Kostya's Boring Codec World

So what I’ve discovered today.

There’s a Schwarzwaldbahn going through Schwarzwald from Offenburg to Konstanz and there’s a station there — Villingen. That station bears a plaque that it had 10000th kilometre of electrification of DB network done in 1975 (DDR railways on the other hoof lost most of its electrification after the war because it was more important to electrify Soviet railways but that’s another story).

And there’s a branch connecting Villingen (Baden) with Rottweil (Württemberg) — unelectrified. And that branch has its own subbranch to Trossingen Stadt. That subbranch is also served by a diesel railbus. But unlike the branch it connects to it’s electrified! And that electrification is used only by museum vehicles from 1930s-1960s that are electric only (or in one case it’s a carriage with an electric locomotive).

On most such lines in Germany one usually has trains hauled by a steam locomotive or a diesel rail buses and the main traffic is electrified but in this case it’s the other way round. I have only one possible explanation — Württemberg.

P.S. Still it’s hard to find stupider situation with electrification than in Denmark. The only countries it has connections to had chosen 15 kV 16? Hz system. Denmark settled on 25 kV 50 Hz. But looking at their other railway-related decision (i.e. IC4) it seems logical.

P.P.S. For Ukraine the situation is sadder — once I was in Uzhgorod-Kharkiv train and it had to change locomotive twice because there are two electrification systems there (which make three areas). They claim it was done to better account for relief, i.e. different electrification for the flatter and mountainy regions. Hopefully there will be more two-system trains in the future (and there will be the future too).

I’ve not written anything about one of the crucial topics of this blog since ages, so here’s the long-awaited update.

Today I’d like to talk about probably the most interesting railway in Germany — Wutachtalbahn or Kursbuchstrecke 743 (Waldshut-Immendingen). It was build as a route to the South border of Germany that does not go on Swiss territory (the line along the Rhine it connects to goes through Basel and canton Schaffhausen).

Now, what makes it so interesting?

Despite being rather unimportant line nowadays and being about only 60km long (and there are no branches either!), it is operated by three different rail companies:

1. northern part (Immendingen — Blumberg-Zollhaus) is operated by SWEG
2. central part (Blumberg-Zollhaus — Weizen) is operated by WTB
3. southern part (Weizen — Lauchringen — Waldshut) is operated by DB

(Image shamelessly stolen from Wickedpedia)

So you have three different companies running trains on approximately 20km tracks. Is it the same rolling stock? Of course not!

SWEG runs class 650 (aka Stadler RS1) diesel unit, Deutsche Bahn employs class 641 diesel unit and WTB runs a steam locomotive (Württembergische T.14 or class 52.80 or something similar) with bunch of outdated carriages from various places (like Switzerland).

And for unknown reason it’s nicknamed “Pig’s Tail Railway” (see the map above, I have no clue why) and the name somehow appeals to me.

I’ve visited it in three parts: one year I saw the middle part, next year I saw the north parth and later I saw the last part too. Curiously, while DB runs the most modern train the route itself seems the most outdated: the rails are uneven so you can get a bit seasick, the signal system is implemented by driver’s assistant with a red flag who stands on the crossing while the train passes it and it does not stand on the Weizen station for long because it has to give room to the WTB train (in result it comes to the station, waits a bit and cowardly retreats back to the track and waits there till the WTB train is gone).

In general I’d recommend visiting it if you happen to be there. If you want to see something better — go to Sweden and try Uppsala-Lenna railway, it’s the best (now I want to visit it again — oh wait, I wanted that before too).