Heading towards Berlin and ITB next week, but not before squeezing in some ski turns in the newly fallen snow and not without a little extra weekend trip on the way, this time heading first for Copenhagen!

Most people on this Snälltåget service to Malmö are going to and from their ski vacations, but as a local I’ll take the opportunity to go direct to Malmö (almost 900 km as the crow flies).

Departure on time right after snow clearing arrived from the line we’ll go (far left last pic)

Was looking forward to seeing the new DSB Talgo 230 carriages on my trip Copenhagen - Hamburg, but arrived at a platform with an old DSB IC3 train 🤷🏻‍♂️

The canary was an updated timetable a few days ago with a longer running time, so maybe this indicates a new and more proactive temporary solution while the Talgo carriages get sorted.

And hey ho, first class comfort is great in these old carriages!

As a result of Hauptbahnhof being closed, there are delays 😅

@stefanlindbohm Again? This seems to be a weekly thing now.

Good luck!

@partim Trains magically started running 15 minutes later with no live updates anywhere except what seemed to be a manually typed message on the display at the platform.

Some people caught up in Hamburg-Harburg having taken the S-bahn to try and catch another connection and were very happy when we confirmed it’s the right train. Chaos 🙈

@stefanlindbohm Oh, good. The news reports of an overhead wire having fallen onto a train sounded like it could take hours to sort out.
@partim So there was actually a fallen overhead wire? I just assumed it was an electrical fault since traffic continued so quickly. I wonder what black magic they used to fix it then!

@stefanlindbohm They had the same thing last Sunday, so maybe they just remembered?

Seriously, though: the report said it was platform 8. Maybe 11 to 14 are a separate circuit and they could switch that back on after inspection?

@partim Ha! Separate circuits sounds plausible. I was looking at the track map after having a little tour de Hamburg with our arriving EC from Copenhagen and saw that 11-14 are a separate path. We ran completely around Hamburg and stopped just north of Hamburg-Harburg and changed direction to come into Hbf from the south. Seems like lots of track shenanigans going around in Hamburg currently 😅

@stefanlindbohm For sure.

(Screenshot from strecken-info.de)

@partim It seems we were rail unicorns today and skirted multiple possibilities of being totally stranded. Estimated arrival +9 to Berlin Hbf currently!
@stefanlindbohm @partim The nice thing with unscheduled delays around Hamburg when changing to an ICE towards Berlin is that even if the train you have planned to change to is delayed, chances are a previous one is also delayed and arrives just in time for you to take it. (Assuming you have suitable ticket that allows that, like Interrail.) The end result might be that because of delays you arrive earlier than planned. (But yeah, I am sure some people would complain about that, too, "was Deutsche Bahned again, arrived in Berlin 15 minutes early, it's a disgrace".)
@stefanlindbohm Shh, don’t jinx it. There’s quite a bit of overused railway left.