Jon WorthWelcome to #CrossBorderRail Day 14
The final day of the Germany borders project
Today I’m off to Guben, Żary and Forst (Lausitz)
Here’s todays intro video https://urbanists.video/w/5JESqCiQPYnJPqPCV2NB5d
PeerTube
#CrossBorderRail Train 63
RE 1 (91762)
09:29 Berlin Ostbahnhof - Frankfurt (Oder) Hbf 10:30
Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH
Average speed 80 km/h
Distance 81 km
Train type: Siemens Desiro HC mixed single and double deck EMU, 6 carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (step free if platform allows)
🛜: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (lots of multi use spaces, overhead racks good, space under seats)
🧽: 🤔 (not cleaned inside since at least yesterday)
Here’s today’s route map
And the full zoomable map
https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/crossborderrail-de-2023_835860#7/49.088/10.371
Today I’m following the route of the Niederschlesisch-Märkische Eisenbahn that used to be the main line Berlin - Wrocław. It opened in 1846.
Today Berlin-Frankfurt(Oder)-Guben, and Żary-Wrocław still run, but the section between Guben and Żary has been dismantled. That’s where I’ll take to my bike today…
Here’s Wikipedia about the line: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederschlesisch-M%C3%A4rkische_Eisenbahn?wprov=sfti1
Grumpy old Berliner dude has just given a passenger who’s coughing here a look of death. She deserved it. And my 😷 is on tight here!
Today I’ll go to the only 🇵🇱 🇩🇪 active railway line I’ve not yet visited (Żary - Forst (Lausitz))
Next week I’ll manage the same for the 🇨🇿 🇩🇪 border (Kraslice - Klingenthal)
I’ve been to all the 🇩🇰 🇩🇪, 🇧🇪 🇩🇪, 🇳🇱 🇩🇪, 🇱🇺 🇩🇪, 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 and 🇨🇭 🇩🇪 lines
Which means I’m only missing a few 🇦🇹 🇩🇪. But Mittenwald and Reutte (Tirol) have rail replacement buses at the moment…
#CrossBorderRail Train 64
RB 43 (18187)
10:36 Frankfurt (Oder) Hbf - Guben 11:17
DB Regio AG Nordost
Average speed 71 km/h
Distance 49 km
Train type: Siemens Mireo EMU, 3 carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (step free if platform allows)
🛜: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (overhead racks small, but otherwise excellent)
🧽: 🙂 (it’s brand new and is spotless)
Credit to Siemens
These Mireo trains are *almost* as good as Stadler single deck EMUs
Quiet. Well designed. Decent seats. Good acceleration. The only downside: steps to the higher floor sections over the wheels, rather than the sloping floors in a Stadler design, and overhead racks for bags a little small…
But in the regional EMU market it strikes me Siemens and Stadler are ahead of the rest
I have this kind of melancholy in Guben/Gubin. It’s great that this is pretty much one town in 2 countries. But the German side in particular is very empty, lacking vitality. Although it’s impeccably looked after.
The Neiße rail bridge south of Guben
The Berlin - Wrocław main line used this until 1945…
Pics tricky with the drone today - windy…
A modern and desolate border, south of Guben. The bridge is new. They built new border posts. And hectares of concrete. Then came Schengen and now it’s empty… except for a Go-Kart track
Żary. An orderly station, quite retro feeling, and a place that feels rather oversized for the number of trains that now use it!
🤦♂️
No ticket office open in Żary, so I try to get an online ticket to Forst (Lausitz)
It’s in Germany. So it doesn’t work.
But to Zasieski it *does* work online.
It’s a couple of km more!
Online tickets beyond Forst I don’t expect. But to Forst is surely possible? #CrossBorderRail
And really I get that international through ticketing is complex
But *just put the first station after the border in your national ticketing system*. Job done
Koleje Dolnośląskie should be able to sell me a ticket to Forst. They run the train
Same at Aachen-Hergenrath 🇧🇪 and Weener-Bad Nieuweschans 🇳🇱 - the few km across the border are a mess…
#CrossBorderRail Train 65
RB 93 (67003)
17:36 Zary - Forst (Lausitz) 18:10
Polregio for Koleje Dolnośląskie
Average speed 66 km/h
Distance 37 km
Train type: Pesa Link DMU 🦈
⛽️
🚲: ✅ (but space quite limited)
🦽: ✅ (but Żary Station not accessible)
🛜: ⛔️
🧳: 🙂
🧽: 🙂
But ❄️ broken. It’s baking!
Brought my own #BeerOnTrains and then got told off by the guard - that it’s not allowed…
🌺 Cat Pöñíçkøvā@jon silly Polish thing, you didn’t know that? (Not that it seems to have done anything with the amount of visible drunk people around.)
AlisonW ♿🏳️🌈♾️@jon
Better drink it quickly and hide the evidence then!
Better drink it quickly and hide the evidence then!
Jens Kutílek
Johanonthetrain@jon I'm just thinking 🤔: something is missing in your spreadsheet and reviews: the quantity and quality of the beers 🍻!
Beluga@jon Fully agree re putting first station after border into ticketing system. I typically "solve" this problem by riding without a ticket between border stations, but I'd really prefer to pay (easily).
@aguleb Same. Let’s see what happens here ;-)
Baragesi@jon One hurdle might be that all the RailCos would have to agree a common standard by which to redesign their database schema, and then have to individually implement it?
🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmann@jon
Haldema Waldemar! Are those three the same guy? Darn, those Europeans all look the same! 🤭
Haldema Waldemar! Are those three the same guy? Darn, those Europeans all look the same! 🤭
Sneezy 💚 :antifa: 🏳️⚧️ 🖤
Andreas K@jon Well, that seems to be the work uniform of a mayor of a rural commune in Western Poland.
A jacket because they are politicians, a tie would probably be too much in the rural setting, No explanation though for the bald heads ;)
Coffee Pinewood@jon Jon. As someone raised on that very river (further up north in Frankfurt), raised by that very melancholy I could try and explain why that is and how it came to be and especially a myriad of thoughts I have about that. But I'd probably need three Mastodon servers to come close to explain it.
@coffeepine Sure. I’ve been to the towns along that river *a lot*. It’s not only Guben-Gubin that feels like that…
@jon That said. As much as I have a true love/hate relationship with Frankfurt. That ugly-as-sin river (She's not a beauty...) is a comfort place.
Anyways, did not want to interrupt your musings too much.
@coffeepine oh keep on 🙂 I’m fascinated by today’s Germany - Poland border. The scars. The reconciliation. The depopulation and deindustrialisation. The we-understand-each-other-but-don’t.
ralf tauscher 
@jon vor gaaanz langer zeit war ich da in der naehe im ferienlager ;)
Lukas 🎢🇨🇭@jon Stadler 🥰
And yes ramps > steps!
And yes ramps > steps!
Braid in trains 
- solidarity with 
@K1ngdaKa88 I think it’s because Mireo is designed to have powered axels in the middle of the EMU as well. Stadler powers only the end bogies of single deck EMUs
@jon hmm, but I feel it’s the same height difference in a Flirt and a Mireo. 🤔
@K1ngdaKa88 I think the middle high floor sections in Mireo are higher. The wheels in the middle are definitely larger.
Schleifleistenbruch@jon @K1ngdaKa88 As of now, there isn't any Mireo having powered axles in the middle of the train. Stadler had also no powered axles in the middle of the train for a long time, but the FLIRT 4 (e.g. for 
) could come with powered axles in the middle of the train.
Siemens can also build ramps, for instance in the Mireos delivered to Go-Ahead Bayern.
The decision ramp or steps heavily depends on the floor height (600 mm in the Mireo you used today vs. 800 mm in most of the Stadler FLIRT in Germany) and the specifications of the customer.
) could come with powered axles in the middle of the train. Siemens can also build ramps, for instance in the Mireos delivered to Go-Ahead Bayern.
The decision ramp or steps heavily depends on the floor height (600 mm in the Mireo you used today vs. 800 mm in most of the Stadler FLIRT in Germany) and the specifications of the customer.
@Schleifleistenbruch @K1ngdaKa88 But Stadler manages step free inside for 55cm platforms. Siemens doesn’t.
notsoloud@jon
In the medium long term I could see a high speed railway skirting round the north and east Carpathians.
Dresden Wroclaw Lviv Suceava Bucuresti.
Side connections to Berlin, Bratislava/Vienna, Warsaw.
Gotta build standard gauge on the Ukrainian part but should work out.