SBB rolls out planned 2024 night train connections

 The Swiss Railways SBB joins ÖBB using the Nightjet trademark to deliver high-quality night sleeper trains connecting Zürich with various European cities.

The oldest electric locomotive in service leads you to the Valley of Hell

The oldest electric locomotive in service leads you to the Valley of Hell

The preparations

As the Wien-Raaber Bahn reached the feet of the Semmering pass and later on, as the pass railway (the world's first-ever mountain railway) was developed, the flourishing, wet, lumber-heavy valleys in the area attracted loads of investors. Neusiedler AG wanted to build a paper mill along the Schwarza river to exploit the dense pinewood forests of the area and therefore the planning of a standard-gauge railway from Südbahn's Payerbach-Reichenau station to Hirschwang (the village at the feet of the Raxalpe, to house the paper mill) and a branch to Prien, both electrified by DC, was started.

Photo of the Week: Narrow-gauge Freight on the Lillafüred Forestry Railway

The D02-508 is a class Mk48 diesel-hydraulic locomotive that serves on the 76-cm-gauge Lillafüred Forest Railway (Lillafüredi Erdei Vasút). Though freight service is discontinued and only tourist excursion trains are operated on the two-line network building trains need some goods cars and therefore sometimes train enthusiasts can organize colourful photo charters with them. On this occasion the Mk48 pulled the freight and the photographers travelled in a separate train hauled by a class C50 small diesel locomotive:

Photo of the Week: Small Locomotive, Big Use

The SBB Cargo Eem 923 027-7 is a dual-mode (diesel+electric, 15 kV 16.7 Hz+25 kV 50 Hz AC) light freight locomotive manufactured by Stadler Rail (Bussnang, Switzerland). A total number of 30 were built in 2011-2012 and their duties include regional freight trains and light shunting. This example was photographed at the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplonbahn's Spiez station. The versatile little locomotives have a maximum speed of 100 km/h and a power output of 1500 kW on electric and 360 kW on diesel power.

The Situation of Train Travel in Hungary

Currently, Hungary is going through gradual release after a semi-serious lockdown state, however, some restrictions are broken down more difficultly than others. Similarly to some other East-Central-Europe states, Hungary managed to cancel most of the capabilities of the Covid-19 virus to spread and the only major concern is the infection of many hospital workers and the internal spreading of the infection across different parts of the hospital, resulting in patients of other illnesses to be returning home infected; often to homes for the elderly or homeless shelters. Because of the very low level of infections in the outside world, the government's primary concern is the re-introduction of the virus through foreign visitors, so for any Hungarians returning from abroad a two-week quarantine at home is ordered.

Daily commuting is possible to some of the neighbouring states like Austria (without limits) or Slovakia (to 30 km distance from the border station). Other international travel is mostly prohibited or requires quarantine on both entry to the foreign country and re-entry home. Five designated states can have free business trips.

Photo of the Week: CFF Viseu

CFF Viseu de Sus is a narrow-gauge forestry railway situated in Northern Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains. In the warm half of the year, every weekend tourist steam trains take over the valley of the Vaser river and there are some occasional winter runnings as well. On weekends the railway still serves the original purpose, transporting lumber and lumberjacks. The excursion trains visit about half the length of the railway from Viseu to Paltin. Most steam locomotives used were at Resita or Reghin in Romania as a variant of the Hungarian MÁVAG class 490 design.

• Additional photos of steam locomotive trains in Romania

A colourful railroad before it went out of service

Line 76: Diósjenő to Romhány, Hungary

The beginning of the year is always problematic for me as a teacher to find time for writing. Now that we are practically locked down due to the Corona virus it is time to go on a trip in our imagination by a train instead of actually taking one. The best way to stay safe is to stay at home.

If I had to travel in my head then an obvious choice for me was a railway I could not travel on in real life anymore. This post is probably going to get rather sentimental, I hope you do not mind. Some railways I never even had the chance to travel on, some I missed out on before closure due to being obsessed with other things or not believing they were really going to do that. This line is different: I spent a lot of time on this railway and I think I can be content with the number of photos I have of it, also with the interesting events and trains I had captured on it before it was closed in March 2007.
Normally the blog would invite you on some of the most spectacular railway journeys in Europe. Despite the hilly scenery, this line is not a huge spectacle; it may be nice compared to the lowlands that dominate Hungary, but you will not feel the urge to immediately go and walk the railway now that trains are absent.

My railway photography trips in 2019

2019 was a busy year for me. It, for starters, marked the launch of my English language travel blog (this one), and also has seen the blog decline in the number of posts. The sad reality is that I will not be able to make posts as frequently as I wanted to - but 2019 was at the same time a beautiful year with colourful trips to various locations that may be represented in upcoming posts on this blog. Altogether, partly because of my hobby, partly because of work, I have taken railway-related photos in 15 countries in Europe, which is a lot. Each country on its own is easily an adventure of weeks for a railway traveller and I could be to this many countries without being shocked by the different sensations is that this year I have only been to countries I have visited before, most of them many times already. But in those countries, there were many new locations to discover. Let's see, what my 2019 travels looked like!

2019 started by a photo charter called Fények Fotósvonata (Charter of Lights), which was an appropriate name for the night photography trip at the Királyrét Forestry Railway, a narrow-gauge railway in Hungary.

Retro Liveries of the Locomotives of the Hungarian State Railways

Retro is a term often used in Eastern and Central Europe for things that are left behind from the end of the 20th century, or, in an increasing number of cases, have been recreated to resemble the typical looks of those things. Unlike 'old', retro doesn't imply that the thing is incapable of doing its job anymore, just identifies it as something which has a unique style to it because of the year it was made.

When talking about trains, we must differentiate between retro vehicles and historic vehicles, both can mean locomotives, carriages or multiple units and railcars. Something is historic if it is kept in a museum or is only used on special occasions. They are often privately owned or belong to an identity separate from the railway companies that serve the usual traffic in the region. Retro, on the other hand, usually means a vehicle that still has some daily work to do and is actively used to earn revenue in ways which are not connected to the tool being older than the average stock. To put it straight: they carry passengers just like any other vehicle belonging to their operator or are used for daily freight or departmental trains. But they all wear a special livery that can turn back the wheel of time for the people who remember, force some good memories to resurface and add a significant bit to the class and mood of rail travel. In the UK this kind of repainting is often called a heritage livery.

The Hungarian network is not the only one to have retro trains, but the number of such vehicles has greatly increased recently and for the second year in a row, passenger operator MÁV-START has organized special Retro Weekends for enthusiasts and the general public to enjoy, thus bringing attention to the existence of these nice vehicles.

Bzmot 343 (117 343 in the current numbering scheme) is allocated to the MÁV-START depot at Balassagyarmat and wears the livery these tiny railcars had worn until the mid-90s refurbishment and engine replacement.

Photo of the Week: Neretva River Gorge with Old Train

The Neretva Gorge is one of the most spectacular views of the Balkan and a highlight of the train travel from Sarajevo to Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The twice-daily trains used to be run by ASEA-license locomotives and an assorted set of carriages but nowadays the Spanish Talgo high-speed sets are mandatory. In the summer, extra trains are provided. See more about Bosnia and Herzegovina on my website.

Narrow-gauge train to Cortina d'Ampezzo

Using the groundworks of the 70 cm Austrian military railway and utilising the reparations paid by World War losing Austria to Italy, Ferrovia della Dolomiti, a 950 mm/95 cm gauge narrow-gauge railway had been built of a total length of 65 km from Toblach in South-Tyrol through Cortina d'Ampezzo to Calalzo, where connection to the Italian mainlines was provided. The railway line was opened for civil travel in 1921 and electrification was finished by 1929 with 2700 V direct current.

Retro Weekends at Lake Balaton in Hungary

Retro locomotives become increasingly popular with Eastern European railways. A retro locomotive is not a historic vehicle: it is still in operation, even if not in everyday but departmental use, but it is painted in a livery resembling a previous era of the railway, in many cases the livery in which the locomotive had been delivered by the factory.
MÁV has only recently jumped on the bandwaggon but now taking part fiercely: this year two, so-called retro weekends are organised, during which the regular, usually more reliable and modern locomotives are swapped for some retro units on the scenic line running on the Northern side of Lake Balaton. The lake is extremely popular among Hungarians as a beach but has a strong culture and lots of vineyards, meaning that tourists soar in the summer season, making sure the trains will have an impressive length and the diesel locomotives will be forced to emit nice smoke and an easy to distinguish roar.
The first such weekend started only yesterday, with MÁV-START 408 224 (ex M40,224) hauling a fast train to the end of the railway, Tapolca, which is about ten kilometres from the shores of the lake and is situated in a basin surrounded by remnants of volcanoes, which is good for the wine and also creates a remarkable scenery. If you are interested in taking part, either by taking photos or videos of the spectacular consists or would like to travel on one of the trains, you are not late in any way: August 2nd to 4th is the next occasion. Before any details, let's see what yesterdays train looked like on photo...

Photo of the Week: Narrow-gauge Interurban Tram in Slovakia

TREŽ (Trenčinská Električka Železnica) 411 902-0 is a ČKD-built, 76 cm gauge railcar that operates on the interurban tram line between Trenčianká Teplá railway station on the Bratislava-Žilina-Košice mainline and Trenčianske Teplice, a renown bath resort. The line mostly runs next to the road or on the embankment of the creek and passes by scenes of different character: village, hilly countryside, Socialist-era blocks of flats and townhouses dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Trains only operate on selected weekend and are ran by the association TREŽ. The photo was taken during a photo charter at Trenčianske Teplice zastávka.
Learn more about the railway from my recent travelogue about narrow-gauge trams in Slovakia.

Photo of the Week: False History at Lake Balaton

MÁV owns a number of locomotives that are still in regular service but are in a historic livery. This one is different: all Nohabs have been stopped and this one is used by a special institute of MÁV for moving the track measurement car. Its livery is not at all historic - the stripes on the side are made up and no Nohab actually had this coat of arms on its nose. For a few years MÁV had used this locomotive to pull one of the regular fast trains as a form of retro and advertisement but does not follow this practice anymore. The photo was taken in 2013, so its ancient wibe is nothing but Photoshopped.

Tram 38 of Bytom

Okay, this should be a railway-related blog, but this is also a personal one, and this one was a personal interest for me, so here it comes. The Upper Silesian Interurbans may be something an enthusiast is familiar with, but do not be sad if you are not - people only get addicted to its intriguing story and unbelievable existence when they hear about it, but since it is an undisclosed secret of Poland, it is not easy to hear about it.

Poland had a complicated history, in some eras, the neighbouring nations simply split up its territory, so at the beginning of the 19th century Poland simply didn't exist: at the current area of Poland, Russia, the Habsburg Empire and Prussia has expanded its borders. Silesia had been a Prussian territory and the Germans made use of the coal to be found deep in this area, bringing economic growth to Silesia.

Photo of the Week: On the Train to Zakopane

The PKP ED 160-009 (type Stadler FLIRT3) electric multiple unit arrives in Chabówka, Poland as an InterCity train from Zakopane to Warszawa.

The Zakopane-Kraków railway in Souther Poland offers a connection to the resort in the High Tatras. Zakopane is popular both in the summer for its beauty and the hiking possibilities and in the winter for skiing and partying. The railway gets there in a curvy and long path which is worsened by the low speed because of lack of maintenance. Still it is the most comfortable and reliable way of getting there because of the traffic jams.

• This photo is featured in my album about the Chabówka steam locomotive festival
• You can find additional photos in the freshly published travelogue on my homepage, benbe.hu

Photo of the Week: Frame of Flowers

This may look like just an ordinary flower-framed photo, but it was taken on the Budapest - Esztergom railway in Hungary which has since been completely rebuilt, and therefore this photo location at the boundary of Budapest and Urom does not exist anymore.

Photo of the Week: A Last Winter Photo from Grisons

Spring is already high in Europe but I wanted a last reminder of the beauties of winter before moving on. I am always looking forward to winter, snow and the glorious high contrast photos you can take in winter and four years ago we had enormous luck when heavy snow, a mostly clear sky and great trains in Graubünden, Switzerland, on the network of the Rhätische Bahnen (Rhetian Railways, a local, metre-gauge network in the Alps).
Visiting the RhB is always great but autumn and winter offer dramatic landscapes so a visit in those times is definitely recommended even though the days are short.
Additional photos

The ÖBB 4020 electric multiple unit from Austria

S-Bahn train in the tunnel under Wien Hauptbahnhof (Vienna Main Station)

The Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) had electrified many railway lines at the very early days of mainline electrification choosing the then most-advanced low-frequency alternating current system with 15 kV, 16 (2/3) Hz AC voltage. The federal capital Wien was reached by electric trains in 1952 as the main area for electrification had been the mountain passes. In those years Austria was still under Allied occupation with the capital being inside the zone controlled by the Soviet Union but the city itself split up into four control zones very similarly to those of Berlin. But while Berlin and Germany gradually shifted into an Eastern and Western part Austria was jointly run by the four allies and in 1955 given independence.
After that, the development of the city sped up and required the establishment of a commuter railway network which later incorporated various rail links inside the city and became the Vienna S-Bahn. The main vehicle on the S-Bahn became the ÖBB class 4030 electric multiple unit which had almost the same features as the subject of the present article, only being different in exterior design and the electric systems.

Photo of the Week | The Schwarzatal-Viaduct

The Semmeringbahn is the world's first mountain mainline and a highlight of the European railway network. The whole line was designed to harmonize with nature and as such can be considered the first attempt to show that rail transportation is the green way to go. The route through the 898 m high Semmering Scheiteltunnel is soon going to start serving only the tourists after the opening of the new Semmering Base Tunnel (SBT). You should visit the Semmering Railway while it still has freight trains and railjet high-speed trains through the mountain pass.

• Additional photos