Nature Park Express
The Nature Park Express , in the short form NPE called, is a train from May to October on weekends and public holidays, the Upper Danube Nature Park between Sigmaringen and Tuttlingen opens by train and also the nature park with the city of Blumberg , the starting point of the steam engine rides on the Wutachtalbahn , connects.
history
The Nature Park Express goes back to an initiative of the Federal Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND), the local transport company Baden-Württemberg , the districts of Tuttlingen and Sigmaringen , the Deutsche Bahn and the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn . The aim was to better develop the Upper Danube Nature Park, created in 1980, by rail. The Nature Park Express was finally set up in 1984, but initially only ran on two to four Sundays a year. Initially, the Nature Park Express only drove within the nature park between Sigmaringen and Tuttlingen. After the reactivation of the northern Wutachtalbahn section between Immendingen and Blumberg for the ring train service in December 2004, the train has been running via Tuttlingen to Blumberg since May 2005. In 2009, 17,724 people still used the train, in 2010 there were only 13,946 passengers due to the bad weather and the soccer World Cup . That is 21.3 percent less than in the previous year. Thus, an average of 263 passengers per day were carried. The Obere Donau Nature Park Association was forced to make up for a deficit of around 2,300 euros. In comparison, this corresponds to almost twice the sum of the annual donations from private individuals to the nature park association.
business
Today the Nature Park Express runs every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday between May and October and is largely geared towards tourism in the region. Its traffic times are based on the one hand on cycle tourism in the Danube Valley and on the other hand on the steam locomotive season on the Wutachtalbahn. The train is operated by the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn (HzL), uses the Tuttlingen – Inzigkofen line and then runs via Immendingen on the Wutachtalbahn to Blumberg. Between Tuttlingen and Blumberg it replaces individual ring trains, between Tuttlingen and Sigmaringen it is used in addition to the regular trains. Diesel railcars of the type NE 81 , which are equipped with a bicycle transport car, are used. The bicycle transport wagon with special paintwork, the unmistakable trademark of the Nature Park Express, adorns the stylized, curved course of the Danube on a beige background in blue and reddish brown. It was converted from an express train mail car. The railcars bear the lettering of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn in reddish brown on beige. In the past, on days that are heavily frequented by tourists, one or two additional passenger cars were added to the train. A wide variety of teams were formed in the 1990s. It could be that a HzL railcar was coupled with a local train - UIC-X car of the DB and a Regional Express - double-decker car .
With the exception of the Tuttlingen Zentrum stop, the NPE stops at all existing stations and runs twice a day between Sigmaringen and Blumberg and also once only within the nature park between Sigmaringen and Tuttlingen. The financing of the train, 50 percent of which is provided by sponsors, is exceptional. In addition to the districts of Tuttlingen and Sigmaringen, various companies from the region are also involved here.
Worth mentioning
The Swabian toy manufacturer Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH issued a special edition of the bicycle transport car for the H0 gauge in 1996 and 1997 . For each year, the models were true to the original with the current special paintwork "Nature Park Express - Recreation for people and the environment" with the logos of various regional companies and institutions.
Movie
- SWR: Eisenbahn-Romantik (episode 320), broadcast on February 7, 1999
Web links
- Information on the side of the Zweckverband Ringzug
- Description on the website of the Upper Danube Nature Park
- Information about the train on the website of the city of Blumberg
Footnotes
- ↑ Ursula Mallkowsky: At a glance: Obere Donau Nature Park . In: Südkurier of April 3, 2010
- ↑ Kurt Löscher: Nature Park Express with a minus record . In: Südkurier of November 22, 2010
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Information from the VCD
- ↑ http://www.swr.de/eisenbahn-romantik/archiv/320/index.html
