City Express

This article deals with the express train of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the GDR, for the suburban train of the Deutsche Bahn see Stadt-Express . For the express train of the Swiss Federal Railways, see city express train .

City express "Florence on the Elbe" in Dresden Central Station

City express "Florence on the Elbe" as an FDJ youth property

The City Express (train number preceded by Ex ) was the highest quality express connection of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR) until 1991 . Like the city ​​express service , it served traffic between East Berlin and the most important cities of the GDR. With the exception of Frankfurt (Oder) , Neubrandenburg and Cottbus, this included all district towns . Then there were Zwickau and Meiningen .

history

In October 1960 the DR introduced a city express service that connected most of the district capitals with East Berlin in the morning and evening and had few stops on the way. These trains were classified as normal D trains (train number with a prefixed D ) and mostly ran daily. In the 1970s, there was an urgent need to improve business and official travel to and from East Berlin as the capital. However, there was insufficient rolling stock to handle the traffic. The export of rolling stock to the Comecon countries had priority over the domestic demand. By chance, the necessary rolling stock got into the DR.

The Czechoslovak State Railways ( ČSD ) was unable to accept a series of first class Y / B-70 cars in 1976 . The DR then took over these 103 cars from Bautzen production . This enabled the city ​​express to be introduced in autumn 1976 . Usually the trains went from the district capitals to Berlin early in the morning and back again in the afternoon. Due to the small fleet of vehicles, only one pair of trains per day and route could be offered. The city express trains only ran from Monday to Friday, they partly replaced the connections of the city express trains. However, some of these trains remained even after the new service was introduced.

The city express differed in color from the other trains of the DR. The cars were painted in orange-beige. Both first and second class initially only had compartments with six seats. The 60 2nd class cars were fitted with synthetic leather instead of textile seat covers, and the 1st class cars were fitted with carpets. The Czechoslovak Dako brake was initially retained and only replaced with the KE brake type on the occasion of RAW tests . With the use of type Z2 coaches , the second class was given, as is customary in the GDR, a continuous bench seat with four seats, i.e. for eight people per compartment.

Promoted to the FDJ - youth object “City Express”, these trains represented an upscale passenger train service for business, party and official traffic in the GDR. This earned the trains the nickname “Bonzenschleuder”. The so-called construction worker delivery to East Berlin with these trains was also of great importance. While in the first few years there were only early connections to and late connections from Berlin in the city express service, in the course of time trains with new car deliveries were also carried on the routes to Erfurt , Leipzig and Dresden , which left Berlin in the morning and arrived there again in the evening. All of the city express trains carried a Mitropa dining car from the Reko car range .

In contrast to the Intercity of the Deutsche Bundesbahn , the GDR express service never had a regular frequency. It also differed from its western counterpart in terms of driving speed . The general maximum speed on the Deutsche Reichsbahn was only 120 km / h anyway. The fastest city express (Berlin– Schwerin ) had an average travel speed of 98 km / h, the slowest (Berlin– Meiningen ) 66 km / h. After German reunification, with the joint DB / DR annual timetable 1991/92, most of the city express trains were partly run as normal D trains or were completely abolished.

In international traffic, the railways of the GDR, Poland , Czechoslovakia and Hungary introduced Interexpress as a high-quality product from 1986 . These trains also ran until 1991.

Tariff

The use of the city express trains was subject to a surcharge . An express train surcharge was required in addition to the express train surcharge, which was two marks in the second class and zone I (up to 300 kilometers), four marks in the first class, and twice as much over 300 kilometers. The express train surcharge cost three marks in second class in zone I and five marks in zone II.

Routes and train lines

The overview is essentially based on literature source 2.

Surname	Departure station	Walkway	Destination station	first day of traffic	Train numbers	Car sequence from the first day Bme / WRGE / Ame	Composition from 1981/82 Bmhe / Bme / WRge / Ame
Elstertal	Gera Hbf	Leipzig Hbf - Berlin Schönefeld Airport	Berlin Ostbahnhof from May 23, 1977: Berlin-Lichtenberg	11/01/1976	Ex 100/107	Mon: 7/1/5 Tue: 6/1/5 Wed: 6/1/5 Thu: 6/1/5 Fri: 7/1/5
Stoltera	Rostock main station	Oranienburg	Berlin-Lichtenberg	11/15/1976	Ex 121/126	Mon: 6/1/3 Tue: 5/1/3 Wed: 5/1/3 Thu: 6/1/3 Fri: 6/1/3
Weever	Schwerin (Meckl) central station		Berlin-Lichtenberg	December 06, 1976	Ex 131/136	Mon: 5/1/3 Tue: 5/1/3 Wed: 5/1/3 Thu: 6/1/3 Fri: 6/1/3	Mon: 2/5/1/3 Tue: 0/5/1/3 Wed: 0/5/1/3 Thu: 0/6/1/3 Fri: 2/6/1/3
Börde	Magdeburg Central Station	since 25.09.1977: stop at Potsdam Hbf	Berlin-Lichtenberg May 23, 1977 to May 27, 1978: Berlin Ostbahnhof	11/29/1976	Ex 141/146	Mon: 7/1/3 Tue: 6/1/3 Wed: 6/1/3 Thu: 6/1/3 Fri: 7/1/3
Rennsteig	Meiningen (from 3:45 a.m.!)	Suhl - since May 15, 1984 Arnstadt Hbf (locomotive change / additional wagon ) - Erfurt Hbf - Halle (Saale) Hbf - Berlin-Schönefeld Airport	Berlin-Lichtenberg	10/25/1976	Ex 150/157	Mon: 7/1/5 Tue: 6/1/5 Wed: 6/1/5 Thu: 7/1/5: Fri: 7/1/5	Mon: 1/7/1/5 Tue: 0/6/1/5 Wed: 0/6/1/5 Thu: 1/7/1/5 Fri: 0/7/1/5
Florence on the Elbe	Dresden Central Station	Dresden-Neustadt	Berlin Ostbahnhof from May 23, 1977: Berlin-Lichtenberg	11/08/1976	Ex 170/177	Mon: 7/1/5 Tue: 6/1/5 Wed: 6/1/5 Thu: 6/1/5 Fri: 6/1/5	Mon: 1/7/1/5 Tue: 1/6/1/5 Wed: 1/6/1/5 Thu: 1/6/1/5 Fri: 1/6/1/5
Sachsenring	Zwickau (Sachs) main station	Karl-Marx-Stadt Hbf - Berlin-Schönefeld Airport from June 3, 1984: Leipzig Hbf	Berlin-Lichtenberg	11/22/1976	Ex 172/175 from 03.06.1984: Ex 160/167	Mon: 6/1/3 Tue: 6/1/3 Wed: 6/1/3 Thu: 6/1/3 Fri: 6/1/3	Mon: 3/6/1/3 Tue: 0/6/1/3 Wed: 0/6/1/3 Thu: 1/6/1/3 Fri: 3/6/1/3
Fichtelberg	Karl-Marx-Stadt main station	until May 29, 1989: Dresden-Neustadt	Berlin-Lichtenberg	06/03/1984	Ex 172/175	unknown
Lipsia	Berlin-Lichtenberg		Leipzig Central Station	May 27, 1979	Ex 161/166	unknown	at least one bmhe
Berlin Express	Berlin-Lichtenberg		Dresden Central Station	06/02/1985	Ex 171/176	unknown
Bear of Berlin	Berlin-Lichtenberg	Halle (Saale) central station	Erfurt central station	06/01/1986	Ex 151/156		Mon: 5/1/5 Tue: 5/1/5 Wed: 5/1/5 Thu: 5/1/5: Fri: 7/1/5.
Thomaner	Berlin-Lichtenberg		Leipzig Central Station	May 27, 1990	Ex 162/163	unknown

(As of May 31, 1991)

literature

• Georg Thielmann, Peter Knaack: Fast trains to Berlin: the history of the 'parade trains' of the DR 1960–1990. City express traffic and city express . Wachsenburg-Verlag, Arnstadt 2004; ISBN 3-935795-08-4 .
• Erich Preuß : The City Express of the Deutsche Reichsbahn , 1st edition, transpress Verlag, Stuttgart 2003; ISBN 3-613-71222-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Step's wagon archive
2. ↑ Erich Preuss: The City Express of the Deutsche Reichsbahn .

Web links

Commons : City Express  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Marius Emsel: Prestige object in rail traffic GDR express train: With the "City Express" to Berlin , on mdr.de, December 6, 2017, accessed on April 21, 2019.