#Uerdinger Schienenbus

[dampfloks]

Schienenbus 796 744-1 (VT98) Darmstadt-Kranichstein

[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.

[hariesautomoto]

Uerdinger Schienenbus by HariesAutoMoto

[joergius]

AKN Schienenbus Vt 98 auf der Hamburger S-Bahn Zwischen Bergedorf und Au... #eisenbahn #zug #train #deutschland #germany #brvt98 #baureihevt98 #vt98 #hamburg #bergedorf #aumühle #akn #uerdinger #schienenbus #sbahn #sonderfahrt Ich war damals mitgefahren und es hat sehr viel Spaß gemacht.

[mike13mt]

Uerdinger Schienenbus by josempg

[trainsinanime]

Did German railways ever use the AlN 668 diesel railcar or something similar?

Not really. There very only very few Italian trains that made it to Germany; apart from some tilting train technology I think it’s mostly been Speno rail grinding trains.

Germany also bought small diesel trains, but wen a different route from Italy. Instead of a four-axle train that’s about 23 m long, they bought rail buses that were around 13 m long, and used unpowered trailers mich more extensively than the Italians ever did. Weirdly enough, that’s true for both parts of Germany: The “Uerdinger Schienenbus” in the west and the “Ferkeltaxi” in the east are basically the same concept. You will find this type of convergent evolution throughout the entire time Germany was split.

The closest (certainly most similar looking) equivalent were the mostly identical class 624 and 634 DMUs, and the 614 which looked different but was the same thing. But those were always 2-4 part trains with higher top speeds, generally designed for not quite the same kind of services as the ALn 668.

The first real equivalent was the class 627, but only 13 were ever built, so it didn’t have a huge impact. The two-part version, class 628, was seen as much more useful and built in large numbers.

All of these were in the west. The east did build two prototypes of trains very roughly similar in concept to the ALn 668, but those never entered mass production. Rail buses and locomotive-hauled trains remained the order of the day.

The 627 got developed into the NE 81, which was only ever used by the few non-federally owned railroads. The whole idea of four-axle Diesel train only took off in the 1990s with the low-floor RegioShuttle (and a very small number of single-part LINTs and the very odd class 641).

So this is actually a really interesting diverging point in European rail history. There were things equivalent to the ALn 668 in France, Belgium, Austria (derived from the 627 that was so unpopular in Germany), Sweden (their Y1 is essentially just a Nordic version of the ALn 668, built by FIAT with the same technology) and others, but Germany is a big exception here, due to our reliance on shitty small rail buses.

[dampfloks]

998-51 Uerdinger Schienenbus / Railbus   998-51 –  Simpelveld (NL)

Südlimburgische Dampfeisenbahn-Gesellschaft

Zuid-Limburgse Stoomtrein Maatschappij (ZLSM)

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Uerdinger Schienenbus (Railbus) ZLSM Simpelveld (NL)

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Schienenbus 798-09 “Uerdinger Schienenbus” verlässt Simpelveld (NL) Diese Garnitur beheimatet im niederländischen Simpleveld bei der ZLSM (Zuid-Limburgse Stoomtrein Maatschappij) ist in einem prachtvollen Zustand. Auch der kernige Sound des Triebwagens kann sich hören lassen.

Railbus 798-09 “Uerdinger Schienenbus” leaves Simpelveld (NL) This set is located in Simpleveld at the ZLSM (Zuid-Limburgse Stoomtrein Maatschappij) and is in a splendid condition. Also the sound of the railcar is very impressive.

[dampfloks]

V95 (Uerdinger Schienenbus) abandoned

[joergius]

Uerdinger Schienenbus der AKN (VT 98) zwischen Bergedorf Nord und Geesth... #eisenbahn #zug #train #deutschland #germany #brvt98 #baureihevt98 #hamburg #bergedorf #geesthacht #akn #uerdinger #schienenbus 

[dampfloks]

VT50 Schienenbus (Henrichshütte Hattingen)