City Express
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
- ↑ Step's wagon archive
- ↑ Erich Preuss: The City Express of the Deutsche Reichsbahn .
Web links
- 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.