Rheinblitz Group

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The Rheinblitz Group was a group of coordinated long-distance express trains with which the Deutsche Bundesbahn offered a network of high-quality long-distance transport for the first time after the Second World War .

history

Started in 1951

With the summer timetable of 1951, the system was set up with three (initially unnamed) trains. For this purpose, diesel railcars from various pre-war series , one VT 04 5 , three VT 06 1 and one VT 06 5 were brought together in Dortmund and thus three courses were offered:

These trains only ran the (old) 2nd class . The special thing was that the trains ran together over parts of their route, were brought together and then winged again. Ft 28 and Ft 38 left Dortmund separately, in quick succession, and headed for Cologne on different routes, once via Wuppertal-Elberfeld (today: Hauptbahnhof ) the second via Essen Hauptbahnhof . The trains were combined in Cologne Central Station and the Ft 8 starting here was also coupled. They ran as a train over the Left Rhine Line to Koblenz Hauptbahnhof , where the Ft 8 to Regensburg was uncoupled and continued as an independent journey over the Right Rhine Line. In order to avoid the Wiesbaden terminus, the train stopped in Wiesbaden Ost . He reached Regensburg via Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof and Würzburg Hauptbahnhof .

The two railcars that remained in Koblenz drove further on the left bank of the Rhine to Mainz main station and from there via the Rhein-Main-Bahn , the connecting curve at Groß Gerau-Dornberg station to the Riedbahn and to Mannheim main station . This path was chosen by the then head station Ludwigshafen to get around. In Mannheim, the two railcars were separated and continued their journey independently towards Basel and Munich. This program was also run in the opposite direction.

For the summer timetable 1952 the trains ran uniformly from / to Dortmund and were given names:

  • Ft 7/8 Rhein-Blitz
  • Ft 27/28 Rhein-Isar-Blitz
  • Ft 37/38 Rhine-Danube Blitz

From the winter timetable 1952/53, the Rhein-Isar-Blitz traveled with the Münchner Kindl (running route: Munich – Frankfurt). The new class VT 08 railcars were also gradually able to be used. For the 1953 summer timetable, the Montan-Express (route: Frankfurt– Luxembourg ) was set up and linked to the Rheinblitz Group in Koblenz for changing trains without being integrated into the train set.

Extension 1954

If a railcar failed , a replacement train hauled by locomotives had to be driven, which consisted of two (old) 2nd class cars and a dining car : the number of railcars available was initially too small to be able to keep a replacement vehicle. Another problem was that the limited seating capacity of the railcars was too small on sections of the route and could not be expanded.

In order to increase the seating capacity, the Rheinblitz Group was therefore strengthened by an additional route for the 1954 summer timetable: As Ft 137/138, a fourth railcar ran from Dortmund via Frankfurt and Würzburg to Munich. The train separation of the part going to Mannheim and the part going to Frankfurt was moved to Mainz. Since Ft 137/138 was leaving Mainz in a northerly direction to Wiesbaden, the other part of the train going south in the direction of Mannheim, this could happen at the same minute from the same track as the train had entered. The route of the Rhein-Donau-Blitz was shortened to Nuremberg because the train between Regensburg and Nuremberg was hardly used.

With the class reform, 3rd class was omitted from the 1956 summer timetable. The trains of the Rheinblitz Group now only ran the (new) 1st class. In addition, the train type "Ft" was dropped and was replaced by "F". In the northern section of the route, the new long-distance express train Ruhr-Paris (F 168/185) was added to the Rhine-Danube lightning between Dortmund and Cologne . One year later, with the introduction of the Trans-Europ-Express trains, it became the TEE, but continued in the direction of Paris, initially coupled with the Rhine-Danube Blitz , until 1958 . In the opposite direction, however, that was given up.

From 1958, the trains of the Rheinblitz Group were driven exclusively by VT 08 5 for the first time .

End of the Rheinblitz group

In the summer of 1959, electrification , coming from the south, had reached Dortmund and the services of the Rheinblitz Group, which had previously been operated as diesel multiple units , were replaced by wagon trains hauled by electric locomotives. F 137/138 was dropped, but F 37/38 was extended beyond Nuremberg to Munich. This train was named Hans Sachs .

Successor: winged train

F 7/27 and F 8/28 now exclusively bore the name Rheinblitz . They continued to run - also as locomotive-hauled trains - combined between Dortmund and Mannheim, whereby they went to Ludwigshafen on the left bank of the Rhine, but could bypass the terminal station there - as before - on a new bypass route. From 1967 the F 7/8 was extended beyond Basel to Zurich main station, which was reduced to a through car from 1969 .

The train numbers were changed for the 1971 summer timetable : the Rheinblitz to Basel was given the numbers F 100/101, the one to Munich F110 / 111. As early as the winter timetable of the same year they were reclassified as InterCity trains and kept their traditional name, Rheinblitz .

literature

  • Peter Goette: Light F-Trains of the Deutsche Bundesbahn . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-88255-729-9 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Gotte, p. 72, describes the station as "Wiesbaden Süd", a name that never existed. However, Wiesbaden Ost is in the south of Wiesbaden .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Goette, p. 68.
  2. ↑ Goette, p. 68.
  3. ↑ Goette, p. 72.
  4. ↑ Goette, p. 68.
  5. ↑ Goette, p. 72.
  6. ↑ Goette, pp. 72f.
  7. ^ Goette, pp. 73f, 123.
  8. ↑ Goette, p. 72.
  9. ↑ Goette, p. 76.
  10. ↑ Goette, p. 74.
  11. ↑ Goette, p. 75.
  12. ↑ Goette, p. 76.
  13. ↑ Goette, p. 76.
  14. ↑ Goette, p. 76.
  15. ↑ Goette, p. 77.