Inside ProTrain 3

LAST EDITED ON May-03-03 AT 01:39 AM (EDT)

Heard all about the good things of ProTrain 3 (Geislinger Steige) - now here's some screens:
The BR150 ploughs through the thru-line of a station with a heavy coal train
The Cabview of the BR101 (redone from PT2)
A BR101 coming into a station
Two ICE trains meet in the forest of the Geislinger SteigeStuttgart-bound ICE rushes through 'Lonsee' in the heart of the Steige
The cab-left view from the ICE gives us a good look at the great structure work in PT3
The ICE is spanned out into the distance - take a look at the dense forest behind it!
One of my favourite stations in the route, 'Geislinger an der Steige' is just that, the station at the beginning or end (depending on which way you're driving) of the famous Geislinger Steige. It's very busy today with a BR152+Freight on the left, my ICE coming through in the middle, and on another platform track back a little is an older railcar, I forget the BR number.
A view from the rock face shows the ICE with the horizon and all its contents on the road ahead
Trackwork is phenomenal throughout the route, and indeed at Munich Hbf
Sweeping curve in the heart of the very dense forest
Things look very good, but not problem immune. The scenery does create pressure on the FPS, and the System Resources, so if you're travelling for a while and then reach a huge area like Stuttgart or Munich - this can happen if you're not running the latest and greatest machine.That's all for now, a 2nd batch will shortly with shots of the 425, IC, BR152, freight and others.----------------------FORMERLY 'THE KOZIOL' BEFORE THE STUPID DELETED USERNAMES DISASTERAL QAEDA IS SUSPECTED

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RE: Inside ProTrain 3, Interborough, May-03-03, 12:26 PM, (1) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, cjmaclean, May-03-03, 03:34 PM, (3) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, Swissie, May-05-03, 06:47 AM, (4) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, cjmaclean, May-05-03, 11:42 AM, (5) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, Swissie, May-05-03, 01:09 PM, (6) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, NS4Life, May-03-03, 01:34 PM, (2) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, thomil, May-05-03, 02:37 PM, (7) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, cjmaclean, May-05-03, 03:06 PM, (8) RE: Inside ProTrain 3, Swissie, May-06-03, 06:06 AM, (9)

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Is that an ICE 1? One of those ended up on Amtrak in 1993 for a year, and though I never saw it, I heard that it was spectacular. It tested for a little while, did a nationwide tour, and then entered Metroliner service before returning to Germany. So running this train on NEC4 would be realistic, or once the AEM7 is released it would be.

MTA New York City Subway
John

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>Is that an ICE 1?
Looks like it, yes. If one of them were an ICE 2, you could recognize it by the clamshell doors in the nose, behind which are located the Scharfenberg couplers which are used to form double units. Actually, the ICE 1 has these couplers as well, but they are used only for emergency towing after a breakdown as well as shunting at maintenance facilities. Therefore, on the "1" they are hidden under an upward-opening door.This is an ICE 1 engine unit:
...and this an ICE 2 engine:
On the latter, the clamshell doors are clearly visible, as is the coupler alignment bar which extends through the nose doors by a few inches.HTH
Dominik Mann Visit www.tssf.de - www.bahn.de - http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/ - www.eisenbahnforum.de

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Hi John,that's a picture of the actual unit that was on the NEC - you can still make out the painted-out Amtrak lettering on its nose, if you look closely. I saw it last as little as about a year or so ago, with the lettering still visible. The train is often asigned to the ICE trains from Zurich to Hamburg, as it is one of the sets which is equipped and certified for operations on German Railways' as well as Swiss Federal Railways' tracks. I actually rode it more than once on my commute from Zurich to Basle, when I work for the university in that town which is right on the border with Germany (and France). That's also where the picture is from, explaining why a German train would run under Swiss gantries Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Lukas,
please correct me if I should be wrong, but that ICE from your last message still has the German pantographs up, doesn't it? The narrow ones for Swiss catenaries had their knuckles facing outwards on all trainsets equipped for operation into Switzerland I have seen.Dominik Mann Visit www.tssf.de - www.bahn.de - http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/ - www.eisenbahnforum.de

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LAST EDITED ON May-05-03 AT 01:22 PM (EDT)

Hi Dominik,no need to correct you, this observation is correct. The reason is simple: The train is actually just running on the short (3km) "Verbindungsbahn" i.e. the "Link RR" between Basel Badischer Bahnhof (Basle German RR Station) and Basel SBB (Basel Swiss Federal RR station) - which is actually a RR company of its own, owning nothing but the short trackage between the two systems. The catenary switches from German poles to Swiss poles right in the middle of the bridge across the Rhine river, on which I took the picture (it has a fenced-off pedestrian walkway next to the tracks, a little scary if you're not into trains )Actually, if I turned around, the next or second to next pole will be the first German style one.The "Verbindungsbahn" is actually built to German pantograph clearances which allows for larger contact bridges than the Swiss clearances, as international freight and passenger trains use it with engines of both the German and the Swiss RRs in order to reach the respective transfer yards on either side of the border. The ICE in this picture is bound for the Swiss RR station, where it will reverse for the onward journey to Zurich, which also means switching the pantograph to the one with the narrower bridge for Swiss catenary clearances.Actually, here's the comparison (a little OT, but I hope you'll forgive me)
That's a German E-03, or simply 103 in more recent terminology (still one of the most elegant engines, IMHO) with an Eurocity made of Swiss passenger coaches. The walkway is in the right corner of the picture, I guess you see why I call it scary to non-train buffs...
And here's the opposite, in the same spot: A Swiss Re 6/6 engine transfering some German coaches over to the German RR station.Note the sizes of the two contact bridges of the pantographs, and you see difference clearly.Lukas a.k.a Swissie
(Edited for the two pictures)

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Were you get those trees, they look great, just what I need.NS4Life

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I've had the chance to travel via the Geislinger Steige (Germanys steepest Railroad slope as far as i know!)numerous time during my five year stay in Austria. I have to say that i am impressed by how well the route has been done. The'Steige' was always the most impressive piece of track outside of the alps!!Concerning the ICE-1 -- ICE-2, there is no need to discuss the couplings. The main diffwerence between the two is that the ICE-1 has Engines on both ends, while in the ICE-2 one of the Engines has been replace by a passenger cabin. (No chance to look over the engineers shoulder like in the ICE-3 though!)

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@ Lukas:
Interesting - I've never seen such a facility before. However, when you're talking about German pantograph clearances, do you mean the actual degree of "zig-zagging" or something else? I'm asking because I believe Swiss engines with narrow panto bridges would run into some quite serious trouble if they wanted to drive under German-spec catenaries with their larger degree of zig-zagging - whereas German engines should be able to operate under less strongly zig-zagged wires pretty well, as long as it is only for short periods of time in order to reduce the chance of grooves forming in the bridges.
@ thomil:That's right - the ICE 2 was designed for less strongly demanded circulations where an ICE 1 would have had lots of unused passenger capacity left. Being shorter and lighter, one engine was deemed sufficient, and a driving trailer was added on the other end. However, in order to enable the formation of double units, a "full" set of couplers - as opposed to the emergency couplers on the type 1 - was provided on each end. This way, you can, for example, have an ICE 2 double unit drive together for part of the service, and then split up into two different services at a station somewhere along the route.Dominik Mann Visit www.tssf.de - www.bahn.de - http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/ - www.eisenbahnforum.de

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Hi DominikI think - from what I remember from some publications I read a while ago - that we'd both be in trouble with each other's countries contact bridges under the other's wire.- As you stated, the wider zigzagging in Germany could be troublesome to the narrow Swiss pantographs, although I don't know how severe the problem is, i.e. weather the narrow Swiss panto would, at low speed, remain under the wire without much of a safety margin, or weather the patograph would actually jump the wire and snap up.- On the other side, some of our older tunnel profiles could cause troubles with the wider German bridge. Not that the pantograph itself would make contact with the tunnel wall or ceiling, but some of the supports for the overhead wire seem to be too close to the wire for the wide contact bridge, so that there is a risk of the pantograph catching the support and tearing it down. Any insider correct or update me if I'm wrong. Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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