as well. The Tauern Express, newly introduced in 1951, was extended from Ostend via Cologne and Munich to Belgrade in 1953 to Athens, which was the first direct connection between Germany and Greece since the end of the war.

In the summer timetables from 1958 to 1961, the Tauern Express appears under the long-distance express train numbers F 153/154 with daily seated cars to Athens and a sleeping car that goes four times a week from Ostend to Athens and twice a week from Munich via Thessaloniki to Istanbul. (The inexpensive couchette were just then newly introduced only and can be found therefore rarer than the much more comfortable sleeping car , the abundance ratio was reversed later.) In addition, from 1958 to 1961, a D 263/264 Jugoslavia Express with daily service on the seat carriage between The Hague and Athens (as well as other destinations).

From the summer of 1962, the previous connection between the Netherlands and Greece was taken over by the D 251/252 Austria Express , which is why it now began in Hoek van Holland instead of The Hague.

introduction

With the summer timetable of 1963, the train service to the Balkans was restructured. Instead of the sleeping cars in the Tauern Express , a new pair of trains was created (initially only with seating cars): D 455/456 Hellas Express from Dortmund (from 2.32 p.m. CET ) to Athens (at 6.19 p.m. EET ) and back. (Train numbers in Austria : Ex 158/159, in Yugoslavia : AD / DA (train designation according to start and destination), in northern Greece: 411/412, south of Thessaloniki: 11/12.)

This journey of a total of 50 hours 47 minutes included two overnight stays on the train: one in Austria, the other in southern Yugoslavia / northern Greece. The new Hellas Express was about 6 hours ahead of (or northwards) the Austria Express, which was still in service . In the chapter "Innovations and changes - annual timetable 1963/64" the official timetable for the Hellas Express announced:

“New train capable of receiving guest workers and tourists to Yugoslavia and Greece with extremely favorable traffic times in West and Southwest Germany, Yugoslavia and Greece. The pair of trains runs daily in the summer and is supposed to renovate the constantly overcrowded and delay-prone 'Austria Express'. It runs 1st 2nd class seated coaches Dortmund - Athens and dining coaches on the daily routes. "

According to the 1963 timetable, the distance between Dortmund and Athens was 2948 km, of which 2051 km outside Germany, making it the longest international train route through Germany. For comparison: the long-distance train D 105/106 Aachen - Moscow, which ran in the same year, covered a total of only 2569 km. After this train was extended from Moscow via Aachen under the name Ost-West-Express to Paris, its route was extended to 2992 km. He thus replaced the Hellas Express as the record holder. In the winter timetable 1964/65 (and probably also in winter 1963/64) the Hellas Express only ran until the end of October and from the beginning of April (daily) and on eight individual days just before Christmas. From 1965 the winter break was canceled.

Wagon types

The Hellas Express wagons were provided by the participating operator railways. The second car class also offered compartments with up to eight seats. From 1964 the Hellas Express also ran couchette cars in summer from Dortmund to Ljubljana, in 1965 the summer couchette car was extended to Pula and a year-round sleeping car from Munich to Athens (twice a week) was introduced. By the summer of 1968 (in Germany now under train number D 916/917) the range of seated coaches Dortmund - Athens and couchette coaches Munich - Athens had changed; the sleeping car was no longer available. The 1970/71 winter timetable also includes a couchette coach from Dortmund - Zagreb - Ploče (at the southern tip of Croatia ) that has since been added . In 1971 the train was finally given the internationally uniform number D 410/411, which it kept until its end, and the couchette car to Ploče was no longer required. (In Yugoslavia, the number was later changed from AD / DA to 410/411.)

For the 1976 summer timetable, a couchette car was introduced from Dortmund for the first time in the Hellas Express , but initially only to Thessaloniki, and again (twice a week) a sleeping car from Munich to Athens. A continuous couchette car from Dortmund to Athens was only offered from summer 1977. This was retained until the Dortmund branch was discontinued in 1988, as was the Munich sleeping car, although the days of its traffic fluctuated again and again over the course of the following years: between once a week and daily.

Development and limitation of the rush

For the first time, there is a reference to the lively demand for the Hellas Express in the 1964/65 winter course book:

  • From 16th to 24th XII. For travelers beyond Jesenice, a seat card is required in 1st class and an admission card is required in 2nd class .

The summer course book 1965 noted (identical for all four long-distance trains in the direction of the Balkans at the time):

  • At times of heavy guest worker traffic in the seated car only limited capacity , the associated through car directory:
  • Preferably for guest worker traffic to and from the Balkans

The 1968 summer course book (in that year the train started / ended in Cologne instead of Dortmund) contains these footnotes:

  • In the south: A reservation is required for cross-border traffic and is only permitted for travelers to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. Only a limited number of places in domestic German traffic.
  • going north: only stops at German train stations to get off. Not permitted for domestic traffic.

From 1970 at the latest, the following information appeared in the German notice timetables and course books:

  • In the south: only stops at DB stations to get on, a reservation is required for travelers abroad; Train is primarily used for traffic to the Balkan countries
  • going north: only stops to get off; international passenger train with a long journey; normal punctuality and the usual comfort cannot be expected

These references lasted almost verbatim for many years; the latter in particular became known among non-railroaders and became a popular phrase, even if not always correctly quoted. The timetable of the Hellas Express has changed again and again over the years, but the basic concept with two overnight stays on the way has remained constant. With the 1979 summer timetable, there was no longer any reference to long distances, punctuality and comfort. In the north of Germany, however, the train only stopped to disembark and, even without this notice, enjoyed the reputation among travelers that a delay of several hours was to be expected.

At that time, the Hellas Express took exactly ten hours to travel from Dortmund to Munich (11:19 am to 9:19 pm). Today an ICE travels the same distance in under six hours.

Decline and cessation

Gorgopotamos Bridge, photographed from the Athens - Thessaloniki express train

In the 1982/83 winter timetable, the Hellas Express was merged with another train, the Istanbul Express , for the first time, apparently due to a decline in demand outside the summer season - initially only for the period from the end of September to the end of March, although the winter timetable at that time was basically until the end of May was true. In the following winter timetables, this consolidation was then operated for the entire winter timetable period. In this way, the Rhine route and the Ruhr area reached a direct connection to Istanbul over the winter, which did not exist during the summer timetables, since the Hellas Express then continued to run alone and the Istanbul Express began / ended in Munich as before. From September 1987, however, the Hellas Express (the name was retained regardless of the amalgamation until 1989) only ran to / from Munich during the winter timetable periods - that is, at least two thirds of the entire year.

In the 1988 summer timetable, the Hellas Express ran for the last time between Dortmund (from 11:22 am) and Athens (to 2:26 pm) and back; the travel time was still 50 hours and 4 minutes. In the following winter section the train ran again from / to Munich, with the expiry of the winter timetable on May 27, 1989, the name Hellas Express disappeared from the German course books. During the summer timetables of 1989 and 1990, the big cities between Dortmund and Munich received a direct connection to the Balkans instead of the Hellas Express with the D 294/295 Jugoslavia Express , which was then extended to Dortmund , but this too was (north of Munich) on 30. Discontinued September 1990 and never resumed.

The Hellas Express was during its existence from InterRailers, Central European tourists and South-Eastern European guest workers used. At the beginning and end of the summer and Christmas holidays, at the end of the 1980s, there were still several relief trains (also subject to reservation) running per day, because the Hellas Express alone could not cope with the rush. (Some of the relief trains already ended in Thessaloniki or Skopje.) On the other hand, the load factor continued to decline outside of the holiday periods during the cooler months.

Successor trains

The "Attica"

The direct successor to the Hellas Express on the same route and in a similar time slot, i.e. still with two overnight stays between Munich and Athens, was the Attika quality train . The summer 1989 course book announces:

" 23.) D 1211/1210 new Attica: Instead of the Hellas Express Dortmund - Athens, which was omitted in the summer section, this more comfortable pair of trains D 1211/1210 is now run as a sleeper and couchette train from Munich to Athens. Compared to the former connection with D 411/410 Hellas Express, travel times between Munich and Athens are reduced by 4 hours 46 minutes and in the opposite direction by 3 hours 43 minutes. In addition, this pair of trains will for the first time offer a seasonal car transport option Munich-East - Thessaloniki on Mondays or Thessaloniki - Munich-East on Sundays and Munich-East - Athens on Sundays and Athens - Munich-East on Wednesdays. Timetable: D 1211 Munich Hbf from 19.24 - (...) - Athènes at 6.00 / D 1210 Athens from 23.00 - (...) - Munich Hbf at 8.44 "

To complete the train service between Germany and Greece, the Acropolis has operated since 1967 , with a morning departure from Munich or Athens, so that there was only one overnight stay on the train and a lot of time was spent during the day. The timetable was z. B. in the summer of 1988 (D 290/291): Munich from 8.14 a.m. - Athens at 11.06 p.m., which corresponds to a total time of almost 38 hours. The Hellas Express took just under 40 hours for the same route in the same year. In contrast to the Hellas Express , the Acropolis did not go via Niš , but via Kosovo Polje .

With the 1991/92 annual timetable, this changed from June 1991. The Acropolis was discontinued, the Attika sleeper and couchette train now ran all year round (and was therefore given the new number D 210/211) and thus replaced the winter over the slow Hellas-Istanbul -Express . With just one overnight stay on the train, you could no longer get from Munich to Athens, nor did you get by seated car. However, since the rush of travelers was too big for a single train at certain times, a relief train D 1210/1211 was planned twice a week during the school holidays, which ran about half an hour to the Attica between Munich and Athens and only carried couchette cars. In addition, from June 1991 onwards, all traffic stops between Austria and Greece were no longer available on both the Attica and its seasonal relief train. Although the train was still planned through the crisis-ridden Yugoslavia, it was only supposed to stop there for internal purposes without publication of the timetable.

"Hellas Express" between Budapest and Athens

With the end of the Hellas-Istanbul-Express , which started in Germany , the name became free again in June 1991. From then on, the train 334/335 from Athens via Belgrade and Subotica to Budapest was given the traditional name Hellas Express . In Budapest there was a connection to Munich. This “Hungarian” Hellas Express ran until around 2008.

Setting due to the Yugoslav wars

DB Touristik couchette car from the 1960s, which was sold to the Romanian state railway CFR and used in 2009 on night train 462 from Thessaloniki via Sofia to Bucharest

The Yugoslav Wars gradually led to the suspension of all continuous trains from Central Europe to Greece and Turkey. The annual timetable 1992/93 of the DB, which came into force on May 31, 1992, only provided for the Attica between Munich and Athens , now according to the timetable again with some traffic stops in Yugoslavia, including Belgrade, Niš and Skopje:

“Due to the political situation in Yugoslavia , the routes and days of traffic were initially only set for the period up to September 26th. The timetable data for the subsequent period will be announced later. The following trains are planned daily until September 26, 1992:

  • EC 11/10 Mimara, Munich - Zagreb
  • D 211/210 Attica, Munich - Athens
  • D 293/292 Skopje-Istanbul-Express, Munich - Belgrade - Istanbul, with through coach to Niš
  • D 297/296 Mostar-Dalmacija, Munich - Ploče, with through coaches to Rijeka, Split and Vincovci

All other trains that have passed through this route so far are canceled. "

For the annual timetable 1992/93 (May 31, 1992 to May 22, 1993), the information on the route of the attic is contradicting itself. While there are sources that indicate Thessaloniki - Idomeni - Gevgelija - Skopje - Niš - Belgrade - Subotica - Kelebia - Budapest - Vienna - Salzburg and even speak of a through car Athens - Budapest - Prague - Berlin, the DB booklet calls / Couchette car schedule "a route via Belgrade - Novi Sad - Bruck ad Leitha - Vienna-Hütteldorf and instead of the scheduled car just a separate train Bucharest - Budapest - Prague - Berlin.

The 1993/94 annual timetable came into effect on May 23, 1993; however, the corresponding course book notes in table D 4/2: “Foreign section is partially not processed”. The table contains the aforementioned Hellas-Express 335 with route Budapest - Belgrade - Athens, but only in this one direction, as well as the sleeper and couchette train D 210/211 Attika in both directions , which should run daily until mid-October and from the end of March and in between three times a week. He bears a footnote “about Hegyeshalom - Subotica - Gevgelija; without stopping in Hungary and Yugoslavia, only allowed for travelers from / to Greece ”and shows no traffic stops between Vienna and the Greek border station Idomeni, but a journey time about two hours longer than before - apparently because of the war-related detour.

It is not known exactly when the Attica actually drove between Germany and Greece for the last time. At times he is said to have even taken a detour via Budapest and Bucharest.

For the first time, the DB timetable for the 1994/95 annual timetable (valid from May 29, 1994) no longer lists any direct trains between Germany and Greece. However, it includes a connection with a change in Vienna. From Vienna at 7:05 p.m. a train 347 went to Budapest (at 10:38 p.m.), which according to the DB timetable carried through coaches from Vienna to Athens (allegedly only seated coaches). In Budapest, the aforementioned Hellas-Express 335 started at 0.30 a.m. via Belgrade to Athens, where it arrived at 6.30 a.m. - so you spent two nights and a day on the train again, if this connection was really operated like this, because the table is back the note “foreign section partially not processed”. The 1995/96 annual timetable, however, shows the same situation (with the exception of an arrival in Athens 10 minutes later), which indicates that this connection actually existed at least temporarily. (The information given also applies to the opposite direction; the train numbers are lower by one.)

With the beginning of the summer timetable on June 2, 1996, however, the continuous connection between Vienna and Athens was also given up (according to the DB timetable); Instead, the Hellas Express 335/334 only ran from Budapest (now 11.00 a.m.) to Thessaloniki (at 9.55 a.m.), so that several changes were required on the way to Athens. The time of the "old" Hellas Express was finally over. The “new” (Hungary) Hellas Express was also discontinued after a few years. In summer 2009 there were only trains from Thessaloniki via Sofia to Bucharest and via Skopje to Belgrade; There were no longer any continuous connections from Athens to other countries, contrary to the timetables that were then posted and published on the Internet.

Today (2017) the train 334/335 Hellas runs daily overnight between Belgrade and Thessaloniki, which has taken over the traditional name of the Hellas-Express and the train number 334/335 of the "Hungarian" Hellas-Express. Before all international traffic to / from Greece was discontinued in 2011–2014, through coaches of MÁV also ran with this train from / to Thessaloniki at times . However, there is currently rail replacement traffic between the Macedonian border town of Gevgelija and Thessaloniki, as the railway line is closed on the Greek side. The train consists of a Macedonian couchette car and a Macedonian and two Serbian seated cars.

Private successor offers

However, this gap in the offer of the (former) state railways called private operators to the scene. In 2007 at the latest, the so-called Optima Express was launched, a motorail train between Villach and Thessaloniki, which, however, has only been running between Villach and the Turkish border station Edirne since around 2010. The attempt by another private company (ETEX Euroturk Express) to set up a car train service between Bonn-Beuel and Cerkezköy near Istanbul led to a well-used premiere train (5 ÖBB couchette cars, 2 company cars and 7 car transport cars) on July 24, 2011 but ultimately fizzled out again after a short time.

In 2011, in the course of austerity measures by the Greek state railway OSE, all cross-border passenger rail traffic to and from Greece was temporarily suspended. This was resumed in May 2014 with trains running from Thessaloniki to Sofia, Skopje and Belgrade. As an alternative to the transfer connections via the Balkans, there is still the fairly rapid train journey along the Italian Adriatic to Brindisi or Bari , from where u. a. There are ferry connections to Patras ( Peloponnese ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b worldexpresses.com
  2. ^ Official timetable of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, summer 1958 to summer 1961
  3. ^ Official timetable of the Deutsche Bundesbahn, summer 1963
  4. vagonweb.cz
  5. Course book of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Deutsche Bundesbahn, complete edition, annual timetable 1992/93, part B (remote connections), chapter 'Innovations and changes', table D 4
  6. ^ Article "Motorail train to Istanbul" in the railway forum "Drehscheibe-online". Retrieved September 13, 2015 .
  7. ^ Article "Private motorail train from Bonn-Beuel" in the railway forum Drehscheibe-online. Retrieved September 13, 2015 .
  8. International access offers on the website of the Greek Railways OSE (in English). Retrieved September 12, 2015 .