Post InterCity

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The night-time ExprIC trains (“Post-Intercitys”) essentially consisted of rail mail cars that were made for 200 km / h

The Post Intercity from 1980 to 1997, a fast nocturnal form of the railway mail -Verkehrs as part of a decades-long cooperation between German Federal Railroad (from 1994: German Bahn AG ) and German Federal Post (from 1995: German Post AG ). He was commonly known right from its introduction in 1980 to post-IC called officially in the timetable to 1995, however, with the genus Express Express -IC referred (abbreviation ExprIC , in the course book tables Ex IC ); from 1995 to 1997 it was also officially abbreviated as PIC .

The trains operating under this category transported letters and freight mail at speeds of up to 200 km / h. A ExprIC consisted of Bahnpostwagen the genus Postmrz in which postal workers sorted while driving letters and packages.

Not to be confused is the 1997 set ExprIC or PIC with the also night trains running freight train genus of Parcel InterCity (PIC) , which was established in 1999/2000 and operated until 2011 under this name. It transports (even today) mail containers and swap bodies at initially up to 160 km / h, now a maximum of 140 km / h.

The Bundespost's IC night rail mail network

Mailbox of a rail mail car around 1990
Interior of a rail mail car from the 1980s
Train destination sign of a mail car; the one-week circuit also includes two journeys in ExIC trains on Saturday and Sunday

The routes and stations served were roughly the same as those of the intercity trains operating during the day , but the ExprIC did not run every hour, but only once per night for each connection. In contrast to IC traffic during the day, however, the exchange of through coaches played a major role in the night mail network, which also explains some of the shorter train routes such as Hagen - Cologne, Nuremberg - Mainz, Munich - Fulda and Stuttgart - Mannheim: These short journeys largely consisted of through coaches that were attached to other (long-distance) ExprIC trains in their terminus.

While other mail trains such as For example, the ExprD or ExprE trains often also carried freight wagons to transport parcels, but the ExprIC did not do this, as freight wagons would have limited the speed of the trains to 120 km / h. In some cases, however, the ExprIC trains, in addition to the rail mail cars, also carried DB baggage cars approved for 200 km / h , which they used for the transport of express goods . In contrast to the intercity trains that run during the day, the ExprIC stopped by default not only 2 minutes at the subway stations, but usually 4 or more minutes, which allowed the complete unloading and loading of mail, while during the day in D- and IC- Sometimes the loading business had to be stopped incompletely and the mail then took detours.

Since the ExprIC trains stopped at normal platforms for loading and unloading and the rail mail cars had a slot for letters at which the destination station of the train was listed, every post customer could still send letters on the journey at night, usually on reached their recipient the following morning, provided that their direction coincided sufficiently with that of the train. The travel times of the ExprIC trains were contained in the so-called postal rate book , which could be viewed and purchased in the post offices. A letterbox on the vehicle had been known for decades from rail mail cars in trains and from the post buses that operated with the Federal Post Office until 1985, but the ExprIC was the first to ensure particularly fast long-distance mail transport overnight.

Starting position

Since 1961 the Bundespost had set up a night airmail network for fast mail transport over long distances within the Federal Republic - in 1977, for example, flights from and to Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Berlin-Tegel, Cologne / Bonn met in Frankfurt between 11:50 p.m. and 1:40 p.m. to exchange mail. Nuremberg, Stuttgart and Munich.

At this time there were also long-running rail mail cars that were carried in express trains or (especially overnight) in their own express freight trains ( type Expr ), but these connections were to reach the destination "E + 1" (delivery closest Working day) only partially suitable: The time slots of the night express trains did not always match the needs of the Post optimally, and the night express trains had numerous longer stops for loading and unloading and thus had comparatively low average speeds.

For example, Expr 14010 (Munich - Hamm / Westphalia) took 15 hours and 42 minutes from its departure station (8:06 p.m.) to Dortmund (11:48 a.m.) in the summer of 1977, almost twice as long as the ExprIC 14010 (Munich 8:50 p.m. - Dortmund), which ran seven years later 5.39). The long journey time resulted mainly from long stops on the way: only 3 of the 18 stops were shorter than 10 minutes; the longest stops lasted 69 minutes (Stuttgart), 46 minutes (Cologne-Eifeltor), 40 minutes (Ulm), 36 minutes (Oberhausen) and 33 minutes (Duisburg). Since the train also carried post freight cars of types 2ss-t / 13 and 2ss-t / 15, its maximum speed was also limited to 120 km / h. He could only be used to transport letters at night on the southern sections of his route.

In 1979 the Federal Railroad condensed its Intercity system to an hourly service and both car classes. However, because the IC as the new top offer should be as fast as possible, not only were stops on the way in less important train stations canceled, but the stopping time was limited to usually 2 minutes, which was often insufficient for a complete exchange of mail. Therefore, apart from a few exceptions, ICs no longer carried baggage and mail cars, unlike conventional express trains. In addition, IC trains were generally equipped with locomotives and wagons that allowed a speed of 200 km / h, even if this could initially only be achieved on a few sections due to the line equipment.

Development of the fast night rail mail network

Since a number of express trains were converted into ICs when the IC network was consolidated, the possibilities for mail transport in high-speed long-distance trains were reduced. This was counteracted quickly. Starting in 1979, the Bundespost converted a number of its rail mail cars for a maximum speed of 200 km / h so that they could run on individual IC trains (sometimes only on individual days of the week). At that time, the DB only had one type of locomotive that was approved for 200 km / h, namely the class 103 express locomotive, which can be found in almost all ICs . Since these locomotives could only be used very little at night, it made sense to create a fast night mail network. In 1980, for example, a fast night train post connection between Hamburg and Basel or Stuttgart was put into operation. It proved its worth, and the Bundespost began to build a network:

“In the night rail mail network, the first line of which was installed on June 2, 1980, the test on the routes from Hamburg to Basel and Stuttgart was continued in 1981 and extended to the connections Hamburg - Cologne and Hanover - Düsseldorf. The train pair Hamburg - Cologne also serves Bremen, Osnabrück, Münster, Hamm, Hagen and Wuppertal, with the train pair Hanover - Düsseldorf to Minden, Herford, Bielefeld, Hamm, Dortmund, Bochum, Essen and Duisburg. In Hamm, both trains exchange rail mail and through coaches so that both relations are linked.

The Bundespost used a total of around 650 of its own rail mail cars for the transport of mail by rail. In addition, the Federal Railroad provides around three thousand freight wagons for the post on average every day. On the other hand, 50 mail cars are now being converted into DB baggage cars. "

In a third step, the network for the 1982 summer timetable was completed so that it was largely congruent with the network of IC trains that ran every hour during the day:

“Post express trains: On May 23, 1982, a further seven fast night trains of this type of train were added to the eight existing Expr-IC trains operated by the Bundespost. They serve the routes Hamburg - Fulda - Munich, Dortmund - Stuttgart - Munich, Dortmund - Mainz - Nuremberg and Cologne - Hagen in addition to the previous connections. 15 of these night mail trains now run on the trunk lines of the federal railway network. As a rule, the Expr-IC trains run five times a week from Monday / Tuesday to Friday / Saturday. This results in operating expenses of more than 30,000 train kilometers per week or one and a half million train kilometers per year. The new transport concept is a supplement to the rail mail cars that are still used in passenger trains, the night air mail network and the transport of mail on the road. It is noteworthy that around two thirds of the roughly thirty million letters sent every day are transported by rail. "

Timetable examples of the heyday

During the heyday of the Post-IC network, the following ExprIC trains ran in the summer timetable of 1988 from Monday / Tuesday to Friday / Saturday:

  • ExprIC 14010/11, 14033, 14050/51 on the route Munich / Nuremberg - Mainz - Hagen / Dortmund
  • ExprIC 14030/31, 14040/41 on the Hamburg / Hanover - Hamm - Cologne / Düsseldorf route
  • ExprIC 14070/71/72, 14090/91 on the Basel / Stuttgart - Mannheim - Frankfurt - Fulda - Hanover - Hamburg route
  • ExprIC 14080/81/83 on the route Munich (- Nuremberg) - Würzburg - Fulda (- Hamburg)

as well as on Saturday / Sunday and Sunday / Monday nights:

  • ExprIC 14078/79, 14088/89 on the Basel / Munich - Fulda - Hamburg route

In the same timetable period, a total of 57 ExprD trains, 58 ExprE trains, as well as some empty passenger trains and ordinary freight trains with escorted rail mail cars ran on different days of traffic in the DB area. There were also numerous regular passenger trains with attached rail mail cars, including individual IC / EC trains, these mainly in southern and western Germany in the evening hours in a south-north direction such as B.

  • On Saturdays, EC 4 (Sestri Levante - Dortmund) ran a post coach Basel SBB 17.17 - Dortmund 23.17
  • EC 28 (Vienna - Dortmund) ran a post car every day except Saturdays Frankfurt 21.48 - Cologne 0.11 (further 0.50 with ExprE 14243 to Hamm 4.21)
  • IC 574 (Basel SBB - Hamburg) ran a post coach from Basel SBB 16.17 - Frankfurt 19.15 Monday to Friday
  • IC 610 (Salzburg - Stuttgart - Wiesbaden) drove a post car on Saturdays from Munich 5.49 pm - Mainz 22.11 (further 0.44 with ExprD 14124 to Cologne 2.55)
  • IC 612 (Munich - Stuttgart - Dortmund) ran a post car every day except Saturdays from Munich 16.49 - Cologne 22.54 (further 0.20 with IC 749 to Dortmund 1.39)
  • IC 622 (Munich - Dortmund) ran a mail car from Monday to Friday, Nuremberg 17.19 - Cologne 22.00
  • IC 662 (Munich - Wiesbaden) ran a mail car on Sundays from Nuremberg 20.19 - Frankfurt 22.38 (from Munich 15.15 with E 3008 to Nuremberg 17.46)
  • IC 670 (Basel SBB - Frankfurt) ran a post coach from Basel SBB 20.17 - Frankfurt 23.16 Monday to Friday

After reunification

After the reunification of the two German states, ExprIC trains were also set up in the new federal states. The 1993/94 annual timetable, for example, lists 46 ExprIC trains in the old federal states (now in the train number range 390xx) and the following 8 ExprIC in the new federal states:

  • ExprIC 39112 and 39168 Leipzig - Berlin
  • ExprIC 39142/49 Berlin - Magdeburg and back
  • ExprIC 39159 Berlin - Halle - Eisenach
  • ExprIC 39161 Bitterfeld - Leipzig - Zwickau
  • ExprIC 39171 Leipzig - Dresden
  • ExprIC 39179 Berlin - Dresden - Chemnitz (- Zwickau)

There were no continuous pure mail trains (ExprIC, ExprD, ExprE) between old and new federal states in 1993/94, only rail mail cars ran in regular IC and D trains.

“It quickly became clear that the intercity night mail train network established in the old federal states between 1980 and 1982 should not be extended to the new federal states. From the outset, the railway mail was only a core function in the new, enlarged Federal Republic. Even in the old federal territory it was not possible to set up a nationwide 'night jump' in the tight time window from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., which could fully guarantee the delivery of letters according to the formula E + 1 (delivery day of a letter with delivery to the recipient on the following day) . The night airmail network and partial road transport were always required as an accompanying measure. "

Decline

Due to the speed of the ExprIC trains compared to the numerous freight trains that run at 90, 100 or rarely up to 120 km / h at night, but in between relatively long stays in train stations, the ExprIC used a disproportionately large amount of line capacity. They were given a very high priority in operational implementation (directly below urgent relief trains), as they should be avoided at the end of their nightly journey with the IC hourly service that started early in the morning. The high prioritization, however, led to overtaking stops with sometimes considerable waiting times in the freight traffic, which by its nature could not be precisely planned in advance.

In addition, in the 1990s, the Post separated mail and parcel services more strongly and concentrated both across Germany on 83 mail and 33 freight mail centers, almost all of which had no siding and were also often built far away from the main railway lines; In this concept, the truck was considered the means of transport of choice. In the mid-1990s there were significant restrictions in rail mail traffic and the ExprIC was renamed PIC:

"In the express freight and mail train service, from the 1995/96 timetable instead of the previous 117 ExprIC, ExprD and ExprE, there will only be 23 PostInterCity (PIC) only in the old federal states."

The 83 mail centers planned as part of the “Brief 2000” concept began operating successively from 1994 to 1998; they replaced around 1000 letter processing stations in which letters were mostly sorted by hand. The Post therefore stopped all classic rail mail traffic and with it the last PostInterCity trains:

“On May 31, 1997, Deutsche Post AG canceled its mail delivery with DB. After parcel transport was discontinued in 1995, the use of own mail trains was uneconomical due to insufficient capacity utilization, and the 83 new letter centers are planned without a siding anyway. DB's turnover in the transport of letter post had already fallen from DM 100 million to DM 40 million. In the end, 16 Post-IC trains ran between the rail post offices during the night jump. The parcel transport in container trains, which started to a small extent (20%, 65% on the weekend), remains unaffected. "

Deutsche Post justified this step with the fact that DB Cargo was not able to offer regular timetable routes for freight trains at night .

“On May 31, 1997, Deutsche Post AG stopped sending mail by rail in Germany after 148 years. In the 1996/97 timetable year, only 2-5% of the 65 million letters a day were carried with the DB, and in the last few weeks of operation the mail trains drove around practically empty. The last train was IC 39075 Hamburg - Frankfurt (Main) Hbf, the 1.6. Arrived at 3:29 a.m. For DB this means a loss of income of around DM 40 million per year. The new letter transport concept 'Brief 2000' no longer relied on the train, which allegedly could not guarantee the desired time slot between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. for the transport. At the same time, postal traffic in the Netherlands also ended. Parcel transport in container trains remains unaffected, around 20-25% on weekdays and 60% on weekends. The post train stations, some of which were only built a few years ago, are now waiting for new investors. Most of the 200 modern mail wagons approved for 200 km / h were taken over by the DB to convert them into baggage vehicles for continuous baggage handling. "

In the years to come, the share of parcel shipments transported by rail fell from Monday to Friday to around ten percent (1999: around 800 t of 8,000 t of parcels per day) and on weekends to around 50 percent. These were predominantly relations that could not be operated overnight, neither in road nor in rail traffic. From June 1, 1997, the freight train class IKP (InterKombi train for mail and parcels) applied specifically to this combined transport of Deutsche Post AG and other parcel services.

From January 11, 2000, the Parcel InterCity , which was contractually agreed in July 1999, succeeded the ExprIC and PostInterCity trains in a certain way, but now limited to the transport of parcels.

Transport of letters

In the nightly Expr IC, both so-called "all-rail mail" wagons (ie "transport and processing of all types of mail in accompanied rail mail wagons") and so-called "parcel train mail" wagons (also accompanied by postal workers, but without reworking) were added. In the case of the Allesbahnpost wagons, one focus of the revision was on value, express and registered mail. Basically, only so-called "E + 1" items were distributed, ie items that the Post aimed to deliver within one working day after posting. (At that time, for example, this goal existed for letters of all kinds, but not for consignments of goods .) On weekends, the proportion of parcel rail mail cars without modification was significantly higher than on nights between working days.

The staff of an all-rail mail car consisted of the operations manager, who was paid according to salary group A 9 (who was also responsible for value, express and registered mail) as well as five other employees whose tasks were exchanged: two rejectors (who put the letters into the had to throw mail bags hanging ready), two sacks and one sack.

Transport of packages

Freight mail (parcels, small parcels, heavy Infopost) were collected in parcel handling points , which were mostly located near train stations. The majority of the freight mail shipments for long-distance areas were not transported with ExprIC trains, but first placed in roll containers and then loaded into "Transportbahnpost" wagons ( TBp ), i.e. into freight wagons - often those with sliding side walls (two-axle types Post 2ss- t / 15 and Hbiqss as well as the four-axle type Habiqss), which were approved for 120 km / h. Some of the wagons were owned by the Post, some of them (especially the four-axle vehicles) were rented permanently from the Transwaggon company or temporarily from the DB. The wagons were lined up in long-distance traffic in ExprD and ExprE mail trains as well as in freight trains, in local traffic partly also in fast local trains.

When, in the first half of the 1990s, Deutsche Post's parcel processing was concentrated in 33 freight post centers (FZ) which, with the exception of FZ Bruchsal, had no siding, the importance of pure mail trains also decreased. The majority of the shipments were now transported on the road in swap bodies .

literature

  • Hans-Wolfgang Scharf / Friedhelm Ernst: From the long-distance express train to the Intercity (pages 497 to 502), EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1983, ISBN 3-88255-751-6
  • Volkhard Stern: Bahnpost im Einsatz , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-88255-890-6

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deutsche Bundespost: Postkursbuch I (mail transport on railways) , summer 1988, page 9 (overview map of the IC night rail network of the Deutsche Bundespost)
  2. ^ Volkhard Stern: Bahnpost im Einsatz , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-88255-890-6 , page 63
  3. ^ Deutsche Bundespost: Postkursbuch I (mail transport on railways) , summer 1977, page 9 (overview map of the inner German night air mail network of the Deutsche Bundespost)
  4. ^ Lok-Magazin Jahrbuch 1 - News from the Rails 1981/82 , edited by Alfred B. Gottwald with the assistance of Helmut Roggenkamp, ​​Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart, 1982, ISBN 3-440-05046-7 , p. 7
  5. ^ Lok-Magazin Jahrbuch 2 - News from the Rails 1982/83 , edited by Alfred B. Gottwald with the collaboration of Helmut Roggenkamp, ​​Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart, 1983, ISBN 3-440-05164-1 , p. 14
  6. ↑ Deutsche Bundespost: Postkursbuch I (mail transport on railways) , summer 1988, pages 14–15 (list of express freight trains with mail transport and freight trains with escorted rail posts)
  7. ^ Deutsche Bundespost: Postkursbuch I (mail transport on railways) , May 23, 1993 to May 28, 1994, page 18 (list of Expr IC trains with mail transport)
  8. ↑ Volkhard Stern: Bahnpost im Einsatz , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-88255-890-6 , page 92
  9. ↑ Helmut Roggenkamp: Year Book Rail Transport 14 - Current Issues from German Rail Transport in 1994 , Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn, 1995, ISBN 3-927587-41-9 , p. 15
  10. ↑ Deutsche Post DHL Group - History. Retrieved January 13, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Helmut Roggenkamp: Yearbook Rail Transport 16 - Current Issues from German Rail Transport in 1996 , Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn, 1997, ISBN 3-927587-78-8 , p. 13
  12. ↑ Helmut Roggenkamp: Jahrbuch Eisenbahnverkehr 17 - Current issues from the German rail transport system of 1997 , Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn, 1998, ISBN 3-927587-89-3 , p. 28
  13. ↑ a b c Ralf Heinz: The ParcelInterCity . In: Miba-Spezial , issue 51, p. 98
  14. ↑ Helmut Roggenkamp: Jahrbuch Eisenbahnverkehr 17 - Current issues from the German rail transport system of 1997 , Verlag Kenning, Nordhorn, 1998, ISBN 3-927587-89-3 , table on p. 28
  15. ↑ Photo of the mail train IKP 52724 on October 12, 1997 at www.zu-den-zuegen.de. Retrieved January 14, 2016 .