Saßnitz Express
The Saßnitz-Express (from 1994 Sassnitz-Express ) was a long-distance train that ran between Germany and Sweden via the Königslinie from 1955 to 1998 . It was initially conceived as a connection between Sweden and the West German Federal Republic of Germany , but for decades it was the most important night connection between Berlin and Sweden.
history
1955–1958: express railcar between Saßnitz and Munich
In addition to the Balt-Orient-Express , which also ran on the royal line from 1955 to 1962 , the Saßnitz-Express, named after the municipality of Saßnitz (from 1993 Sassnitz ), the German starting point of the royal line, was the second named international long-distance train of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR ) in the GDR . It was introduced for the 1955 summer timetable with train number FDt 129/130 ( called Ft 129/130 on the DB ) and in the first few years only ran two days a week in summer. Only in the winter timetable 1956/57 did it operate as required. As a route, the train initially received the connection between the Sassnitz Hafen station and Munich , whereby the GDR including Berlin was initially crossed without scheduled stops. In the port of Saßnitz there was a direct connection to the ferry to and from Trelleborg . In Sweden there was a suitable direct connection between Trelleborg and Stockholm . In contrast to the Balt-Orient-Express and other hauled trains, passengers in Saßnitz and Trelleborg had to change between ferry and train. The first or last stop on West German soil was Hof Hauptbahnhof . From the summer schedule of 1957, the train also stopped in Berlin Ostbahnhof .
With the establishment of the train, the German Reichsbahn connected the hope with attractive times parts of the foreign exchange promising to steer long-distance traffic between Sweden and the Federal Republic of Germany on their routes. Since the Vogelfluglinie was still running on the provisional ferry connection to Großenbrode Kai at the time of its introduction , the travel time between Stockholm and Munich was around two to three hours shorter than trains through Denmark, despite the long control stay at Gutenfürst station on the inner-German border. The DR used one of the few remaining comfortable express railcars from the pre-war era. However, the first proposal for the establishment had already been made in 1953 by the Swedish State Railways (SJ) at the European timetable conference in Athens .
1958–1959: Train hauled from Malmö
In 1958, the Reichsbahn converted the Saßnitz Express into a locomotive hauled train with a dining car . The now FD 129/130 (called F 129/130 at DB) ran daily, but still only in summer. He also received a sleeping car to Malmö , which was the only car on the train to take the ferry to Trelleborg.
The route north of Hof on the Mehltheuer – Weida railway line, classified as a branch line, and on via Gera , Zeitz and Weißenfels to Halle (Saale) Hbf was unusual for long-distance trains in domestic German traffic . This relatively slow route was usually only used by long-distance trains for diversions and only used as planned in a few timetable years. The train run from Halle via Dessau Hbf in the direction of Berlin. The Saßnitz-Express ran north of Berlin via Neubrandenburg . With the exception of the long-distance stations on the Berlin Stadtbahn and Saßnitz Hafen, the Saßnitz Express did not have any scheduled stops in Berlin and GDR territory that were permitted for passenger exchange.
1959–1973: Express train between Stockholm and Munich
Just one year later, the train route was changed again in 1959. The Saßnitz-Express, now numbered as D 129/130, now ran all year round and daily, the sleeping car run was limited to the route between Munich and Berlin due to a changed timetable. In addition, he no longer used the route via Gutenfürst and Hof, but via the Probstzella border station . A couchette car and a normal seating car went to Malmö from Munich . The Saßnitz-Express thus established the night connection between southern Germany and Berlin. In addition to couchette and sleeping cars from Munich, the train in Nuremberg received another couchette car as a through car from Stuttgart .
Until 1961, the train still served traffic stops in the GDR south of Berlin, these ceased to exist after the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961. North of Berlin, the train also carried a dining car to Saßnitz and a sleeping car from Berlin to Stockholm. In addition, the Saßnitz-Express took over the sleeping car from Warsaw to Stockholm, which was previously run on the Balt-Orient-Express . The latter ceased to exist in 1962. From the summer timetable in 1965, through coaches equipped with RIC sleeping cars of the SŽD between Stockholm or Oslo and Moscow supplemented the train trunk of the D 130 in the direction of Berlin on several days of the week , in the opposite direction these cars ran on other trains.
In 1968, the railways involved changed the schedule of the Saßnitz-Express again and the route between Munich and Berlin was no longer covered at night, but during the day. This eliminated the need for sleeping and couchette cars between Berlin and destinations in southern Germany. For this, the SŽD through coaches were now transported in both directions in the Saßnitz Express, which again received new train numbers and was driven as D 127/128. Another sleeping car was also in use between Berlin and Malmö due to demand. The previously introduced Berlinaren took over the previous timetable of the Saßnitz-Express in daytime traffic over the Königslinie . In 1971 the train received a sleeping car again from Munich, which, however, ran north of Berlin, together with a seat car also coming from Munich, as a through car on the Ostsee Express to Copenhagen . A year later, the route south of Berlin changed from the Frankenwaldbahn via Probstzella to the previous route via Hof and Gutenfürst, after the GDR had approved the use of this crossing for transit traffic to West Berlin .
1973–1992: Stockholm - Berlin
The route of the train was fundamentally changed again for the 1973 summer timetable. The Ostsee-Express took over the section between Munich and Berlin, the Saßnitz-Express only ran between Berlin Ostbahnhof and Stockholm. The sleeper runs north of Berlin remained unchanged, and a through car from and to Hanover was added to the train, with which the West Berlin Zoologischer Garten station was still integrated into the train run. The Saßnitz-Express was given new train numbers again, as D 318/319 it ran until 1998. In 1979, the train route was shortened to the Berlin - Malmö section. Since then, the sleeping car Berlin - Stockholm has only traveled in the direction of Berlin in the Saßnitz Express, in the opposite direction in the Berlinaren. The Hanoverian through car was replaced by a car from or to Munich. From 1983 the Munich through car was discontinued. To connect West Berlin, the Saßnitz Express received a wing train with the D 1318/1319, which only ran between Berlin Ostbahnhof and Berlin Zoologischer Garten and consisted only of sleeping cars and one or two seating cars. From 1986 the Saßnitz-Express got new through car runs, sleeping cars between Belgrade or Budapest and Malmö on two days a week and a bed car Budapest - Malmö on the other three days of the week. South of Berlin these wagons ran in Vindobona or Hungaria, depending on the direction . A year later, the Deutsche Reichsbahn changed the terminus in Berlin on October 15, 1987, the Saßnitz-Express no longer served the Berlin Ostbahnhof, but the Berlin-Lichtenberg station . The D 1318/1319 was also extended to Lichtenberg as a feeder to and from West Berlin. The sleeping car between Moscow and Stockholm was shortened to the route between Moscow and Malmö in the same year. For the 1989 summer timetable, the railways involved moved the through coaches from Belgrade and Budapest to a separate train route.
1992–1998 / 2000: Malmö - Berlin
After the reunification in the GDR , passenger numbers fell noticeably. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union , there was no longer any need for the sleeping car runs to Malmö and Oslo, which until 1991 had been run on individual weekdays in the Saßnitz Express. In 1992 DR and SJ also discontinued the Stockholm - Berlin sleeping car. In the years that followed, the Saßnitz-Express was limited to the route between Berlin and Malmö, and there were no longer through car runs.
From January 1998, the ferries, the king line ran instead of the old city harbor in Sassnitz to the district Mukran located Ferry Mukran on the 1986 for the ferry to Klaipeda was built in Lithuania and was referred to the closure of the old city harbor as "Sassnitz". The D 318/319 was given the new name "Nils Holgerson". Two years later, the DB AG stopped its long-distance traffic on the Königslinie. The Swedish state railway SJ then started operating the Berlin Night Express as a replacement with the private railway company Georg Verkehrsorganisation as a German partner . With changing Swedish partners, this train, which runs on certain days, has been the only remaining train that has been hauled over the royal line for several years.
Vehicle use
Railcar
To start operations in 1955, the Deutsche Reichsbahn used one of the three remaining pre-war Cologne-type railcars . In 1957 it was replaced by a Leipzig type railcar , as the Cologne type railcar was needed for the newly introduced Vindobona between Berlin and Vienna . Just one year later, the Saßnitz-Express was converted into a locomotive-hauled train.
Locomotives
The use of locomotives is no longer known for all timetable periods and sections. At the time of the changeover to a locomotive hauled train, steam traction still prevailed in 1958 . Both German railways mainly used their various Pacific designs . Only between Munich and Regensburg was the Bundesbahn's line electrified. She usually used the E 18 series there . Class 01 locomotives from the Hof depot were used north of Regensburg . The Deutsche Reichsbahn mainly used locomotives of the DR series 03 and the DR series 03.10 . For the low mountain range north from Hof to Halle, passenger locomotives of the DR class 38.10 were used, because due to the gradients and low permissible axle loads on the branch line Mehltheuer – Weida neither the class 03 nor the locomotives of the DR class 39 otherwise used in front of express trains from Hof could be used.
From 1959, the train ran on the Frankenwaldbahn electrified on the West German side to Probstzella. For a long time the DB used almost exclusively pre-war electric locomotives there, in addition to the E 18, the outwardly very similar E 19 . In 1959, passenger locomotives of the 65.10 and 38.10 series were used in the GDR as far as Saalfeld, where the 03 series was switched to, because the segment turntable in the Probstzella border station did not allow larger locomotives to turn around. It was only after a bypass curve was built in the course of border security measures in 1961 that express steam locomotives were able to turn around using a triangular drive. These were then also used before the Saßnitz Express, but were gradually replaced by diesel locomotives of the DR class V 180 south of Berlin in the course of the structural change that also began at the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the 1960s .
During the brief renewed tour of Hof from 1972, diesel locomotives of the DB class 218 were already in use on the Deutsche Bundesbahn north of Regensburg . The Deutsche Reichsbahn had diesel locomotives of the V 180 series at the Reichenbach depot , which hauled the train as far as Berlin. North of Berlin - where the Saßnitz Express had its southern end point from 1973 - on the other hand, the oil-fired three-cylinder locomotives of the 03.10 series of the Stralsund depot, which were reconstructed with new boilers , remained in use until 1979 . They were replaced by the DR class 132 diesel locomotives procured from the Soviet Union . With the gradual electrification of the line between Berlin and Saßnitz, the Saßnitz-Express was transferred to the DR series 243 by mid-1989 . After the fall of the Wall, the faster variant of the DR series 212, derived from the series 243, was used last .
Fleet
The cars for the locomotive-hauled Saßnitz-Express were mainly provided by the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR). During the passage to Munich, the Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB) also took over part of the wagon provision from 1957 to 1979, although after the passage from Munich in 1973 only the Hanoverian through car was provided by the DB. In Sweden, the train received supplementary seating cars from the Swedish State Railways.
The sleeping and couchette cars were mainly operated by MITROPA , only the temporary through cars from the various Eastern European capitals were provided by the respective state railways there (to Warsaw by the PKP , to Moscow by the SŽD , to Budapest by the MÁV and to Belgrade by the JŽ ). An exception was the Stockholm - Berlin sleeping car, which came from the Swedish SJ until 1968, but was then also transferred to MITROPA. The Saßnitz-Express only ran dining cars on sections of the route; MITROPA also mostly provided these. Only in 1972/73 did the train between Munich and Berlin receive a combined seat / dining car of the DB for one year, which was operated by the West German DSG .
literature
- Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-88255-720-6 , pp. 79-85
Web links
- Werner Soelch: Germany-Sweden
- Werner Soelch: Sassnitz Express
- A prominent train , rail extra
- F-train Saßnitz-Express
- The 1958 project. F 129 / F 130 Saßnitz-Express
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR . Freiburg 2007, p. 79
- ^ Rail extra: A prominent train
- ↑ World of model railways: F-Zug Saßnitz-Express
- ^ The 1958 project: F 129 / F 130 • the DR timetable , accessed on April 26, 2016
- ↑ Berlin Railway Archives : Opening of the new ferry port for the Königslinie in Sassnitz-Mukran in January 1998 , accessed on April 25, 2016
- ^ The 1958 project: Only in summer '58: the Saßnitz-Express , accessed on April 27, 2016
- ^ Robin Garn: The class 03.10 of the Deutsche Reichsbahn , LOK Report-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-935909-23-5