I just recently returned from a one week whirlwind trip to Southern Germany…and travelled on the German railway system. I will keep my comments about other aspects of the trip to a minimum as this is a train site; however, I must say that Germany as a whole is a beautiful country…the roads are fabulous and a dream if you like stick shift and fast, winding two lane roads. The country is spotlessly clean…incredible really… and the houses (the one’s I stayed in anyway) are built to a much higher standard than what we have here.
I started out by taking the ICE fast train from Frankfurt to Ulm… This was quite an experience…and I was surprised that much of the railway is not fenced off …people could readily approach the tracks and many do as the proliferation of graffitti on bridges and walls suggests. The train moves so fast that cars on adjacent highways appear to be motionless…We got to Ulm and got onto a normal connecting train that went on my aunt’s place. This was really one of only two negative experiences on German rail…the train was overbooked and we had to stand for a the better part of an hour…The train conductor was unsympathetic…it didn’t really matter to me, but I was travelling with my mother (72 years old) and she too had to stand the whole time too.
About the German track…wow… those of us who model the North American scene have to properly weather the track to make it look realistic…that wouldn’t be needed for alot of German track. The track that I saw was very well maintained…almost looked like a cheap HO set magnified to full scale…no weeds…perfect ballast… perfect ties…
Towards the end of the week we travelled from Stuttgart to Darmstadt…and this is where my second negative experience occurred… As we boarded the train we made our way to some empty seats…the conductor came around to punch our tickets and curtly advised us that we were in first class and must remove ourselves to coach. Ok I said…no big deal…not r