Vindobona (train)
Vindobona is the name of an international train that ran from 1957 to 2014 and again from mid-June 2020. Its name is derived from the Latin name for the city of Vienna . From 1957 he drove between Berlin and Vienna via Dresden and Prague . From 2001 he traveled from Hamburg via Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Brno to Vienna. In 2009 the train route beyond Vienna to Villach was extended, but stopped in 2014. The train route was last operated by the participating railway companies as Eurocity .
Since the timetable change in December 2018 in the Czech Republic (but not in Austria), the train name for all trains on the Railjet line Prague − Vienna − Graz has been used again in the context of the standardized naming of train routes - based on the popularity of the high-quality rolling stock of Vindobona to ČSSR -Times; at the same time introduced ICE - train pair 92/93, the Berlin and Vienna on VDE8 combines (Halle-Erfurt-Nuremberg), will be named Berolina out.
The plan was to run the Railjet 256/257 Graz − Vienna − Prague on to Berlin and back from May 4, 2020 . Due to border closings as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic , the re -issue was canceled in May and was postponed to June 14, 2020. Since then, after a five-year break, the Berlin – Dresden – Prague – Vienna route has been operated again under the name Vindobona with the Railjet pair of trains 256/257 .
Train run
The train route was first used in 1957 as the FDt 50/51 express multiple unit from Berlin Friedrichstrasse station via Berlin Ostbahnhof - Elsterwerda - Dresden , Prague and Gmünd to Vienna-FJB . Predecessors were FDt trains Berlin - Prague from December 1950 and an express train connection with through coaches to Vienna. Initially, the train only had first-class seats, but from the 1957/58 winter timetable there was also the option of traveling in second class. A pair of trains was used daily, which always crossed in the ČSSR. For the summer schedule of 1959, the Vindobona no longer operated as FDt, but was now referred to as Ext (express railcar). The DR drove the Vindobona on schedule until May 1960 with a SVT 137 of the Cologne type.
The trains were mainly used by West Berliners, diplomats and Scandinavians in transit through the GDR , but it was also used for general traffic between the GDR, the ČSSR and Austria. In Berlin there was a connection to the night trains from Copenhagen ( Ostsee-Express ) and Stockholm ( Saßnitz-Express ) via the railway ferries Warnemünde - Gedser and Saßnitz - Trelleborg . From 1962 there were feeder trains to and from Berlin Zoologischer Garten in what was then West Berlin . In the 1960s, a West Berlin travel agency offered special trips to Prague, which West Berliners and GDR citizens used for family get-togethers. The Vindobona was for regularly reinforced by another railcar set, on GDR territory no training and boarding was permitted in. In 1973 the Vindobona got the new train number Ext 70/71. The 1979 summer timetable was converted into a locomotive hauled train and the train number has now been changed to D 70/71. With the beginning of the summer timetable in 1981, the Vindobona was given the train number D 374/375.
Train route overview
- Winter timetable 1957/58 and summer timetable 1960: Berlin Friedrichstrasse - Berlin Ostbahnhof - Elsterwerda - Dresden - Prague - Vienna - Berlin Friedrichstrasse.
- Summer timetable 1958 to winter timetable 1959/60 and winter timetable 1960/61 to annual timetable 1984/85: Berlin Ostbahnhof - Elsterwerda - Dresden - Prague - Vienna - Berlin Ostbahnhof.
- Annual timetable 1985/86 to annual timetable 1990/91: Vienna - Prague - Dresden - Elsterwerda - Berlin – Lichtenberg - Vienna.
- In the 1986/87 and 1987/88 annual timetables, the train between Prague and Berlin was combined with the Hungaria.
Railcar use
From its introduction to May 1979, diesel railcars were used for the Vindobona . The participating railway administrations Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR), Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD) and Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) agreed to provide the railcars every two years and with compensation in kind.
The DR provided the first set with the Cologne-type SVT 137 multiple units. From 1960 to 1962 the ČSD provided the railcars, mostly the Ganz-MÁVAG railcars of the M 495.0 and M 498.0 series were used. From 1962 to 1964, the ÖBB used its blue lightning bolt , which was extended with an intermediate car especially for this mission. Until the winter timetable 1965/66 it was the turn of the ČSD again. In the summer timetable of 1966, four-part SVT 137 of the Cologne and Hamburg designs were briefly modernized by the DR.
From the winter timetable 1966/67, the DR then used its new VT 18.16 express multiple unit . From 1969 to 1972 the ČSD put the multiple units back into operation and used their new type M 296.1 with a top speed of 120 km / h. The subsequent use of the DR express multiple unit VT 18.16 lasted until the end of the winter timetable 1978/79. In the meantime, the ÖBB no longer had any suitable railcars for this connection and had to make compensation payments to the DR and ČSD.
The express train Vindobona became a figurehead for the DR thanks to the VT 18.16. Although vehicles from the other participating railway administrations were used at times, the diesel-hydraulic railcars of the Görlitz type shaped this train route in such a way that many still today equate the VT 18.16 with Vindobona . In principle, the express train required a reservation for a railcar and could therefore only be used with a valid reservation.
Trains hauled by a locomotive
Over time, the railcars used, whose seating capacity was limited, could no longer meet the increasing demand in travel, so that the European Passenger Train Timetable Conference in Edinburgh in 1978 decided to convert the Vindobona into a locomotive-hauled train from the 1979 timetable. He went as a D train D 275/76, temporarily united with the Inter Express " Hungaria " (Berlin - Bratislava - Budapest ). This meant that MÁV and JŽ wagons also came into the train set. For the first time, sleeping and couchette cars were also running in the Vindobona , which were used as through cars on the Belgrade and Budapest - Malmö routes. From then on, the wagons were provided by all three railway administrations involved. In the border section Veselí nad Lužnicí - Gmünd / Lower Austria. the train was transported by steam locomotives until 1980. The train no longer ended in Vienna FJB, but in Wien-Mitte . Most of the cars went to Budapest or only to Prague. At times there were also through coaches from Berlin Zoo . As a curious travel experience ČSD dining car was with four different currencies on the menu: ( D-Mark , Mark of the GDR , Czechoslovak crowns and Austrian Schilling ). Since the Vindobona was subject to a changing presentation of the scheduled seating and through coaches of the participating railways, it often had an international character in terms of appearance. He was in charge of passenger coaches for DR, ČSD, MÁV, JŽ and ÖBB. In addition, a combined seat and baggage car of the ČSD or later in the D 374/375 a post car Deutsche Post (GDR) was used in sections .
The Vindobona experienced a new upswing after the political change in Germany. From 1990 it was converted to the latest DR rolling stock , the types Amz 210 , Bmz 236 and WRmz 136 were used. Despite the Hamburg - Berlin - Prague EuroCity line set up in 1992, the Vindobona still had the express train type D 375/376 in this two-hour cycle due to the lack of air-conditioned first-class cars . The route between Prague and Vienna was no longer led via the Franz-Josefs-Bahn , but via Břeclav (Lundenburg) and Hohenau via the Austrian Northern Railway to Vienna Südbahnhof (eastern part). This meant that the entire course of the train could be driven electrically. The ÖBB used its dual-system locomotives of the 1014 and 1146 series as far as Břeclav . ČD used class 371 multi-system locomotives between Prague and Dresden . The train ran between Dresden and Hamburg with locomotives of the DB series 101 , with which the train between Berlin and Hamburg reached the maximum cruising speed of 200 km / h.
EuroCity
With the reorganization of international traffic between Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria, the Vindobona was upgraded to EuroCity 172/173 in 1993 . The air-conditioned cars were provided by ÖBB. In 2001 the route from Berlin to Hamburg-Altona was extended. The wagon order was transferred to Deutsche Bahn . Since the completion of the Berlin Central Station in the summer of 2006, the train no longer ran on the Stadtbahn , but on the north-south long-distance railway .
As of December 2006, the EC 172/173 Vindobona consisted of wagons from all three railway administrations involved with a Czech dining car , making it one of the “most colorful” passenger trains in Germany. In 2009, of the ten cars, only the 1st class compartment car was provided by Deutsche Bahn. From December 2009, the train consisted of German and Austrian cars, the dining car was operated by Deutsche Bahn. Since December 2010 the ÖBB share has predominated, the dining car was operated by è-express. From December 2011, the Vindobona was driven with a pure ÖBB set, as in the 1990s.
In 2009, the train took 11 hours and 48 minutes for its 1140 km route. Since the train in Prague passed via the Praha-Holešovice station, it did not change its direction of travel on its way, but began and ended at two terminal stations . In Dresden main station and in Praha-Holešovice, locomotives were nevertheless changed due to changing power systems . Until the ÖBB 1216 was fully licensed in the Czech network, the locomotive was also changed in Břeclav . The plan to run at least between Vienna and Dresden in 2009 with a multi-system locomotive of the ÖBB class 1216 (manufacturer Siemens ) or the competing ČD class 380 (manufacturer Škoda ) and to save locomotive changes in the Czech Republic was not realized. There had also been discussions for years about running trains with ČD's multi-system Pendolino trains , but this changeover did not take place either.
Since the timetable change in December 2009, the Vindobona has returned to Prague's main train station , changed direction there and the train route was extended beyond Vienna to Villach, which means that the Vindobona now covered 1,469 km from the starting station to the terminus. In Vienna, the train last stopped at the Simmering and Meidling stations . This change was made because of the closure of the south station and the construction of the main station . The total travel time was about 16 hours. Between Hamburg and Dresden the train was driven by a DB class 101 locomotive , between Dresden and Praha hl.n. from the ČD series 371 and between Praha hl.n. and Villach covered by the ÖBB series 1216 and, since autumn 2014, with ČD 380 .
In 2011 the train stopped between the big cities in Klagenfurt , Sankt Veit an der Glan , Leoben , Bruck an der Mur , (Wiener Neustadt Hauptbahnhof) - ( Wien Meidling ) - Wien Simmering - Břeclav , ( Brno ), Pardubice , Kolín , ( Prague ), Ústí nad Labem , Děčín , Bad Schandau , ( Dresden , Berlin (- Südkreuz , Hbf. , - Spandau )), Wittenberge , Ludwigslust and Büchen . In Hamburg, the train stopped at the Bergedorf , Hauptbahnhof , Dammtor and Altona stations .
Hiring and resumption
As of December 14, 2014, the Vindobona was discontinued due to a change in the timetable on the Břeclav – Villach route. The reason for this change was the introduction of a fixed cycle timetable with Railjet sets between Prague, Vienna and Graz. The remaining Hamburg – Břeclav train runs as EC 172/173 “Porta Bohemica” via Bratislava to Budapest .
Since December 2018, Berlin and Vienna have been connected to the ICE 92/93 (operated by ICE T ) during the day . However, the pair of trains runs via Nuremberg and Linz , not via Dresden and Prague. A Nightjet 456/457 night train has been connecting Vienna and Berlin via Ratibor , Breslau and Frankfurt (Oder) since December 2018 , and a night-time IC couple has been running between Warnemünde and Vienna via Berlin and Nuremberg since 2020 .
The name Vindobona has been used by ČD within the Czech Republic for all Railjets on the Graz − Vienna − Prague route since the 2019 timetable . - whereby the pair of trains with train numbers 256/257 Graz - Berlin has been serving the historical route Vienna - Prague - Dresden - Berlin again since 2020. In Germany and Austria only this pair of trains is called Vindobona .
Accidents
On its original route from Berlin Friedrichstrasse to Vienna Franz-Josef-Bahnhof, the train covered a distance of 745 kilometers. The Vindobona has been operating as an international train since 1957, with an interruption between 2014 and 2020. Since then, various accidents have occurred, which have also resulted in fatalities and injuries. Train operations on the relevant route were restricted, even in the event of minor incidents, and had to be diverted or stopped entirely.
- December 2, 1963: Collision with a car at a barrier near Strančice, east of Prague, which was not closed in time.
- March 15, 1974: In Schöna station the Vindobona collided with the last wagon of a freight train on its way to Vienna. Six travelers were slightly injured and had to receive outpatient medical treatment.
- February 8, 1982: The Vindobona collided with a freight train about 70 kilometers north of Vienna on its way to Berlin. The driver of the freight train was killed. A person from the GDR was injured in the accident.
- June 14, 1987: At a level crossing near Děčín, a coach from the GDR with 43 passengers was caught by the passing Vindobona . The bus driver was killed. The accident continued to claim two seriously injured and ten slightly injured.
Web links
- On Germany radio since 1957
- End of a legend on rails ( memento from July 8, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) in the FR
- New «Vindobona»: Berlin and Dresden connected with Vienna
literature
Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR and their passenger coaches , EK-Verlag GmbH Freiburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-88255-720-6
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Jednotné pojmenování linek nahradí jména jednotlivých vlaků na dalších tratích , České dráhy, October 4, 2018
- ^ Marcus Grahnert: Database search - database long-distance traffic. Retrieved October 12, 2018 .
- ↑ mdr.de: Corona ticker Saxony on May 4th. 5:45 a.m.: Corona delays renaissance of the "Vindobona" train. Retrieved May 24, 2020 .
- ↑ ÖBB train information on Railjet 256 and Railjet 257 (accessed on May 22, 2020)
- ↑ Tourism / Berlin: East to West . Der Spiegel 49/1967
- ↑ Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR and their coaches , EK-Verlag GmbH Freiburg, 2007, pages 110-111
- ↑ Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR and their coaches , EK-Verlag GmbH Freiburg, 2007, page 102
- ↑ Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR and their passenger coaches, Ek-Verlag GmbH Freiburg, 2007, pages 110-113
- ^ Car composition 2010/2011 EC 172 Vindobona
- ↑ composition 2011/2012 EC 172 Vindobona
- ↑ Long-distance traffic 2010 in turntable no.218 (September / October 2009), page 11
- ↑ Preview of long-distance traffic 2015 in turntable No. 258 (September / October 2014), page 11
- ↑ Rico Bogula: International express trains in the GDR and their coaches, Ek-Verlag GmbH Freiburg, 2007, page 102
- ^ Berliner Zeitung on December 4, 1963
- ^ New Times on March 16, 1974
- ^ Berliner Zeitung on February 9, 1982
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung on June 15, 1987
