23rd September 2012 - From Ernstbrunn to EmmersdorfSunday 23rd September 2012 It was back onto the number 18 tram this morning to get us round to the east side of Vienna, this time to the new interchange station of Süd Tirolerplatz where we caught a double decker train to the former Wien Nord station, now unrecognisable from its previous life as a terminal station and with a new name (Wien Praterstern) to match. The target this morning was the weekend only train down the normally freight only branch to Ernstbrunn which we hoped would be worked by a loud 2143 class loco; these come in two flavours, the lower numbered ones up to about 029 are fairly quiet, most of the later ones are pretty loud. Our Austrian friend had passed the shed at Matzleinsdorf and reported that 2143 062 was on the coaches for this train, a nice loud example and one that we had only had one fairly short trip behind more-or-less exactly ten years ago. The loco did not disappoint in the noise stakes and even attracted another Austrian acquaintance of ours who likes loud diesels and rushed out from his flat to catch the train at Florisdorf after getting a text message from our friend who had seen the empty train. After a quick thrash down the main line to the junction at Korneuburg, we took the branch which was a bit of a stagger in places and included a 10kph restriction on the steepest part of the line, not to mention a level crossing that the crew had to stop to operate by hand. We arrived at Ernstbrunn a few minutes late and waited for the traincrew to run round the loco before joining them for a meal and a drink (non-alcoholic!) at the local bar next to the station. 2143 062 at Ernstbrunn This proved to be an excellent way of filling the 90 minutes before the train went back to Korneuburg, for those wanting to spend longer and partake in some of the activities available in that area, including rail bikes, bus tour, walking or cycling, the train makes another trip and returns to Vienna at 16:50. Although this train is operated by ÖBB, it has a special fare of €20 return (more when it is steam hauled) which can be paid to the guard on the train. During the return journey we mulled through the various options for the afternoon and decided on the line between Krems a d Donau and Emmersdorf, now operated on a seasonal basis by NÖVOG, as we had done the similar operation between Retz and Drosendorf last year. Although we went the long way round, we arrived at Krems with plenty of time to spare so lingered on the station for a little while as the sun had finally decided to come out. We watched the train we had got off depart back to Vienna, except that it didn’t; it barely cleared the platform before coming to a grinding halt with the locomotive’s pantograph dropped. As we wandered towards it, the pan went up, dropped straight away, then the second pan went up and both pans did a virtual dance in slow motion before the driver admitted defeat and changed ends, driving the train back into the platform. The guard emerged from the train wearing a dust coast, brandishing a pair of gloves and trying to placate some passengers as he and the driver uncoupled the loco and ran it round to the front of the train which eventually left 25 to 30 minutes late. 1144 231 at Krems/Donau The NÖVOG train turned up as expected with 2043.24 (actually a renumbered 2043 065) wearing a new livery of grey (or silver) and gold, a vast improvement of the “graffiti” livery it carried last year; the return trip to Emmersdorf also costs €20 per person and can be bought from the guard. The line the train runs on used to go all the way through from Krems to St. Valentin near Linz but the central section was plagued with rock falls and related problems and never did have as frequent a service as the sections either end. In latter years the only trains were two seasonal bike trains run by Erlebnis Bahn and Schiff one running from each end starting at Linz and Krems; the current NÖVOG operated service is the truncated successor of the service from Krems. The journey was fairly slow with a couple of noticeable speed restrictions but there were signs of investment with a large pile of concrete sleepers in evidence at one station. The loco had to work quite hard at times but the 2043s are very different beasts to their 2143 cousins and nowhere near as loud as the more vocal examples of the latter class. The train, which was the last one of three return trips that day, was allowed 30 minutes to run round at Emmersdorf and it just caught the last of the sun before it dipped behind a hill. 2043.24 at Emmersdorf/Donau There had been some sort of wine festival taking place near one of the stations so we picked up a few people who had been visiting that on the return trip which made the passenger loadings quite healthy; NÖVOG have been running this train for a couple of years now so we can only hope that it is doing well enough to keep running in the future. Comments
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