Test drive of the VT 10 551 to Athens in 1953

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The test drive of the VT 10 551 to Athens in 1953 was a four-week test drive and advertising drive of the new-build VT 10 551 diesel multiple unit between Munich and Athens .

Starting position

The 1953 German Transport Exhibition took place in Munich from June 20 to October 11 . There the showed German Federal Railways (DB) and the German Sleeping Car and Dining Car Company (DSG) to the public, among others, the first time the night train VT 10551, which was designed by a then completely new concept: a light metal - railcars . The DB and the German vehicle industry tried with this train (and a similarly constructed day train, VT 10 501 ) after the collapse of Germany caused by the Second World War to move back into the field of high technology.

The 1953 traffic exhibition was also noticed internationally. As part of the transport exhibition, there were a number of demonstration trips by train, including in September 1953 for the General Directors of European Railways. Both the President of the Yugoslav State Railways and that of the Greek State Railways visited the exhibition, took part in the test drive and issued an invitation to let one of the multiple units visit their country. The International Timetable Conference , which took place in Athens this year , provided the opportunity for this . The president of DB, Edmund Frohne , should reach them this way. Officially, it was a "technical expedition"; it was not a "commercial trip". In fact, it was exactly that: an advertising trip for the German economy and vehicle industry.

Politics was also behind the trip. She emphasized the "unifying character of the railway". Behind this was that the Yugoslav head of state Josip Broz Tito had increasingly distanced himself from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc since 1948 . In 1950 there was a break between the communist parties in both countries, which lasted until the end of the Stalin era (1956 with the 20th party congress of the CPSU ). Tito pursued an independent, Yugoslav communist policy, known as Titoism . Yugoslavia moved closer to the West in terms of foreign policy and cultivated closer economic ties with the capitalist states. “The West”, to which the young Federal Republic of Germany belonged, was interested.

Test drive

preparation

For the journey, the train was supplemented by a middle car "h", a lounge and dining room with 21 seats. He was in the following composition:

dare description annotation
Power end a Driver's cab, engine room, luggage room, service compartment, 5 single compartments , toilet, washroom
Middle car c 4 two-bed compartments with toilet, washroom, 2 DSG service compartments, trunk The car was converted into a half saloon car in 1956.
Middle car d 4 two-bed compartments with toilet, 2 luggage compartments
Middle car h Dining room with 21 seats Ordered later and inserted into the train.
Mittelwagen e 2 single compartments , kitchen with buffet and bar
Middle car f 9 single compartments , toilet, trunk, laundry and storage rooms
Middle car g 8 single compartments , service compartment, washroom, trunk, laundry and storage rooms
Power end b 12 reclining seats in the open plan, cloakroom, trunk, two toilets, engine room, driver's cab

The VT 10 551 left the German Transport Exhibition prematurely and completed test drives in its new composition, including on the Geislinger Steige , primarily to check its ability to drive on inclines, as the route to Athens required crossing the Alps and in Greece partly through mountainous terrain Terrain runs. These test drives were completed to the satisfaction of those involved.

An emergency train was also put together to drive behind the VT 10 551 at a block distance . This was also formed from the most modern wagons available to the DB, and was thus also an advertising medium for freight wagons made in Germany. The train carried a tank car for the fuel of the VT 10 551, a refrigerator car to supply the kitchen and the passengers of the main train, as well as covered freight cars with sliding roofs for spare parts and tools, a generator car and sleeping cars . The relief train was probably pulled by one or two V 200s .

journey

Outward journey

The journey began on September 25, 1953 in Munich with a preliminary meeting of all participants immediately before departure. The journey to the first border near Salzburg went smoothly. DB train drivers drove the train along the entire route . On the routes of the Austrian Federal Railways , in Yugoslavia and Greece, they were accompanied by pilots with local route knowledge. Crossing the Tauern was also no problem. Between Rosenbach and Jesenice , the border to Yugoslavia was crossed with a delay because the relief train did not come quickly enough. The passport and customs control, on the other hand, proved to be unproblematic at most borders. On September 26, 1953, there was a stop of several hours at Postojna station for a touristic program: a visit to the Postojna stalactite caves . From there the trip continued to Rijeka , where a boat trip to Opatija was on the program. In Zagreb main train station there was a technical malfunction in two of the four engines of the train, but this was fixed shortly afterwards.

On September 27, 1953, the train reached Sarajevo , where another touristic program was due. The train left town around midnight that day. About 90 minutes later, roller bearing damage occurred on the last driving axle and the train stopped about 10 km from Zenica . The cause of the damage remained unclear. He was driven to the local train station at walking pace. With the help of the Yugoslav railway workers from the Zenica depot and the Zenica steelworks , repairs were carried out within five days. So it was possible to continue driving on October 3, 1953. The Greek border has now been reached without problems and longer interruptions. The customs there were amazed at the unusual trains and sealed the freight wagons of the relief train so that they could decide on customs clearance in Athens. The gradients in Greece were overcome without any problems. At the Inoi station, Greek railway workers cleaned the outside of the train so that it could enter the Greek capital in a “high gloss” condition.

On October 5, 1953 at 6:20 p.m., the train reached the Larisa station in Athens. The participants in the International Timetable Conference and the general public were very interested in the futuristic-looking multiple unit.

Return trip

On the night of October 17-18, 1953, the train set off for its return journey, which was initially interrupted in Levadia for a bus excursion to Delphi . In Yugoslavia, meetings were held with the General Railway Directorate in Belgrade and the Railway Directorate in Zagreb and Ljubljana . Since this had to be done during the day, it was mostly driven at night. On the Tauern ramp, the scheduled travel time of the Tauern Express pulled by electric locomotives was undercut by one minute. When it arrived at Munich Hauptbahnhof on October 21, 1953 at 9:13 a.m., the train was two minutes late. As far as possible, the train reached a speed of 115 km / h en route. The cost of the trip at that time amounted to 45,255 DM , of which the industry paid 28,000 DM.

Routes traveled

The following routes were driven along the route from Munich via Rosenbach, Jesenice, Postojna, Rijeka, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Gevgelija to Athens over their entire length or in sections:

Rating

The ride is remarkable in several ways:

  • Technically, the ride was a great success. The engines ran without major disruptions. There were never any problems with the brakes, not even on the slopes of the mountainous stretches. A repair, even readjusting the brakes, was not necessary during the four-week journey. The fear that the light metal construction of the wagons would be distorted when exposed to one side of the sun turned out to be unfounded. The on-board technology also worked largely trouble-free, in particular the air conditioning and the electrical on-board kitchen. The hotel operations on the train, which had to be handled in a very small space, ran smoothly. In the accompanying train, when the main train was refueled at the Zagreb train station, the generator once stopped when the two trains had occupied the main through tracks and thus stopped all scheduled traffic.
  • The test drive was also a great success from a human point of view: the railway workers from the participating countries worked together smoothly. Belonging to different political systems or the crimes that had been committed by Germans in the countries passed through just a few years earlier during World War II seem to have played no role.
  • Politically, the test drive of the VT 10 551 through Yugoslavia as part of the deposition of Yugoslavia from the Soviet Union was a small but clear sign.

aftermath

The trip of the VT 10 551 to Athens had a parliamentary aftermath in the German Bundestag , as Edmund Frohne's wife and his two children had traveled with them. The parliamentarians wanted to know why and who had borne the costs. The answer: Edmund Frohne's family had been invited by the Greek railways because Edmund Frohne had worked for the Greek railroad before the Second World War. Edmund Frohne paid for the trip.

From November 10 to December 4, 1954, the VT 10 551 drove to Athens a second time. At the head of a government delegation, Federal Minister of Economics Ludwig Erhard traveled to Greece and from May 11th to 24th, 1956, Federal President Theodor Heuss used the train, which was supplemented by the saloon car "i", for a state visit to Greece, the first foreign state visit by a German Federal President after the second World war. The VT 10 551 thus came to Yugoslavia and Greece for the third time.

literature

  • Peter Goette: Light F-Trains of the Deutsche Bundesbahn . EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2011, ISBN 978-3-88255-729-9 .
  • Heinz Kurz: The VT 10.5 series . EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 2016, ISBN 978-3-8446-6025-8 .
  • Karl Kaißling: With the articulated multiple unit to Athens . In: AGM lightweight construction news sheet . 3rd year (1954), pp. 13–15.
  • NN: In the rolling hotel to Athens . Bonn no year around: 1953 .
  • Hans-Christoph Seebohm : [Answer to] Small question 12 of the SPD parliamentary group - printed matter 2/141 = Bundestag printed matter 2/167. Publishing house Dr. Hans Heger, Bad Godesberg December 30, 1953. online , accessed July 13, 2017.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Kurz, p. 70, on the one hand names the power cars “a” and “b” the other way around, according to a graphical overview (p. 146, Fig. 247), on the other hand he states that according to According to the DB rules, the power end in which the luggage compartment is located is always designated with "a" (p. 21).
  2. ↑ It generated electricity for the main train when it was standing for a long time and for the fuel pump when the main train was refueled (NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 17).
  3. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11, speaks only of "The new diesel locomotives ".
  4. ↑ "A lonely station" (Kaißling, p. 13).
  5. ↑ Today: " Athens ", the main train station .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kaißling, p. 13.
  2. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 10.
  3. ↑ Kurz, pp. 115-122.
  4. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11; Kaißling, p. 13.
  5. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 12.
  6. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 10.
  7. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 12.
  8. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11.
  9. ↑ Kurz, pp. 70f.
  10. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11.
  11. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11; Kaißling, p. 13.
  12. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11f.
  13. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 11.
  14. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 13.
  15. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , pp. 15, 17.
  16. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 17.
  17. ↑ Kaißling, p. 13.
  18. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 20; the author emphasizes: within "only" five days.
  19. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 21.
  20. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 24.
  21. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 27.
  22. ↑ Kaißling, p. 14.
  23. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 30.
  24. ↑ Seebohm: Answer , p. 4.
  25. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 30.
  26. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 13.
  27. ↑ Kaißling, p. 14.
  28. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 15.
  29. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 30.
  30. ↑ Kaißling, p. 13.
  31. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 17.
  32. ↑ Kaißling, p. 13.
  33. ^ NN: In the rolling hotel , p. 18.
  34. ↑ Seebohm: Answer , p. 3.
  35. ↑ Kurz, p. 122; Goette, p. 124.