We started this blog in 2009 as a way of sharing our experiences with friends and family, and with anyone else who might be interested. Here are links to all of the reports we've posted since we started.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Spring 2017: Railways of Austria and Croatia (and a bit of Estonia)
The focus of our spring 2017 trip to Europe was our cruise along the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia, as well as our visit with Marcia’s family in Finland, which we've described in recent posts on this blog.
But since we were starting our journey in Vienna, and we needed to get to Split, Croatia, to start our cruise, I thought I might be able to work in a little railway time between those two points. That proved to be correct, and this report will be about the trains I saw and the things I learned along the way.
While we were in Vienna, one of my priorities would be to get to Semmering, the summit of one of Europe’s most historic mountain rail routes, and one that has major changes on the horizon.
I set aside the morning of our last full day in Vienna for my Semmering visit. I could board a train operated by ÖBB (Austria’s national railway) at Vienna at 07:58 and arrive at Semmering at 09:14. A return train departing at 11:46 would put me back in Vienna at 13:02.
I arrived at Vienna’s Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) at 07:20.
This station became fully operational in 2015; it allowed for the consolidation of trains that had operated through the 1950s-era Südbahnhof (South Station) with long-distance services that previously operated via the city’s other major station, Westbahnhof.
A look at the Departures board shows what a busy place this is, even on a Saturday morning: 24 trains scheduled to depart in the 50 minutes from 07:21 to 08:11.
Standard paint schemes on the Railjets are red-and-gray for ÖBB and blue-and-white for ČD. But in my short time in Austria I saw several ÖBB trainsets that had been converted to rolling billboards. The first one I saw, decorated on behalf of the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) and its business partners, proved to be one of the most distinctive.
In the first picture below, the lettering on the control cab unit indicates that it is “reserved for relaxed business.”
The recurring theme here, on each coach and the locomotive, is that ÖBB is the “official mobility partner
of the ÖFB."
In the half hour or so before I boarded my train, I got a sense of the variety of services that operate through this busy station. Here, for example, is a Siemens Desiro ML EMU operated by the Hungary-Austria open access company, GySEV.
Another
international train, from Prague, arrived behind this Skoda-built ČD
unit in a special paint scheme commemorating the 1845 opening of the
railway between Prague and Olomouc.
Just before I boarded, I spotted this ÖBB switch engine pulling a cut of Nightjet sleeping cars out of the station.
As it turned out, my 07:58 train was a EuroCity schedule, meaning that it was an international train, operated during daylight hours, meeting certain standards of service. As one web site describes them, "Most of these trains rely on slightly retro carriages. Speed is not a
EuroCity hallmark. At their best, EuroCity trains are stylish and
sedate."
My train, EC 151, was destined to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and was led by one of the most common pre-Taurus locomotive types in operation on ÖBB, a class 1144. These units are used in both passenger and freight service.
Getting closer to Semmering, we passed over a couple of the viaducts that are a major feature of this line.
A base tunnel is now under construction that will allow trains to avoid the severe grades and curves on the existing Gloggnitz-Mürzzuschlag segment. The new tunnel will be only 27.3 km in
length, with maximum grades of 0.85 per cent. Projected opening date of
the new bore is 2026.
Historically, the line was known as the Southern Railway. It was built to connect Vienna with the important Austrian city of Graz and points beyond, including the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, and the Adriatic port city of Trieste. Today, the line is also important as a route to points in southern Austria such as Klagenfurt and Villach, and to points in Italy via Venice.
I soon found that the Semmering station contains a museum devoted to this line, its builder (von Ghega), and its place in the engineering and transportation history of central Europe. There are also several displays related to the new base tunnel. Unfortunately for me, almost every word was in German, and my monolingualism prevented me from doing much aside from enjoying the photos, equipment displays, and maps.
However, I did find some English on the signage and posters outside the station.
As I left the station and walked down the platform I soon discovered
that there is a trail paralleling the railway that will take you to the
nearest stations in the direction of Vienna (Wolfsbergkogel and
Breitenstein), and apparently beyond those points as well.
There
were many people taking the downhill trail on this Saturday
morning, as I searched for a good photo spot. I finally found one,
except that both sides of the
right-of-way were heavily forested, the sun was on the wrong side, and a
cloud cover was beginning to develop. In other words, it was dark. Still, I got a few shots at the 102.8-km marker (measured from Vienna), including two Railjet trains - the first one headed uphill toward Semmering (and beyond), the second (a Czech trainset) toward Vienna and Prague.
After the two Railjets had passed, this uphill vehicle train came along.
The green light in the windshield is a reflection of the “proceed”
indication displayed on the signal bridge that I’m standing next to.
I started to walk back toward the station in search of better light, and
I found that the trail was taking me above the level of the station
itself. As I continued, I looked down to see this Vienna-bound freight.
At this point, I was standing above a memorial to Carl Ritter von
Ghega.
Back on platform level, I got a couple of shots of this railcar (a 1951 Simmering-Graz-Pauker product) that is on display next to the von Ghega memorial.
Next, this Vienna-bound Railjet consist arrived, dressed in an advertising scheme with a simple message: Ski Austria.
I watched as a hundred or more people disembarked from the train, marched up to the trail above the station, and then proceeded downhill in the direction of Wolfsbergkogel and Breitenstein.
With a good many passengers still on board, the train headed off to the southwest through the summit tunnel, in the direction of Mürzzuschlag.
This trip was sponsored by Club 1018 in Vienna, which describes itself as "a combination of professional railway people and rail enthusiasts who have dedicated themselves to the maintenance and support of nostalgic locomotives and coaches." The equipment appeared to be mainly Hungarian.
At 11:22, a regional train operating from Payerbach-Reichenau to Mürzzuschlag arrived. These trains run every couple of hours and make several station stops between their endpoints, making it possible for hikers on the trackside trail to return to Semmering (which has several lodging places) without a stiff uphill climb. The EMU is a Bombardier Talent series design, dating from the mid-1990s.
Back in Vienna, I spotted this Railjet set in another special paint scheme.
This one seemed to be promoting ÖBB’s longstanding partnership with Siemens, which in recent years has built most of the railway’s new locomotives and many of its passenger cars. However, a little research came up with photos of this livery as part of the 2012 anniversary celebration of the 175th anniversary of Austrian railways (specifically, the 1837 opening of a line between Vienna and Břeclav, in the Czech Republic). The 175th anniversary lettering has since been removed, but the paint scheme remains.
A couple of tracks over, two Railjet consists were being coupled together to make a 14-car consist for Salzburg. Such consists are sometimes split at Salzburg, proceeding to different destinations beyond that point.
To return to my hotel, in the Prater area on the northeast side of the city, I boarded a Class 4746 Cityjet EMU trainset (part of Siemens’ Desiro ML series) operating on the S2 line, at the suburban section of the Hauptbahnhof. I got off at Praterstern, where I switched to a subway line. This photo of a 4746 consist was taken just north of Praterstern.
The next morning, Marcia and I were leaving Vienna to spend a couple of days in Salzburg before continuing on to Croatia. We had tickets for train RJ 642, an 11:55 departure that would get us into Salzburg at 14:48. For most of the day, ÖBB operates two trains in each direction between Vienna and Salzburg each hour: one that operates as an express, with a typical timing of 2 hours 22 minutes, and one that (like our train) makes several intermediate stops, and is scheduled to arrive at Salzburg in 2 hours 53 minutes. I had chosen the slower train because it had discounted tickets available, and the express trains at mid-day did not.
Our first-class ticket entitled us to use the ÖBB lounge at the Vienna station, which had nice pastries and snacks, beverages and a multilingual selection of reading material. While Marcia took advantage of the lounge, I went trackside and found a MÁV (Hungarian) Siemens ES 64 U2 (similar to ÖBB's class 1116 Taurus) on train EC140, which had just arrived from Budapest, after originating at Nyiregyhaza, in eastern Hungary, at 04:51.
The train was made up of coaches from PKP (Polish) Intercity.
Our train to Salzburg was a double consist: Taurus locomotive, seven coaches, another locomotive, and seven more coaches. On the way to Salzburg, after departing St.Pölten, I glanced out the window to see an intermodal train running parallel to ours, powered by this Siemens Vectron locomotive, operating as Wiener Lokalbahnen Cargo 193 237.
It was moving, but certainly not as fast as we were. I looked up and noticed that we were doing 170 km/hour, or about 105 mph. The ride was, to coin a phrase, as smooth as glass.
We stayed at the Hotel H+ (part of a Wyndham-affiliated chain), only steps from Salzburg’s Hauptbahnhof.
Our relatively inexpensive room offered a great view of the city’s major landmark, the Hohensalzburg Fortress, but in addition, I could look down and see a portion of the nearest station platforms.
Before we left Salzburg, we spent some time at the Fortress, where I got this photo of the Hauptbahnhof and the surrounding area. And no, I don't know the nature of the colorful building at center right.
On both mornings of our two-day stay in Salzburg, I was up early to spend some time watching trains. The HBF did not disappoint. There was a constant stream of suburban and regional trains in a variety of styles…
as well as Railjet trains, including this one with a Taurus in special livery…
trains of Westbahn, an open-access operator of services between Salzburg, Linz and Vienna…
and a “motorail” train from Hamburg, destined to Villach, Austria, that allows travelers to bring their cars (or motorcycles) with them, providing them with sleeping accommodations and dining facilities while en route to their destination. The consist included a multicolored assortment of hand-me-down coaches.
The flexibility to operate throughout Europe is also a characteristic of the Vectron MS (multi system) model, such as TX Logistik 193 551, delivered in 2017. The mountain in the background is the the Untersberg massif, straddling the border with Germany.
SETL (Salzburger Eisenbahn TransportLogistik) 193 814 is a 2014 Vectron.
But the train I really wanted to see was EN 294, a Nightjet from Rome to Munich. I’m fascinated by overnight trains in Europe, crossing borders in the wee hours of the morning, carrying people whose agendas may be innocent tourism or possibly something more sinister. Maybe I feel this way because one of my first railroad books as a child had a chapter about the Orient Express.
EN 294 is scheduled to depart Rome at 19:04, arrive Salzburg at 06:15, depart at 06:27 and arrive Munich at 08:19.
On the first morning, it arrived at Salzburg at 06:46 and departed at 7:06, 39 minutes behind schedule. Behind the red Taurus locomotive was a variety of sleeping cars, including this second-class Liegewagen, a type of economy sleeper…
and these sleeping cars, one in a now-obsolete scheme, and the other in the current Nightjet livery.
The next morning, I found a better perch for observing EN 294. On the southeast side of the HBF complex there’s a two-story parking facility for bicycles. I found a small space at one end that, after I worked my way around the bicycles parked there, gave me a good view of Track 9, where the train was due to arrive at around 07:30, running over an hour late.
As I waited for the train, I noticed that there were several police officers (polizisten in German) gathered on the platform. That didn’t surprise me; Salzburg’s Hauptbahnhof seemed to have a more visible security presence than what I had seen at the HBF in Vienna. Fortunately, they didn’t act as though they cared about camera-toting American rail enthusiasts.
EN 294 arrived at 07:29, with eight cars, which is a normal consist for this train: five that originate at Rome, and three that start out of Milan on train EN 40235 and are added to EN 294 at Villach.
Soon after the train stopped, I saw a police contingent in the first car.
They seemed to be going from compartment to compartment. At first, I thought this was just a routine check; soon they would move on to the other cars. But no, they didn’t. After about 15 minutes in this car, I saw one of the officers walking a middle-aged woman off the car. She did not return to her compartment.
With the train blocking my view, I couldn’t see what was happening on the platform, but finally, at 07:59, more than 90 minutes late, EN 294 resumed its journey to Munich. I’ll never know what prompted the police to detain this woman, but it reinforced my suspicion that the Continent’s night trains carry some passengers whose reasons for being on board may not be entirely innocent.
During our time in Salzburg we explored the city’s Old Town and took the funicular to Hohensalzburg Fortress, where we spent about half a day, but that still left a little more time for rail-related pursuits. I wanted to get out of Salzburg to someplace where I could photograph trains with mountains in the background. I picked Bischofshofen, 57 km from Salzburg — about an hour away by local train. It’s on the line that goes south from Salzburg and sees trains destined to points such as Villach, Klagenfurt, and Graz as well as international trains to Slovenia, Croatia and Italy.
I only had a couple of hours available, so I contented myself with shooting from one end of the platform closest to the station itself. The Tennen mountain range made a nice backdrop. In the course of my short time at Bischofshofen, I was able to photograph a class 1116 Taurus in Rail Cargo Hungaria livery on a southbound intermodal train…
a bright red ÖBB Taurus on a northbound vehicle train…
a Class 1144 electric on a CityShuttle consist, running as a REX regional express to Wörgl (about 100 km west of Bischfshofen)…
another ÖBB Taurus on a southbound rock train…
and a DB class 101 (a late 1990s Adtranz product, and a close relative of the Bombardier ALP-46 used by NJ Transit) on train EC 115, destined from Münster to Klagenfurt.
From Salzburg, we were traveling first to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, for a two-night stay, and then on to Split, where we would start our cruise along the Dalmatian Coast (as part of a Road Scholar educational travel program). The trip to Zagreb didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had planned. It should have been a trip of just under seven hours, starting on train EC 113, with our Zagreb coach continuing from Villach as part of train EC 213. The coach that we boarded in Salzburg would be the same one that would take us through to our destination. It wasn’t that easy.
As we’ve described in our main report about the Vienna-Split portion of our trip, a fire in the Tauern Mountains in central Austria disrupted our trip, resulting in a three-train, two-bus journey to Zagreb. Amazingly, we arrived less than two hours late. I won’t repeat all the details here, but if you’re interested, follow this link, and then search for Dorfgastein.
On our one full day in Zagreb, I was able to spend about 90 minutes at the city’s main railway station (Glavni kolodvor, opened in 1892) watching trains come and go during the early evening.
The Croatian railway is Hrvatske željeznice putnički prijevoz, typically abbreviated as HŽPP (Hrvatska is the country’s name in the Croatian language).
Most of the services into and out of the station are provided by HŽPP DMU and EMU equipment, but there are some locomotive-hauled trains (such as the one we arrived on the previous evening, which even in its truncated form between Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Zagreb was designated as EC 213).
As I arrived, train EC 211 was preparing to depart. It’s an international service that originates on ÖBB at Villach, and is routed to Zagreb via Ljubljana. From Zagreb it operates to Vinkovci, in eastern Croatia, a trip of just under four hours. It was powered by a Class 1142 electric locomotive, 16 of which were built by Zagreb-based Končar Group in the 1980s.
In my limited time here, it appeared that 1142 series locomotives tended to be used on international trains. These units, built in the 1980s, are somewhat more powerful, and rated for higher speeds, than an earlier group of Končar-built electrics, class 1141, which I saw used only on domestic trains.
On the right below is another 6112 trainset. The train at left is a class 7022 DMU, built by TŽV Gredelj, also based in Zagreb. The 6112 is destined
to Harmica, 30 km (and 41 minutes) to the northwest, on the border with
Slovenia. The 7022 is departing for Varaždin, 85 km north of the capital city.
The employee at far left is dressed in a uniform similar to what we saw at many intermediate stations along the route to Split the next day. He is responsible for giving a proceed signal to some trains (in this case — and I am only speculating — I think it may be because the 7022 trainset was on an unsignalled track).
Aside from these recent, Croatian-built additions to HŽPP’s fleet of DMUs and EMUs, another, older equipment type is seen around the Zagreb terminal: the 6111 series of EMUs, constructed in the late 1970s by Ganz Mávag of Hungary. Here’s one passing a control tower at the west end of the station complex, which shows the graffiti common in portions of the rail and industrial landscape in the former Yugosalvia…
and another one closer to the station itself.
I didn't see any freight activity through the station while I was there, except for one HŽPP Cargo engine that came through. It's an EMD model GT26CW-2, originally built for Yugoslav Railways (Jugoslavenske Željeznice).
There were a couple of switch engines moving around the terminal, including this
one, a class 2132 engine that was adding cars to EN 414, a night train to Zurich that had originated at Belgrade, Serbia, at 10:55.
From Zagreb, EN 414 carried first- and second-class sleeping cars, as well as several second class coaches, including two Serbian cars on the rear of the train that ran through from Belgrade to Zurich.
The last train I recorded during my time at the Glavni kolodvor was an arrival from Rijeka, a port city on Kvarner Bay, part of the Adriatic Sea, about 160 miles west-southwest of Zagreb. Train 4001 was powered by an 1141 class electric that, according to the attached plate from Končar, had been rebuilt in 2008. The 1141 series had originally been built around 1970, under license from Swedish builder ASEA.
Zagreb’s main station, like others in Europe, proudly displays a steam locomotive to celebrate its heritage. In this case, it’s 0-6-0 number 125-052, built in Hungary in 1891.
The 7123 series DMUs were built by Bombardier in 2004; HŽPP has seven of these two-car trainsets on its roster.
About 45 minutes into our trip, we passed a freight yard at Karlovac that had this class 2132 engine sorting cars in the yard.
At the next station stop, Gračac, there was this engine house that looked as though it had been a casualty of the war between the nascent Croatian Republic and Serb forces in the early 1990s.
One of the curiosities of this trip was the number of times we saw railway employees, in military-style red caps, emerge from even the smallest stations along the way to give us “proceed” signals using a paddle with a round, chevron-bedecked disc at one end. The one is at Vrhovine.
Is this some type of manual block train control system? Or is it simply a way of saying, “we have no passengers for you today”? I don’t know. Here's anothjer one at Ličko Lešće.
We arrived at Split at 14:11, only 17 minutes late, but our trainset was scheduled to depart for its return trip to Zagreb at 14:21. Before we could get our luggage off the train we were overrun by travelers (mostly tourists, it appeared) wanting to board the train and apparently fearful that it would leave without them. Someone should have told them to relax.
We spent the next couple of days touring Split and the surrounding area with our Road Scholar group. On our first morning in the city, I found my way back to the railway station, just in time to see this 7123 trainset getting ready to depart as train 5502 for the city of Knin, a journey of two hours and 15 minutes.
There are four daily round trips between Split and Knin. The tower in the background is the bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, one of Split’s most-recognizable landmarks.
After spending two nights in a Split hotel, we boarded the small vessel that, over the coming week, would take us down the Dalmatian Coast, with our cruise ending at Dubrovnik. But for our first night on board, we remained docked at Split, which put us just a couple of blocks from the city’s railway station. That gave me a chance to check out the operation of the overnight train between Split and Zagreb.
Train 820 is scheduled to depart Split at 21:44 daily. According to web site vagonWEB, it is scheduled to operate with one sleeping car containing a mix of first- and second-class accommodations; one second-class sleeper; two or more second-class coaches; and one auto carrier.
The vagonWEB site also notes that the train operates with diesel power between Split and Ogulin (325 km), and an electric locomotive between Ogulin and Zagreb (100 km).
When I arrived at the station at about 20:30, this 7122 series DMU (built circa 1980 by Fiat and Kalmar Verkstad) was waiting to leave, as train 5532, for Kaštel Stari, a station about half an hour north of Split.
There are five round trips daily between Split and Kaštel Stari, serving five intermediate stations along the way.
Once the DMU had departed, the crew of train 820 went to work, reaching into the auto-loading platform track and coupling on to the auto carrier for Zagreb, and then switching it to the head end of their train. The auto carrier was empty.
Locomotive 2044 030 is part of a group of EMD-design GT22HW-2 A1A-A1A units built from 1981 to 1984 by Đuro Đaković, in Slavonski Brod, Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia), under license from General Motors.
Here are train 820’s two sleeping cars: the second-class car at left; the mixed first- and second-class car at right.
And here’s the assembled train, at 21:01, ready for its departure in another 43 minutes.
The next morning, I was back at the station to see southbound train 821 arrive. It was scheduled to reach Split at 06:46. A 7123-series DMU was already in place for train 5502 to Knin, scheduled to leave at 07:57.
At 06:59, train 821 arrived, behind another of the class 2044 units, running long-hood first.
The composition of the train was identical to its northbound counterpart of the night before: auto carrier, two second-class coaches, and two sleepers.
And like last night’s train, the auto carrier was empty. Still, the car had to be spotted at the loading ramp just in case someone traveling to Zagreb on tonight’s train decided to bring a car along.
After spotting the auto carrier, the crew tied onto the four passenger cars and prepared to move them to a nearby yard, approximately 2 km from the station, for servicing.
We had many more stops remaining on our itinerary, but only one where rail photography would be a possibility: Tallinn, Estonia. I knew that as a result of its having been a constituent of the Soviet Union, and its longstanding economic and cultural ties to Russia, its rail system was, like Finland’s, patterned after the Russian design, i.e., with a five-foot (1520 or 1524-mm) gauge.
I was able to spend an hour or so on our one morning in Tallinn watching trains come and go at the city’s main terminal, Baltic Station (in Estonian, Balti jaam). All of these were suburban trains, and while they were a mix of DMU and EMU equipment, all were FLIRT-model units from Swiss manufacturer Stadler. Between 2013 and 2015, Stadler delivered 18 four-car EMU and 20 three-car DMU trainsets to Estonian passenger operator Elron. The EMU trainsets each have a capacity of 274 passengers; the DMUs, 214.
Here are two photos of the EMU model…
I wasn’t able to be at the station for the arrival or departure of the Tallinn-St. Petersburg-Moscow train operated by Russian Railways (RZD), so I had to settle for the next-best thing: this Eesti Raudtee ČME3 (or ChME3), which is used to switch the Moscow train after its early-afternoon arrival and line up the equipment for a departure at around 17:00. Eesti Raudtee is the railway infrastructure and freight operator in Estonia.
I’ll wrap up this report with a couple of views of steam locomotive L-2317, which is on display between Baltic Station and the office tower that serves as headquarters for Eesti Raudtee. According to several sources, this 2-10-0 was built in 1953 at the Kolomna shops in the Soviet Union.
If you’re interested in seeing railway photos from our 2011 trip to Ireland, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Finland, Switzerland, and the Rhine River area of Germany, please see
• My report on this blog titled Spring and summer 2011: Europe by train, plane, ferry, lake vessel, river cruise ship, tram and bus, and
• The “Overseas railways” page of my web site, tmrail.com.
But since we were starting our journey in Vienna, and we needed to get to Split, Croatia, to start our cruise, I thought I might be able to work in a little railway time between those two points. That proved to be correct, and this report will be about the trains I saw and the things I learned along the way.
I set aside the morning of our last full day in Vienna for my Semmering visit. I could board a train operated by ÖBB (Austria’s national railway) at Vienna at 07:58 and arrive at Semmering at 09:14. A return train departing at 11:46 would put me back in Vienna at 13:02.
I arrived at Vienna’s Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) at 07:20.
Click on any photo to enlarge
All photos © 2017 Tom Murray
The Hauptbahnhof is not just a rail station; it’s also a major retail center, with more than 80 shops, stores and restaurants. Aside from the main terminal, which hosts long-distance and regional trains, there's a separate level for local S-bahn trains that reach out from central Vienna to the city's suburbs. The Vienna subway has a stop here, too.
One of the most common sights on ÖBB routes between major cities is the Railjet train. ÖBB operates 60 of these fixed-consist, push-pull trainsets; Czech Railways (ČD) operates another seven. All were built by Siemens.
Each trainset consists of a
Taurus-class diesel and seven coaches. The Taurus, produced by Siemens, is a universal locomotive, applicable to both freight and passenger service, and is seen throughout ÖBB's electrified network. The railway currently has 382 of them in service, in the 1016, 1116 and 1216 classes. The Taurus is a cousin of Amtrak's Cities Sprinter locomotive, also built by Siemens.
The last coach in each Railjet consist is configured with a control cab. The capacity of an ÖBB Railjet train is 408 passengers: 316 in second class; 76 in first class; and 16 in business class (these seats are in the control-cab coach). ČD’s Railjets have more economy seats and fewer in the premium and expense-account sections; their consists have a capacity of 442.
The last coach in each Railjet consist is configured with a control cab. The capacity of an ÖBB Railjet train is 408 passengers: 316 in second class; 76 in first class; and 16 in business class (these seats are in the control-cab coach). ČD’s Railjets have more economy seats and fewer in the premium and expense-account sections; their consists have a capacity of 442.
Standard paint schemes on the Railjets are red-and-gray for ÖBB and blue-and-white for ČD. But in my short time in Austria I saw several ÖBB trainsets that had been converted to rolling billboards. The first one I saw, decorated on behalf of the Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) and its business partners, proved to be one of the most distinctive.
In the first picture below, the lettering on the control cab unit indicates that it is “reserved for relaxed business.”
In the half hour or so before I boarded my train, I got a sense of the variety of services that operate through this busy station. Here, for example, is a Siemens Desiro ML EMU operated by the Hungary-Austria open access company, GySEV.
My train, EC 151, was destined to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, and was led by one of the most common pre-Taurus locomotive types in operation on ÖBB, a class 1144. These units are used in both passenger and freight service.
Click on any photo to enlarge
I wasn’t too surprised to find that the coach I was in was owned by the Slovenian national railway, Slovenske železnice, as were all the cars on our train except the last two, which were from ÖBB.
My seat was in a six-person compartment in a second-class car. It was a Saturday morning, and the train seemed fairly full.
The Semmering line was built between 1848 and 1854, under the direction
of engineer Carl Ritter von Ghega. Its heart is the 41-km segment between
Gloggnitz and Mürzzuschlag, where grades reach up to 2.5 per cent, with
numerous tight curves. As we started climbing the mountain grade past Gloggnitz, it was easy to see the topography that challenged the builders of this railway.
We arrived on time at Semmering, and after a moment’s pause, the train proceeded into the 1431-meter summit tunnel, en route to Ljubljana by way of Graz, Austria.
Historically, the line was known as the Southern Railway. It was built to connect Vienna with the important Austrian city of Graz and points beyond, including the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, and the Adriatic port city of Trieste. Today, the line is also important as a route to points in southern Austria such as Klagenfurt and Villach, and to points in Italy via Venice.
I soon found that the Semmering station contains a museum devoted to this line, its builder (von Ghega), and its place in the engineering and transportation history of central Europe. There are also several displays related to the new base tunnel. Unfortunately for me, almost every word was in German, and my monolingualism prevented me from doing much aside from enjoying the photos, equipment displays, and maps.
Over the next half hour or so, a couple more freight trains showed up from the direction of Vienna.
The second one had an interesting motive power combination of two class 1142 electrics and one class 2016 diesel.
Then, about 40 minutes before my scheduled departure, things got more interesting with the arrival of a special passenger train led by 1956-built electric 1010.10. I would later learn that this locomotive is part of ÖBB’s preserved equipment fleet, which it calls on for special trains.
At 11:22, a regional train operating from Payerbach-Reichenau to Mürzzuschlag arrived. These trains run every couple of hours and make several station stops between their endpoints, making it possible for hikers on the trackside trail to return to Semmering (which has several lodging places) without a stiff uphill climb. The EMU is a Bombardier Talent series design, dating from the mid-1990s.
My Railjet, an ÖBB trainset destined for Prague, departed on time at 11:46. I went to the restaurant car (located between the first and second class sections) and enjoyed a nice pasta dish with a glass of red Austrian wine as we wound our way downgrade toward Gloggnitz.
Back in Vienna, I spotted this Railjet set in another special paint scheme.
A couple of tracks over, two Railjet consists were being coupled together to make a 14-car consist for Salzburg. Such consists are sometimes split at Salzburg, proceeding to different destinations beyond that point.
Our first-class ticket entitled us to use the ÖBB lounge at the Vienna station, which had nice pastries and snacks, beverages and a multilingual selection of reading material. While Marcia took advantage of the lounge, I went trackside and found a MÁV (Hungarian) Siemens ES 64 U2 (similar to ÖBB's class 1116 Taurus) on train EC140, which had just arrived from Budapest, after originating at Nyiregyhaza, in eastern Hungary, at 04:51.
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On the far side of the terminal from the main HBF, freight trains pass through, mainly intermodal. The predominant locomotive models seen here are the Siemens Vectron and its predecessor, the ES 64 Eurosprinter (such as the Taurus). Salzburger Lokalbahn 1216 940 is a 2008 ES 64 U4 Eurosprinter; the "U4"
indicates that it can operate on all four of the electrical systems
currently in place in Europe.
EN 294 is scheduled to depart Rome at 19:04, arrive Salzburg at 06:15, depart at 06:27 and arrive Munich at 08:19.
As I waited for the train, I noticed that there were several police officers (polizisten in German) gathered on the platform. That didn’t surprise me; Salzburg’s Hauptbahnhof seemed to have a more visible security presence than what I had seen at the HBF in Vienna. Fortunately, they didn’t act as though they cared about camera-toting American rail enthusiasts.
EN 294 arrived at 07:29, with eight cars, which is a normal consist for this train: five that originate at Rome, and three that start out of Milan on train EN 40235 and are added to EN 294 at Villach.
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With the train blocking my view, I couldn’t see what was happening on the platform, but finally, at 07:59, more than 90 minutes late, EN 294 resumed its journey to Munich. I’ll never know what prompted the police to detain this woman, but it reinforced my suspicion that the Continent’s night trains carry some passengers whose reasons for being on board may not be entirely innocent.
During our time in Salzburg we explored the city’s Old Town and took the funicular to Hohensalzburg Fortress, where we spent about half a day, but that still left a little more time for rail-related pursuits. I wanted to get out of Salzburg to someplace where I could photograph trains with mountains in the background. I picked Bischofshofen, 57 km from Salzburg — about an hour away by local train. It’s on the line that goes south from Salzburg and sees trains destined to points such as Villach, Klagenfurt, and Graz as well as international trains to Slovenia, Croatia and Italy.
I only had a couple of hours available, so I contented myself with shooting from one end of the platform closest to the station itself. The Tennen mountain range made a nice backdrop. In the course of my short time at Bischofshofen, I was able to photograph a class 1116 Taurus in Rail Cargo Hungaria livery on a southbound intermodal train…
As we’ve described in our main report about the Vienna-Split portion of our trip, a fire in the Tauern Mountains in central Austria disrupted our trip, resulting in a three-train, two-bus journey to Zagreb. Amazingly, we arrived less than two hours late. I won’t repeat all the details here, but if you’re interested, follow this link, and then search for Dorfgastein.
On our one full day in Zagreb, I was able to spend about 90 minutes at the city’s main railway station (Glavni kolodvor, opened in 1892) watching trains come and go during the early evening.
Most of the services into and out of the station are provided by HŽPP DMU and EMU equipment, but there are some locomotive-hauled trains (such as the one we arrived on the previous evening, which even in its truncated form between Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Zagreb was designated as EC 213).
As I arrived, train EC 211 was preparing to depart. It’s an international service that originates on ÖBB at Villach, and is routed to Zagreb via Ljubljana. From Zagreb it operates to Vinkovci, in eastern Croatia, a trip of just under four hours. It was powered by a Class 1142 electric locomotive, 16 of which were built by Zagreb-based Končar Group in the 1980s.
Train EC 211 carried a mix of Croatian and Slovenian equipment, including one first-class and several second-class cars.
The next train I saw was number 5117, departing for Sunja, about 85 km southeast of Zagreb. With 14 intermediate stops, the journey is scheduled for 90 minutes. The nicely-decorated class 6112 EMU is another Končar product.
Aside from these recent, Croatian-built additions to HŽPP’s fleet of DMUs and EMUs, another, older equipment type is seen around the Zagreb terminal: the 6111 series of EMUs, constructed in the late 1970s by Ganz Mávag of Hungary. Here’s one passing a control tower at the west end of the station complex, which shows the graffiti common in portions of the rail and industrial landscape in the former Yugosalvia…
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The next day, it was time to move on to Split, and so we boarded train 521 for a departure at 07:35. For the narrative of our trip in our main blog post, click on this link and search for the phrase two-car train for Split.
About 45 minutes into our trip, we passed a freight yard at Karlovac that had this class 2132 engine sorting cars in the yard.
A couple of hours later, there was another 2132 switching cars at Gospic, only this one was in the livery of rolling stock company TŽV Gredelj.
A short time later, we met our northbound counterpart, train 520 from Split to Zagreb, at Lovinac.
Soon after, we crossed this stone viaduct north of Plavno.
We spent the next couple of days touring Split and the surrounding area with our Road Scholar group. On our first morning in the city, I found my way back to the railway station, just in time to see this 7123 trainset getting ready to depart as train 5502 for the city of Knin, a journey of two hours and 15 minutes.
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After spending two nights in a Split hotel, we boarded the small vessel that, over the coming week, would take us down the Dalmatian Coast, with our cruise ending at Dubrovnik. But for our first night on board, we remained docked at Split, which put us just a couple of blocks from the city’s railway station. That gave me a chance to check out the operation of the overnight train between Split and Zagreb.
Train 820 is scheduled to depart Split at 21:44 daily. According to web site vagonWEB, it is scheduled to operate with one sleeping car containing a mix of first- and second-class accommodations; one second-class sleeper; two or more second-class coaches; and one auto carrier.
The vagonWEB site also notes that the train operates with diesel power between Split and Ogulin (325 km), and an electric locomotive between Ogulin and Zagreb (100 km).
When I arrived at the station at about 20:30, this 7122 series DMU (built circa 1980 by Fiat and Kalmar Verkstad) was waiting to leave, as train 5532, for Kaštel Stari, a station about half an hour north of Split.
Once the DMU had departed, the crew of train 820 went to work, reaching into the auto-loading platform track and coupling on to the auto carrier for Zagreb, and then switching it to the head end of their train. The auto carrier was empty.
Here are train 820’s two sleeping cars: the second-class car at left; the mixed first- and second-class car at right.
I was able to spend an hour or so on our one morning in Tallinn watching trains come and go at the city’s main terminal, Baltic Station (in Estonian, Balti jaam). All of these were suburban trains, and while they were a mix of DMU and EMU equipment, all were FLIRT-model units from Swiss manufacturer Stadler. Between 2013 and 2015, Stadler delivered 18 four-car EMU and 20 three-car DMU trainsets to Estonian passenger operator Elron. The EMU trainsets each have a capacity of 274 passengers; the DMUs, 214.
Here are two photos of the EMU model…
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and two of the DMU.
Hundreds
of examples of this model were built by manufacturer ČKD in Prague over
the period from 1963 through 1994, and they were once a common site
both in Soviet-bloc countries and in other parts of the world.
I’ll wrap up this report with a couple of views of steam locomotive L-2317, which is on display between Baltic Station and the office tower that serves as headquarters for Eesti Raudtee. According to several sources, this 2-10-0 was built in 1953 at the Kolomna shops in the Soviet Union.
I
hope you’ve enjoyed following me around on this short tour of Vienna,
Salzburg, Zagreb, Split and Tallinn. Many of you are, undoubtedly, more
knowledgeable than I am about the railways I’ve covered here. If I’ve
made errors, or left out anything of significance, please let me know,
either by leaving a comment below or by emailing me at tmrail@gmail.com.
If you’re interested in seeing railway photos from our 2011 trip to Ireland, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Finland, Switzerland, and the Rhine River area of Germany, please see
• My report on this blog titled Spring and summer 2011: Europe by train, plane, ferry, lake vessel, river cruise ship, tram and bus, and
• The “Overseas railways” page of my web site, tmrail.com.
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