4th & 5th February 2015 - Einfach-Raus!Wednesday 4th February 2015 Following two fairly early starts it was nice to have a bit of a lie-in this morning as we had decided that the best course of action for today would be to get an “Einfach-Raus” ticket costing €36. This is a group ticket for two to five people, valid after 9am on all ÖBB / GySEV regional and suburban services and easily bought from one of the ticket machines at Salzburg Hbf. It was a pity that the Salzburger Lokalbahn was not included as one of their branches had been extended since our last visit but there were enough hauled regional trains in the area to keep us amused even given the need to avoid IC and Railjet trains. A browse through the loco diagrams identified a class 2016-hauled train to start things off and we had thought that we were in with a good chance of a winning start, having only previously had three Wels-based 2016s before. Unfortunately 2016.065 was one of those three so, not wanting to waste more time hanging around for something else, we took this to the rather extravagantly named Salzburg-Taxham Europark for a six-minute pause to change ends before setting off to Braunau am Inn on the German border. In total contrast to yesterday, the weather was dull and dreary or we might have considered hopping off at Seekirchen am Wallersee or Steindorf bei Straßwalchen to take some pictures. It was good to note that the latter still had the old-fashioned ground level platforms to one side of the line with the main lines running out of harm’s way on the far side; we had spent a couple of pleasant hours there in the past.
We had only done the line between Steindorf bei Straßwalchen and Braunau am Inn once before so that was a good excuse to stay with 2016.065 and carry on. The line ran through some fairly flat and featureless countryside though it was traditionally signalled to add some interest and by the time we arrived at Braunau a bit of fog had appeared to add to the overall murk. We had a quick walk down the road to photograph another class 2016 that was parked there and to keep warm before returning to the station for the unit from Simbach to Neumarkt Kallham.
This turned out to be a class 5047 rather than the diesel version of the abomination we were on last night and the sun even came out as we headed towards Ried im Innkreis where there was a short delay due to waiting for connections at this railway crossroads. This made us a little tight for the connection at Neumarkt Kallham but, as this was Austria, the connection was held and just as well for us as it was hauled by “newbie” 1142.626. We took this to Wels Hbf where we decided to get off and have a dabble for some new locos and see if there was an internet café as it was now less than 24 hours until our flight home. Before we had chance to look round the station, a new 1144 was spotted and this was taken to Lambach where half an hour there was long enough to get a couple of pictures of the local Stern & Hafferl stuff before another winning 1144 turned up to take us back to Wels.
As we suspected, there was an internet café in the new station building but it transpired that they were having problems and were actually offline, not very handy for such an establishment! No problem as Linz was just down the road and we were hopeful of a nice class 1142 hauled train heading in that direction but, at that moment in time, they all appeared to have gone into hibernation so, not wanting to hang around for much longer, we gritted our teeth and suffered a class 5022 DMU for the 17 minute journey there.
A working internet café was soon located so we quickly checked in to our flight, happily grabbing the two emergency exit seats that were still available. Time for tea which we took up to the platform to consume whilst casting an eye over what was going on and noting required 1142.669 on the 15:51 to Passau which we could take to Wels and drop back onto another new 1142 on the REX to Salzburg. This move turned out to be not as straightforward as it looked when the Passau train was held for a late running Railjet. This arrived and departed and we still didn’t leave, the signalling centre choosing to send the Westbahn service next which was actually booked to follow us, a poor move in our opinion as the Passau service was fast to Marchtrenk where it could have been overtaken by the Westbahn whilst calling at the station. The Passau train finally departed at the time that the Salzburg REX should have, we were getting a little worried that they might let that go first as well though it would be unlikely as the latter called at all stations between Linz and Wels.
We arrived at Wels with no further issues and stepped back as planned onto the REX to Salzburg, netting a third new class 1142 for the day although the journey to Salzburg was rather tedious as it stopped at just about every station, not that we were complaining too much given the price of the ticket. Once back in Salzburg we returned to the hotel for a quick freshen up before meeting our friend from Vienna off a Railjet and, as expected, he knew a good place to eat, namely “Zum Guten Hirten”. This establishment was outside the rear of Salzburg depot roundhouse with the Salzburger Lokalbahn line running right outside; in fact an SLB “Taurus” locomotive passed right outside the window as we were eating. The food was very good and we guessed that the restaurant is popular with railway staff given it’s proximity to the depot, it was also a hotel so maybe somewhere to bear in mind next time that we wanted to stay in Salzburg.
Thursday 5th February 2015 There was nothing much to report from the final day of this trip other than a trip on a trolleybus to Salzburg Airport. Route no. 2 takes you to the airport (costing €2.50 each) and we went for the 8:51 departure which we nearly missed due to being stuck behind a small group sorting out some issues regarding their stay at reception. The bus pulled in as we walked out of the hotel but there was no way that we were going to run across the square in the icy underfoot conditions however, it was still there after we managed to pick our way across to the bus station so we gratefully clambered aboard for the half hour long journey. It wasn’t immediately obvious which was the correct stop but, luckily, the driver stopped us getting off at the wrong one and saved us a longer walk, it looked as if there might be an express bus service that dropped off right outside the terminal but it would no doubt be more expensive than the local bus. A good flight saw us actually landing early at Gatwick and the trip to Victoria was enlivened when an acquaintance that we hadn’t seen for some time got on at Clapham Junction. Of course our local West Coast Mainline had to put a dampener on proceedings by being in farce mode when we arrived at Euston but at least it only cost us 30 minutes delay – welcome home!
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Austria
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