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…
One final border marker
Now back to Forst station by 🚲 and then trains via Cottbus to Berlin - and the trips for #CrossBorderRail Germany’s borders 2023 are done
#CrossBorderRail Train 66
RB 46 (68911)
19:33 Forst (Lausitz) - Cottbus Hbf 19:51
Ostdeutsche Eisenbahn GmbH
Average speed 74 km/h
Distance 22 km
Train type: Siemens Desiro Classic DMU, 2 carriages
⛽️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (step free)
🛜: ⛔️
🧳: 🙂 (Siemens Desiro - the best designed small DMU!)
🧽: 🤔 (It’s been in service all day I assume. Bit grimy inside)
#CrossBorderRail Train 67
RE 2 (95104)
20:04 Cottbus Hbf - Berlin - Ostbahnhof 21:23
DB Regio AG Nordost
Average speed 89 km/h
Distance 117 km
Train type: Taurus electric locomotive and 5 double deck carriages
⚡️
🚲: ✅
🦽: ✅ (step free if platform allows)
🛜: ✅
🧳: 🙂 (double deck, but plenty of multi use areas)
🧽: 🤔 (in service all day, by now not super clean inside)
Also I’m going to have cycled more than 80km today, after the 90km or so on Thursday. This #CrossBorderRail project keeps me fit (over and above the political purpose of it!)
Here are the stats, roughly. Need to recalculate a few
Biggest delay: 17 mins (in Czechia)
Connections missed: 1, in NRW (but next train was there in 15 mins)
More than 4000km travelled on more than 60 trains… for €49! I’ve made good use of my #DeutschlandTicket
And here’s today’s summary video
#CrossBorderRail Day 14 Summary
🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmann@jon
That's way more than I had in mind... 😲
That's way more than I had in mind... 😲
Trevin "TJ" Ward 🚲🚇
tops@jon BIG UP
Deutscher Bahnkunden-Verband@jon Eingleisig seit 1945. Weil ja Autobahn viel wichtiger ist.
@bahnkundenv Right. There’s so much was-once-much-better infra around here!
Quixoticgeek@jon Sx and Sw still to be visited ?
Did you start at Å? Or Aa?
Stephen Drennan@jon
I’m minded of the guy in ‘Hitchhikers…’ who, having been accidentally immortalised, makes it his mission to insult everyone who has ever lived - in alphabetical order.
I’m minded of the guy in ‘Hitchhikers…’ who, having been accidentally immortalised, makes it his mission to insult everyone who has ever lived - in alphabetical order.
@AVO8OHM if I’m to do a wacky non- #CrossBorderRail tour then it’ll be to visit every replica Eiffel Tower. No to go to all the shortest place names! 😜
Tor Lillqvist
Martin Hoffmann
🌺 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.)
Gustav Lindqvist
Szymon Nowicki
Indra Kupferschmid 💙💛
AlisonW ♿🏳️🌈♾️@jon
Better drink it quickly and hide the evidence then!
Better drink it quickly and hide the evidence then!
Jens Kutílek@jenskutilek @yanone ah that’s a cool connection! Thank you Jens! It was a good beer too, although sadly not as cold as it needed to be today!
Johanonthetrain@jon I'm just thinking 🤔: something is missing in your spreadsheet and reviews: the quantity and quality of the beers 🍻!
@Johanonthetrain I didn’t systematically rate those!
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?
@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.
ralf tauscher 
@jon vor gaaanz langer zeit war ich da in der naehe im ferienlager ;)