#ES64F4

[aquilae-stims]

( 🚂 )

[0xa770c804]

DB ES64F4 189023 at Breda train station

[trainsinanime]

I'm starting to warm up to Train Sim World 3, a game I got via Microsoft's game subscription model. A huge part of that is because it has a lot of good tutorials for all the very non-obvious parts of it. Those non-obvious parts are there for realism, to be clear; most trains aren't designed to be obvious, they're designed to be run by trained personnel who got special training for all the details of each train they're on.

Anyway, the basic tutorials are all set in a fantasy location, the Training Center. It's a magic place where you will find German, British and American trains all next to each other on decidedly German infrastructure.

The setting is all over the place, with some alpine stuff, a lake, several station platforms, and the whole thing is notably not an A-to-B line. Instead it's a combination of different loops and sidings for shunting around that feels more like a model railroad than a real thing.

Clearly this is completely made up, right?

Well, no. While all the scenery is purely fantasy and quite a bit of the details are wrong, the track layout is in fact a real piece of railroad infrastructure. Specifically, this is the track layout of the Siemens Test Centre in Wegberg-Wildenrath, Germany, near… well, not really anything, but Mönchengladbach is the closest city.

This facility, built on the site of a former British airfield, is where Siemens (and to a small extent other manufacturers) tests new trains, both prototypes and sometimes individual ones. All the tracks are for testing trains at different speeds and in different conditions, and a lot also for storing trains. There are also big workshops, used for finishing touches, indoor tests, but also as an independent repair and maintenance facility, and to assemble trains built in other places.

According to its own description, it's the most modern of such test centres. I have no way of checking that. It is definitely not the biggest, that is VUZ in Velim in the Czech Republic, which has a much bigger outer loop allowing for higher speeds, but less other equipment and tracks as far as satellite images say. VUZ is still seeing a lot of use, though. Maybe they'll use that one as the training centre for Train Sim World 4.

Access to the Wegberg facility is difficult for rail fans. It isn't hidden by any means, it's about an hour's drive from where I live, but all the really fun parts are hidden behind gates and fences, and security patrols the area. They held I think like two open days for the public, in total, and the last one as far as I can tell was in 2012.

And of course I was there.

Hey, remember those days when the Vectron was fresh and new, and Siemens was still actively selling the class 189 (ES64F4) and that in-between generation they only ever sold to Portugal, Belgium and Lithuania? That sure was a while ago, now they've sold well over a thousand Vectrons and those beasts are everywhere.

First big difference between video game and reality: In reality, the outer loop is only single track, while the video game has it double-tracked.

The video game also gives me a top speed of 300 km/h for this outer loop. In reality, as far as I know the limit ist 160 km/h. Apparently the track gets checked and realigned weekly, to be sure that the measurement results are all accurate.

Yes, that is an Uerdinger Schienenbus. Yes, that did retroactively become a Siemens product, because the Uerdinger Waggonfabrik that built this dinky little rail bus ended up becoming Siemens's Krefeld plant (specifically the Uerdingen part of Krefeld, no longer an independent town), where they build all their high speed trains among others. Surprised the hell out of me too.

In the game, all lines are electrified and have British style third rail power. In reality, that is actually fairly close. Many tracks are not electrified, though (they have diesel shunters to deal with that, including some hilariously old ones). Even fewer have the British style third rail, although that is in use because Siemens does sell a lot of trains to Britain. Instead, some tracks, such as the inner loop, feature Berlin style third rail, raised, with a plastic cover and designed for bottom contact.

And in fact there's a fourth rail here, which the video game doesn't have. This is to test meter gauge trains; generally speaking that means trams. However, for the opening ceremony 25 years ago, they apparently did have a steam train from nearby historic steam railroad Selfkantbahn. Definitely the second-greatest historic steam railroad around Aachen.

Anyway, the point of this is… none whatsoever. I just thought it's funny. The makers of the game aren't hiding that they just took the Wildenberg-Wegrath track layout, you can find a number of news articles referencing this. But if you just downloaded the game because you got Game Pass and it says "train something", as you do, then you may never notice unless you're already aware of this test centre.

[coolfancywitches]

ES 64 F4-101 by maurizio messa Via Flickr: 189 101 - Himmelstadt - 07.05.2016

[tompysoft]

An average container train hauled by the Siemens ES64F4-009 right after Pfarrwerfen, Austria.

 21.02.2019

[swisstrainphotos]

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[airmanisr]

ES64F4 104 by Kevin Biétry Via Flickr: Une locomotive de MRCE Dispolok en gare de Basel SBB.

[escapadesferroviaires]

Mercredi 4 juillet : Pivka

Après le mardi passé à Venise (je passe sur l’arrivée du Thello avec + 210 environ !), le mercredi direction Rijeka en Croatie. Pour cela, je m’étais déjà rapproché la veille de la frontière italo-slovène en dormant à Trieste.

Le mercredi matin donc, je prends un bus très tôt le matin pour aller en gare de Villa Opicina, Il y avait avant un tram historique qui faisait la liaison mais cela fait des années qu’il ne roule plus... Bref, arrivé à la gare frontière, je monte dans un Desiro électrique (série SŽ 312) que je vais emprunter jusqu’à Pivka, une bifurcation majeure du réseau slovène puisqu’elle permet la liaison : avec Ljubljana au nord, Sežana à l’ouest (et toutes ses ramifications, Pula, Trieste, Koper, et la ligne de Jesenice), et Ilirska Bistrica/Rijeka au sud.

Par chance, l’Opatija, nom du train qui doit m’emmener en Croatie, avait une vingtaine de minutes de retard, ce qui m’a permis de spotter quelques circulations en gare, et il n’y avait pas de quoi s’ennuyer, même sur cette voie unique ! Entre les manoeuvres dans le triage avec la 642 (quasi-identique à nos BB 63500), le passage de frets comme celui encadré par une ES64F4 et une ER20, les quelques matériels de l’Infra locale, et, le clou du spectacle... une Brigitte, y avait de quoi faire !

Puis enfin, le train 481, baptisé Opatija, du nom de la station balnéaire située juste avant Rijeka et desservie par ce train, arrive en gare, tracté par une locomotive de la série 342, une BB ex-Yougoslave capable d’atteindre 120 km/h. À noter la très belle composition à 8 voitures : d’abord deux voitures croates directes de l’EN 499 Lisinksi en provenance de Münich, trois voitures slovènes de Ljubljana, puis trois voitures hongroises directes du MV 1246 Istria depuis Budapest, le même que je vais prendre le soir pour rejoindre cette capitale. Un joli train multi-tranches donc comme il n’en existe plus en France !

[coolfancywitches]

DB 152 035 by maurizio messa Via Flickr: DBC 152 035 - Gambach - 07.05.2016