Loco-Hauled Passenger Trains in the North of Germany | 8th November 2024

A selection of clips filmed mostly on the Marschbahn route, which runs from Elmshorn just to the north of Hamburg up to the town of Westerland, which is on the Island of Sylt, in the North Sea. To get to the island, the train crosses the Wattenmeer marsh by means of the Hindenburgdamm, a roughly 4 mile (6.5km) long dam through the marshy area of the sea. This can be seen in the video at 1:38. As well as trains, this is the only way for road vehicles to get to and from the island. A shuttle service runs from Niebüll to Westerland at half-hourly to hourly intervals throughout the day which is solely for road vehicles to get to and from the island, and the loading area can be seen in the video at 14:34.

We start at Westerland station, where we board IC 2375 (a service named "The Wattenmeer") from Westerland to Stuttgart, as far as Husum. This is hauled by a pair of Class 218 locos. These are diesel-hydraulic locos, first built in the late 1960s through to the late 1970s, and were once the staple of diesel-hauled services in West Germany. In more recent times, their uses have significantly dropped with more multiple units and newer locos being introduced, and now can only be found working passenger services in a small number of places in the country. At Husum we see a pair of Class 245s pass each other working the RE6 services to and from Hamburg Altona and Westerland, and the slowly-progressing electrification of the line can be seen in the platforms (another cause of the 218's demise).

From Husum, we return back north to Niebüll on IC 2214 from Köln behind two more Class 218s. This service was running 103 minutes late (typical for DB!) and so was terminated early at Niebüll instead of Westerland. One of the locos, 218 838, carries the heritage oxblood livery and it's old number, 218 373. Niebüll station is the junction for the line into Denmark, and at this point we're only a few miles away from the Danish border; it really is just about as north as you can get in Germany! The locos can be seen running round the train ready to start train IC 2215 to Frankfurt, which we ride to Hamburg Hbf. But, before we go, there's just time to have a little explore around the station, which boasts semaphore signalling, active signalbox and historic water tower.

Before we get to Hamburg on IC 2215, a loco swap takes place at Itzehoe station, the final call before Hamburg. Here, the 218s are peeled off and one of DB's Class 101 high-speed electric locos is placed on the front of the train, which will take it for the rest of the way under the wires to Frankfurt, and take us to Hamburg. This loco swap happens with all Intercity services and took them just 9 minutes to complete!

Before resigning to our hotel, we had a minor "bashing" session on some of the more local services around the city, still loco-hauled of course. These being the RB81 service to Bargteheide which has older Class 112 and Class 146 electrics as it's motive power, plus a quick journey to Harburg and then Hittfeld on the Metronom Class 146s.

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