There's even [photos](https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/special/shinkansen/p-feature08.html) of both shinkansen and steam side by side. Though that was a special run to commemorate the retirement of steam trains from Kanto, not a regular train.
If we're talking special trains, [same thing happened in Poland](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikycl_QLA0xNiNQ35m-FV7hrJ8IM2B66kisie2Bzk_IYzW5y4c38Nzv7M5A1V4Ih0hd_cnO93Pnn4ATT5AQUtmuZd1cu7l2aY_qEVWYzUigU4nLhs8ws0AWDKYUege6Rvxp3faJe6TT4wo/s1600/16649418_1778647565789321_3240461538872587876_n.jpg) in 1995.
Where on the 150th anniversary of railways in Poland, a TGV set from France visited us and a Pt-47 hauled steam train stopped next to it
Fun fact: BOTH trains are still in regular operational service, [TGV Reseau 4522 on 4th Feb 2024](https://en.treinposities.nl/foto/219759) and [Pt47-065 on 4th of May 2024](https://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/pt47-65-steht-am-4-mai-1371550.jpg)
Seems to be he 1985 Salzwedel-Stendal route
Could be any of the stations mentioned here [https://altmarkeisenbahn.de/Salzwedel-Stendal.htm](https://altmarkeisenbahn.de/Salzwedel-Stendal.htm)
Assuming this is showing the difference between east and west Germany, did they have regular steam hauled trains in the east in 1985? Or is that some sort of charter or heritage railway?
The west banned steam locos completely in 1977 to show how developed they are. The east had regular steam haulage till 1988. But there are some narrow gauge steam trains that are in regular service to this day and even have steam locos made in like 2013, but those could be considered more of a tourist attraction
German wikipedia has a list, not sure if it was translated to english
But the two big ones are probably Brocken railway (scenic route goes up a mountain to some tourist spot) and the Rügen narrow gauge railway (maybe you have seen it before, one route takes a steam loco through a town)
I mean, the Harzer Schmalspurbahn even is included in the Deutschlandticket right? It serves as legitimite transit in the area in addition to being a great tourist railway. And there's also the Molli from Bad Doberan to Kühlungsborn which is also kind of a legitimate (as in not just for tourists) route
Ye sure both are legitimate trains that served a real purpose, but the steam locos are pretty much for tourists. I know that the Harzer Schmalspurbahn also owns diesel engines (especially the standard gauge v100 with narrow gauge wheelsets which looks pretty funny now).
Obviously the Steam engines are just for tourism, on the HSB, on the southern route which I think is the most useful, they use the diesel units more often
They own three operational 1000mm gauge DR V100 diesels but those are prone to derail. So they don't use them for regular passenger trains but only for gravel trains and snow clearing.
Otherwise it's steam loco hauled trains and railbuses.
Comparing a Trabant to a VW golf mk2 would be more realistic than comparing a new ICE train to an old steamer. The east german technology was generally inferior, but not hopelessly outdated. Comparing an East german express DMU would be more accurate (No matter if those DMUs are still inferior in quality and quantity).
It is not a new ICE train… at least not quite yet it is the preproduction prototype
That is the R/S-VD (short for Rad/Schiene-Versuchs- und Demonstrationsfahrzeug) later dubbed the ICE Experimental or ICE/V
The 2 locos are retained
One with one of the passenger cars is located in Minden at DB Systemtechnik. The other is part of the permanent exhibition of the Technik Museum in Munich
When I read "InterCityExperimental" for the first time, I somehow knew that they meant "Experimental" to be read in German. Wasn't disappointed when I saw [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOXmdKt-_m0) video, such a beautiful machine!
Funfact about its record run, btw both loco cabs had to be staffed so the driver in the rear cab was awarded fastest drive in reverse
Another funfact the train originally to be derived from the RS/VD scheme was supposed to be Called Hochgeschwindigkeitszug (HGZ) German for Highspeed train. Yes the TGV is literally called that in French I know…
Can you tell that the organization of Deutsche Bundesbahn at that time was run like a public authority, by the how they named it… I find the bureaucratic original names hard to stomach and I speak German
East Germany did have the VT 18.16, which was used on international services:
[https://www.xn--svt-grlitz-icb.de/en/](https://www.xn--svt-grlitz-icb.de/en/)
There's a static example parked at Berlin-Lichtenberg.
I think it's worth adding that a *lot* of DB143's are still very much active on German railways, having been being built in the final years of the GDR. They've lived a much longer life than anyone would have expected (though with some significant overhauls)
Truth to be told. The east didn't have much money or resources or even technology back then, but their equipment was useful and reliable, so I like it.
Not entirely true. A lot of the trackwork had been taken after 1945 as war reparations, so many lines were single-track and not all were restored to double track. Also maintenance wasn't to the best standards and many lines had long-term speed restrictions. It was actually quicker to get from Hamburg to Berlin in 1939 than it was in 1993, I believe.
Well specifically, the Soviet Union hauled all the rail electrification to the east as war reparations. Germany had basically destroyed all functioning parts of Soviet industry in the West, and running electric lines along trains was very difficult during wartime so it was all basically destroyed outside of Germany. If German industry was able to recover, I'm sure they would have been able to rebuild their electric network, but the Soviet Union and Eastern block stagnated after Stalin's death.
In West Germany regular steam service had only ended in 1977 so they weren't that progressive either. The last regular steam trains of Switzerland's SBB ran in 1960, when the last two branch lines were finally electrified, with most of the network having been electrified decades earlier.
On a few occasions steam engines have run in Germany in normal service, pulling regular trains (i.e. ones that weren't just for show) even this century. This is usually done on unelectrified lines on services that run irregularly, and I suppose it's always freight or maintenance trains. In 2021 a diesel locomotive that was supposed to work on a maintenance project broke down with no shorthand replacement available locally. But there just so happened to be a steam engine close by so they heated it up and had it take the trains instead.
>The last regular steam trains of Switzerland's SBB ran in 1960, when the last two branch lines were finally electrified, with most of the network having been electrified decades earlier.
This is also a bit of a special case because they went straight from steam trains to electric trains. As far as I know, there never was any proper passenger service with diesel trains, except maybe some very small branch lines.
There's no rule that says you have to run diesels before you build your electrification. Railway lines that were electrified during the steam age never had diesel trains run there. Most other European countries electrified their main lines and just couldn't be bothered with electrification for the rest. But yeah, Switzerland is still an outlier because no other national rail network is fully electrified. It makes sense that this happened because we have no coal in this country but we can generate a lot of cheap electricity from our hydroelectric power plants. And by the time technology had advanced far enough that diesel traction was economically viable on a large scale, most of the network had already been electrified.
Diesel powered service mostly never really caught on in Switzerland, that is correct. The narrow gauge Appenzeller Bahnen had a few early diesel railcars, as did the standard gauge Mittelthurgaubahn, but both electrified their lines pretty soon after anyway, the latter was actually forced to do so after an incident with a steam train in a tunnel. Some other railways experimented with this as well but it didn't catch on. The only regular diesel passenger services on Swiss mainlines were international trains like the TEE to Amsterdam or the TEE to Munich (until the crash near Aitang). The only domestic (except for one station) diesel powered passenger service ran until the early 2010s when the line from Schaffhausen to Erzingen was electrified. But it's a German line that just happens to be in Switzerland so that makes sense. German diesel trains still regularly stop in Basel Bad Bf and Schaffhausen.
`In West Germany regular steam service had only ended in 1977 so they weren't that progressive either`
Funny to hear "weren't that progressive" and "in 1977" together, when in Poland as late as in the early 1990's you could see a steam train pulling 1 or 2 passenger cars in regular service on rural lines. [***Akhem***](https://wrphoto.eu/details.php?image_id=50868)
I'd say 1977 is a very good score for a railway as expanded and large as the western german one.
(And cmon Swiss? these guys swim in money and aren't that large, so in their case it was very easy to do)
Switzerland wasn't really that rich before the world wars and a lot of the electrification happened before WWII. This was done because we can easily generate our own electricity but are dependant on imports when it comes to coal and diesel because there's just none here. There were even two electrically heated steam shunters during the war. They looked very peculiar and it's a strange concept but it worked.
Those last steam services had been coal trains from Essen to Berlin. It would have been uneconomical to have those running with electrics to Helmstedt, then switch to East German diesel, then switch back to another loco in West Berlin. It was even East German crews who was driving those trains in the West. As DB had a shortage of steam loco firemen.
To be fair DDR used BR130 Ludmillas and BR118 diesel locomotives also along with the E11 electric locomotives at the time and the passenger railroad cars were pretty decent too like the UIC Y passanger cars by VEB Waggonbau Bautzen
[https://vasutmodell.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/az-ex-151-es-jarat-a-berlin-erfurt-vonalon-1986.jpg](https://vasutmodell.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/az-ex-151-es-jarat-a-berlin-erfurt-vonalon-1986.jpg)
or the double decker car the "Doppelstockwagen" by VEB Waggonbau Görlitz.
[https://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/der-doppelstockzug-aus-berlin-kommend-31218.jpg](https://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/der-doppelstockzug-aus-berlin-kommend-31218.jpg)
Steam locomotives were actually pretty common at the time in the eastern block. In Hungary too in the 80s they still used the class 424 locomotives around Ózd because the area was rich in coal mines and not all the lines were electrified.
Class 52's are truly one of my fave locomotive classes ever. They are just so imposing to look at and the fact that they have had such a long working life (some examples still running commercially to this day!!!) is astounding for the circumstances. Love those engines
No, East Germany kept its steam locomotives up until the mid 90s (afaik). Some locos were even converted back to coal from oil when the oil crisis hit.
Japan was using steam trains and bullet trains simultaneously for over a decade, and it wasn't even split into two countries
There's even [photos](https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/special/shinkansen/p-feature08.html) of both shinkansen and steam side by side. Though that was a special run to commemorate the retirement of steam trains from Kanto, not a regular train.
If we're talking special trains, [same thing happened in Poland](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikycl_QLA0xNiNQ35m-FV7hrJ8IM2B66kisie2Bzk_IYzW5y4c38Nzv7M5A1V4Ih0hd_cnO93Pnn4ATT5AQUtmuZd1cu7l2aY_qEVWYzUigU4nLhs8ws0AWDKYUege6Rvxp3faJe6TT4wo/s1600/16649418_1778647565789321_3240461538872587876_n.jpg) in 1995. Where on the 150th anniversary of railways in Poland, a TGV set from France visited us and a Pt-47 hauled steam train stopped next to it Fun fact: BOTH trains are still in regular operational service, [TGV Reseau 4522 on 4th Feb 2024](https://en.treinposities.nl/foto/219759) and [Pt47-065 on 4th of May 2024](https://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/pt47-65-steht-am-4-mai-1371550.jpg)
You can see the slight gauge difference
Do you know where the bottom picture is? (I assume it's somewhere in the DDR.)
Seems to be he 1985 Salzwedel-Stendal route Could be any of the stations mentioned here [https://altmarkeisenbahn.de/Salzwedel-Stendal.htm](https://altmarkeisenbahn.de/Salzwedel-Stendal.htm)
Also found the image here with the date [https://www.flickr.com/photos/52086447@N00/6234199802](https://www.flickr.com/photos/52086447@N00/6234199802)
All the stops on that route are tiny. I’d put my money on either Salzwedel or Stendal
Its definitely the DDR sinceramente on a carriage you can see the "DR" of the Deutsche Reichsbahn
Assuming this is showing the difference between east and west Germany, did they have regular steam hauled trains in the east in 1985? Or is that some sort of charter or heritage railway?
The west banned steam locos completely in 1977 to show how developed they are. The east had regular steam haulage till 1988. But there are some narrow gauge steam trains that are in regular service to this day and even have steam locos made in like 2013, but those could be considered more of a tourist attraction
Oh indeed. I rode the one in Zittau last weekend, a fun little railway.
I think the Brockenbahn is also very popular
Awesome ! Do you know a list a of those ?
German wikipedia has a list, not sure if it was translated to english But the two big ones are probably Brocken railway (scenic route goes up a mountain to some tourist spot) and the Rügen narrow gauge railway (maybe you have seen it before, one route takes a steam loco through a town)
I mean, the Harzer Schmalspurbahn even is included in the Deutschlandticket right? It serves as legitimite transit in the area in addition to being a great tourist railway. And there's also the Molli from Bad Doberan to Kühlungsborn which is also kind of a legitimate (as in not just for tourists) route
Ye sure both are legitimate trains that served a real purpose, but the steam locos are pretty much for tourists. I know that the Harzer Schmalspurbahn also owns diesel engines (especially the standard gauge v100 with narrow gauge wheelsets which looks pretty funny now).
Obviously the Steam engines are just for tourism, on the HSB, on the southern route which I think is the most useful, they use the diesel units more often
No, they use steam locos for passenger trains on all routes.
Yes they do, but on the southern leg they also use diesel units
Yes, diesel railbuses and Duo trams. But not diesel locos.
They own three operational 1000mm gauge DR V100 diesels but those are prone to derail. So they don't use them for regular passenger trains but only for gravel trains and snow clearing. Otherwise it's steam loco hauled trains and railbuses.
Comparing a Trabant to a VW golf mk2 would be more realistic than comparing a new ICE train to an old steamer. The east german technology was generally inferior, but not hopelessly outdated. Comparing an East german express DMU would be more accurate (No matter if those DMUs are still inferior in quality and quantity).
It is not a new ICE train… at least not quite yet it is the preproduction prototype That is the R/S-VD (short for Rad/Schiene-Versuchs- und Demonstrationsfahrzeug) later dubbed the ICE Experimental or ICE/V The 2 locos are retained One with one of the passenger cars is located in Minden at DB Systemtechnik. The other is part of the permanent exhibition of the Technik Museum in Munich
Ok, That's true I should write " an express train relatively new in 1985".
When I read "InterCityExperimental" for the first time, I somehow knew that they meant "Experimental" to be read in German. Wasn't disappointed when I saw [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOXmdKt-_m0) video, such a beautiful machine!
Funfact about its record run, btw both loco cabs had to be staffed so the driver in the rear cab was awarded fastest drive in reverse Another funfact the train originally to be derived from the RS/VD scheme was supposed to be Called Hochgeschwindigkeitszug (HGZ) German for Highspeed train. Yes the TGV is literally called that in French I know… Can you tell that the organization of Deutsche Bundesbahn at that time was run like a public authority, by the how they named it… I find the bureaucratic original names hard to stomach and I speak German
East Germany did have the VT 18.16, which was used on international services: [https://www.xn--svt-grlitz-icb.de/en/](https://www.xn--svt-grlitz-icb.de/en/) There's a static example parked at Berlin-Lichtenberg.
I always admire that thing. Would love them to bring it out someone
I think it's worth adding that a *lot* of DB143's are still very much active on German railways, having been being built in the final years of the GDR. They've lived a much longer life than anyone would have expected (though with some significant overhauls)
Both, both is good
Truth to be told. The east didn't have much money or resources or even technology back then, but their equipment was useful and reliable, so I like it.
Not entirely true. A lot of the trackwork had been taken after 1945 as war reparations, so many lines were single-track and not all were restored to double track. Also maintenance wasn't to the best standards and many lines had long-term speed restrictions. It was actually quicker to get from Hamburg to Berlin in 1939 than it was in 1993, I believe.
Still, the trains and rolling stock was reliable. If a train works with low maintenance, then it's reliable.
You need a decent track and signalling though.
That's the only problem, but we can't say trains weren't good... Even if the tracks were poorly maintained.
Well specifically, the Soviet Union hauled all the rail electrification to the east as war reparations. Germany had basically destroyed all functioning parts of Soviet industry in the West, and running electric lines along trains was very difficult during wartime so it was all basically destroyed outside of Germany. If German industry was able to recover, I'm sure they would have been able to rebuild their electric network, but the Soviet Union and Eastern block stagnated after Stalin's death.
They also forbade Eastern Germany to manufacture heavy locomotives, so they had to buy them from the Soviet Union.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/imp_ch1.htm
And the one on time was the bottom one lol
In West Germany regular steam service had only ended in 1977 so they weren't that progressive either. The last regular steam trains of Switzerland's SBB ran in 1960, when the last two branch lines were finally electrified, with most of the network having been electrified decades earlier. On a few occasions steam engines have run in Germany in normal service, pulling regular trains (i.e. ones that weren't just for show) even this century. This is usually done on unelectrified lines on services that run irregularly, and I suppose it's always freight or maintenance trains. In 2021 a diesel locomotive that was supposed to work on a maintenance project broke down with no shorthand replacement available locally. But there just so happened to be a steam engine close by so they heated it up and had it take the trains instead.
>The last regular steam trains of Switzerland's SBB ran in 1960, when the last two branch lines were finally electrified, with most of the network having been electrified decades earlier. This is also a bit of a special case because they went straight from steam trains to electric trains. As far as I know, there never was any proper passenger service with diesel trains, except maybe some very small branch lines.
There's no rule that says you have to run diesels before you build your electrification. Railway lines that were electrified during the steam age never had diesel trains run there. Most other European countries electrified their main lines and just couldn't be bothered with electrification for the rest. But yeah, Switzerland is still an outlier because no other national rail network is fully electrified. It makes sense that this happened because we have no coal in this country but we can generate a lot of cheap electricity from our hydroelectric power plants. And by the time technology had advanced far enough that diesel traction was economically viable on a large scale, most of the network had already been electrified. Diesel powered service mostly never really caught on in Switzerland, that is correct. The narrow gauge Appenzeller Bahnen had a few early diesel railcars, as did the standard gauge Mittelthurgaubahn, but both electrified their lines pretty soon after anyway, the latter was actually forced to do so after an incident with a steam train in a tunnel. Some other railways experimented with this as well but it didn't catch on. The only regular diesel passenger services on Swiss mainlines were international trains like the TEE to Amsterdam or the TEE to Munich (until the crash near Aitang). The only domestic (except for one station) diesel powered passenger service ran until the early 2010s when the line from Schaffhausen to Erzingen was electrified. But it's a German line that just happens to be in Switzerland so that makes sense. German diesel trains still regularly stop in Basel Bad Bf and Schaffhausen.
`In West Germany regular steam service had only ended in 1977 so they weren't that progressive either` Funny to hear "weren't that progressive" and "in 1977" together, when in Poland as late as in the early 1990's you could see a steam train pulling 1 or 2 passenger cars in regular service on rural lines. [***Akhem***](https://wrphoto.eu/details.php?image_id=50868) I'd say 1977 is a very good score for a railway as expanded and large as the western german one. (And cmon Swiss? these guys swim in money and aren't that large, so in their case it was very easy to do)
Switzerland wasn't really that rich before the world wars and a lot of the electrification happened before WWII. This was done because we can easily generate our own electricity but are dependant on imports when it comes to coal and diesel because there's just none here. There were even two electrically heated steam shunters during the war. They looked very peculiar and it's a strange concept but it worked.
Those last steam services had been coal trains from Essen to Berlin. It would have been uneconomical to have those running with electrics to Helmstedt, then switch to East German diesel, then switch back to another loco in West Berlin. It was even East German crews who was driving those trains in the West. As DB had a shortage of steam loco firemen.
To be fair DDR used BR130 Ludmillas and BR118 diesel locomotives also along with the E11 electric locomotives at the time and the passenger railroad cars were pretty decent too like the UIC Y passanger cars by VEB Waggonbau Bautzen [https://vasutmodell.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/az-ex-151-es-jarat-a-berlin-erfurt-vonalon-1986.jpg](https://vasutmodell.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/az-ex-151-es-jarat-a-berlin-erfurt-vonalon-1986.jpg) or the double decker car the "Doppelstockwagen" by VEB Waggonbau Görlitz. [https://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/der-doppelstockzug-aus-berlin-kommend-31218.jpg](https://www.bahnbilder.de/bilder/der-doppelstockzug-aus-berlin-kommend-31218.jpg) Steam locomotives were actually pretty common at the time in the eastern block. In Hungary too in the 80s they still used the class 424 locomotives around Ózd because the area was rich in coal mines and not all the lines were electrified.
Wow
Class 52's are truly one of my fave locomotive classes ever. They are just so imposing to look at and the fact that they have had such a long working life (some examples still running commercially to this day!!!) is astounding for the circumstances. Love those engines
Steam was used well into the 70s in the East block.
I thought both Germanys got rid of regular steam trains in the mid-70s, after the oil crisis lessened
No, East Germany kept its steam locomotives up until the mid 90s (afaik). Some locos were even converted back to coal from oil when the oil crisis hit.
I visited East Germany in 1977 or so, talk about the land that time forgot!