February 1987: Ludwigsburg Bhf

Given the white fluffy stuff outside today, it seems appropriate to post some of the photos I took 30+ years ago.

On a rather cold Saturday morning in February 1987 I asked my dad to take me to  the station in Ludwigsburg to see what the winter weather was doing to train traffic. It had snowed over night and the white fluffy stuff was all over the place. The photos shown here are scans off color prints. The quality varies a bit. I hope my readers enjoy them nonetheless.

Let's start with snow and ice on a couple cars in what I believe is train 53911 bound for Kornwestheim.

I was taking pictures of passenger trains from the platform on track 2, when my favorite locomotive class 151 pulled with train 53911 into track 5 and to my delight slowed to a stop.

The engineer has pulled forward as far as it can go on track 5 without fouling the exit signal. The diversity of cars on this train is very interesting and quite typical for mixed freights in the mid-eighties. We can see box cars, a BASF chemical tank car, an auto rack car, ... as well as the two cars above: a Td car with movable roof, a french Fcs two-chute hopper car belonging to SNCF, ... 

While 53911 is waiting in track 5, another freight is coming through track 4 at speed. Given it appears to be made up exclusively of box cars I suspect it would have continued to Stuttgart Hgbf, the freight facility next to Stuttgart main station, now replaced by office and apartment towers, malls, and the new city library.

Quite a spectacle with lots of noise and swirling snow. The going away shot shows another nice example of snow and ice accumulation on the cars.

Speaking of passenger trains ... Here's an Eilzug doing its station stop on track 1. The car at the rear is a MDyg express freight baggage car. The cart used for loading and unloading express freight is barely visible under the platform roof. This people-intensive service wouldn't last much longer.

Finally, a passenger through train with a baggage car in the middle of the train. I can't quite make out what kind of cars are ahead of the baggage car. They don't look like German cars. Looks more like a red/grey tone. Maybe Italian or Austrian cars?

The old station building is still standing in this photo. Demolition of an annex to make room for the new central bus station had already started, and the main building would start to come down in the fall of this year to be replaced with rather ugly new construction that combines a ticket office with stores and a super market.

"Do you want to build a snow man ... ?"

Franziska decided to take a break from homework and build a snow man with a distinct spring flavor.

Schneezauber

We woke up to snow today. What a nice surprise. 

Wagenuebergangsuebersichten 1984/85 und Richtpunktcodes

[An English version of this post can be found here]

Eine weitere Ebay Auktion. Ein weiterer Stapel Altpapier. Diesmal ist es ein deutsches Gueterzugkursbuch mit dem Jahresfahrplan 1984/85. Das Gueterzugkursbuch zeigt fuer jeden Bahnhof welche Gueterzuege wann wohin fahren. Was kann man damit anfangen? Mal sehen ...

Letztes Jahr habe ich einen Artikel geschrieben in dem ich spekuliert habe was der Richtpunktcode auf einem Hauptzettel bedeutet, den ich im Februar 1987 auf Gleis 5 in Ludwigsburg fotografiert habe. Hier ist eine Ausschnittvergroesserung des Hauptzettels von diesem Foto.

Ein paar Sachen, die mir gleich auffallen: Die handschriftlichen Eintragungen oben rechts sind Gewichte fuer Wagen (19,2), Ladung (22,1), und Gesamt (41,3) in Tonnen. Unter den Gewichten ist die Wagennnummer 21 80 238 4? 831-1? . Die Nummer ist schwer zu lesen, daher muss ich fuer einige Zahlen raten.
Der Wagen wurde in Neheim-Huesten mit Stueckgut beladen, und geht nach Leonberg. Der Wagen laeuft direkt vom Versendungsbahnhof zum Zielbahnhof ohne Zwischenhalte. Ich vermute, dass der Wagen von einem Versender zu einem Empfaenger unterwegs ist. Vielleicht lief die Rechnung auf Basis von Stueckgutraten?
Ich weiss nicht fuer was die Nummer 2196 steht, oder was die kaum lesbaren Zahlen unter dem Richtpunktcode bedeuten.

Schauen wir mal mit welchen Zuegen dieser Wagen unterwegs war. Ich glaube, ich habe den Wagen damals an einem Samstag in Ludwigsburg fotografiert.

Die Reise begann in Neheim-Huesten. Hier ist die entsprechende Seite vom Gueterzugkursbuch.

Neheim-Huesten hat Richtpunktcode 246. Von hier werden mehrere Satelliten in der Naehe, die in der unteren Haelfte der Tabelle aufgelistet sind, bedient. Fuer regulaere Wagen gibt es nur eine Route von Neheim-Huesten, und das ist Zug 65536 nach Hagen-Vorhalle, Abfahrt in Stunde 19 (also zwischen 18:00 und 18:59). Hagen-Vorhalle hat Richtpunktcode 230.

230 Hagen-Vorhalle ist ein grosser Rangierbahnhof in Norddeutschland wie man an der grossen Zahl Zuegen sehen kann. Die schmale Indextabelle auf der linken Seite zeigt, dass Zug 65536 der letzte Zug ist, der in Stunde 19 ankommt, und weisst ihm Wagenuebergangsnummer 198 zu. Die Wagenuebergangsnummer wird zum Finden des Anschlusszuges benutzt, auf den es ein Wagen schaffen wird.

Jetzt betrete ich das Reich der Spekulation. Der Planer im Rangierbahnhof hat eine Tabelle, die per Richtpunktcode und Wagenuebergangsnummer den Anschlusszug auswaehlt. Ich vermute, dass in dieser Tabelle fuer code 731 ein Anschlusszug nach 720 Kornwestheim ausgewaehlt wird (Ich erklaere den Grund fuer meine Vermutung weiter unten).

Oben auf der rechten Seite ist eine direkte Route von 230 Hagen-Vorhalle nach 720 Kornwestheim. Da ich vermute, dass ich den Wagen in Ludwigsburg an einem Samstag gesehen habe, muesste er also Freitag abend in Hagen-Vorhalle gewesen sein. Wagenuebergangsnummer 198 faellt in den Bereich 54 - 250 von Zug 53911, dessen Verkehrstage in einer dreistelligen Zahl codiert sind. Eine Tabelle zum Aufloesen dieser Zahlen liegt dem Gueterzugkursbuch bei. 062 bedeutet Dienstag bis Samstag. Dieser Wagen sollte also Hagen-Vorhalle mit Zug 53911 Samstag morgen in Stunde 2 abfahren (also zwischen 1:00 und 1:59).

Eine Anfahrt nach ein Uhr morgens bedeutet, dass der Rangierbahnhof 6 Stunden Zeit hat die Wagen von Zug 65536 in die ensprechenden abgehenden Zuege zu sortieren. Wenn man aber die Uebergangszeiten in Hagen-Vorhalle durch sieht, sieht es so aus, dass die kuerzeste Uebergangszeit nur 90 Minuten ist. Das ist ganz schoen knapp. Der Zug muss ankommen in die Ankunftsgruppe, die Kupplungen geloest werden, und ueber den Ablaufberg geschoben werden, um die Wagen zu sortieren. Kurz vor Abfahrtszeit des Zuges werden die Wagen zusammengeschoben und gekuppelt, und die Bremsen getestet.

Nun schauen wir in die Tabelle fuer 720 Kornwestheim. Das Foto zeigt die zweite Seite der Tabelle fuer Kornwestheim. Der erste Zug in der Tabelle ist 53911. Wie praktisch.

53911 ist der letzte Zug, der in Stunde 11 ankommt. Damit liegt die wahrscheinliche Uhrzeit zu der ich den Wagen fotografiert habe zwischen 10:30 und 11 Uhr morgens, ... wenn wir mal annehmen, dass der Zug puenktlich war. Die Indextabelle weisst 53911 die Wagenuebergangsnummer 49 zu. Es gibt eine direkte Route nach 731 Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen von Kornwestheim, und dies ist die Erklaerung fuer die Vermutung, dass Hagen-Vorhalle Wagen fuer Richtpunktcode 731 nach Kornwestheim schickt.
In der Abfahrtstabelle fuer 731 Stg-Zuffenhausen finden wir fuer Wagenuebergangsnummer 49 Zug 64157 als die regulaere Variante, aber heute ist Samstag, und 64157 faehrt heute nicht. Stattdessen schauen wir unter Abweichungen in der Zeile fuer Fr127-Sa78 finden Zug 64159 der in Kornwestheim in Stunde 21 abfaehrt und nur samstags faehrt (Verkehrstagcode 002).

Endlich kommen wir nach Zuffenhausen, dem Ziel-Richtpunktcode 731. Zug 64159 kommt in Stunde 21 and und bekommt Wagenuebergangsnummer 40.

Der Zielbahnhof des Wagens ist Leonberg, der ein Satellit von Zuffenhausen an der Strecke nach Calw ist, die ich schon mal in diesem Blog erwaehnt habe. Die Tabelle unten zeigt, dass Montag bis Freitag Zug 69100 um 6:00Uhr morgens nach Leonberg faehrt. Samstags faehrt Zug 69102 um 9:00Uhr morgens. Sonntags sind keine Anschlusszuege vorgesehen.

Somit wird der Wagen seinen Sonntag in Zuffenhausen verbracht haben, und am folgenden Montag mit Zug 69100 die letzten paar Kilometer nach Leonberg gefahren sein.

Ich hatte viel Spass mich durch 30 Jahre alten Papierkram zu wuehlen, und heraus zu finden wo ein Wagen den ich als Teenager fotografiert habe her kam, warum er dort war, und wo er danach hinging.

Wagenuebergangsuebersichten 1984/85 and Richtpunktcodes

[Eine deutsche Version dieses Artikels ist hier.]

Another ebay auction, another chunk of "Altpapier". This one contains tables for freight car routing in Germany for 1984/85. What can I do with this? Let's see ...

Last year I wrote a blog post speculating about the meaning of the Richtpunktcode on the Hauptzettel (~waybill) attached to the outside of a box car I photographed on track 5 in Ludwigsburg in February 1987. Here's a close-up of the Hauptzettel in that photo.

A couple things to note: The hand written numbers in the top right are weights of car (19.2), load (22.1), and total (41.3) in tons. Below the weights is the car number 21 80 238 4? 831-1? . It's hard to read, so I'm guessing for some of the numbers.
The car was loaded in Neheim-Huesten with Stueckgut (less-than-carload, LCL freight), destined to Leonberg. However, the car appears to travel directly from origination to destination with no intermediate stops, so I'm guessing it was loaded by a single shipper going to a single delivery point. Maybe it was charged at LCL rate?
I don't know what the number 2196 stands for, nor the barely legible number at the bottom of the form.

Let's take a look which trains this car was likely on. Based on the above, I assume it was on the train through Ludwigsburg on a Saturday.

We start our journey in Neheim-Huesten. Here's the respective page from the book.

Neheim-Huesten has Richtpunktcode 246 and also serves several satellite locations in the vicinity, listed in the lower half of the table. There is only one outbound route for regular freight cars and that's train 65536 to Hagen-Vorhalle leaving in hour 19 (i.e. between 6:00pm and 6:59pm, 18:00-18:59). Hagen-Vorhalle has Richtpunktcode 230.

230 Hagen-Vorhalle is a rather large yard in northern Germany as you can tell from the number of trains handled here. The narrow index table on the left shows train 65536 as the last train arriving in hour 19, and assigns "Wagenuebergangsnummer" (transfer number) 198. The transfer number is used to look up which outgoing train an incoming car is supposed to get on.

Now I'm entering some speculative territory. The planners in the yard had yard-specific lookup tables indicating which trains to route cars on by Richtpunktcode and transfer code. I'm assuming such table would show that cars for code 731 would be routed via code 720 Kornwestheim (I explain my reasoning for that assumption further down).

There is a direct route between 230 Hagen-Vorhalle and 720 Kornwestheim at the top of the right-hand page. I assumed I saw the car in Ludwigsburg on a Saturday, so it would be in Hagen-Vorhalle on a Friday evening. Transfer code 198 falls into 54 - 250 range of train 53911 which runs on days indicated by code 062 (which happens to be Tuesday to Saturday). This car should go on train 53911 leaving Hagen-Vorhalle in hour 2 on Saturday morning (ie. between 1:00am and 1:59am).

Departure after 1am means the yard has at most 6 hours to shuffle the cars from train 65536. Looking at transfers to other trains in Hagen-Vorhalle, it appears the minimum scheduled transfer time was about 90 minutes! Quite tight considering that this includes pulling the train to the arrival group, loosening all couplers, pushing the train over the hump and sorting the cars into the respective departure tracks. Once the departure time is coming up, the cars are pushed together, couplers hooked and tightened, the outbound train brake tested, and departure.

Now let's look at the table for code 720 Kornwestheim. The photo shows the second page of the table for Kornwestheim, and the first train listed in the index table on the left is 53911. How convenient.

53911 is the last train arriving in hour 11, which puts the time I photographed the car closer to 11am than 10am, assuming the train was on time. The index table assigns transfer code 49. There is a direct route to code 731 Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen from Kornwestheim, and that is the explanation for assuming Hagen-Vorhalle puts cars for Richtpunktcode 731 into a train to Kornwestheim.
Looking up transfer code 49 in the outbound table for 731 Stg-Zuffenhause shows train 64157 as the regular option, but because it is Saturday, it doesn't run today. Instead, we need to look at the deviations row Fr127-Sa78 and find train 64159 which leaves Kornwestheim in hour 21 and only runs on Saturdays (traffic code 002).

Finally, we get to Zuffenhausen, the destination Richtpunktcode. Train 64159 arrives in hour 21 and gets transfer code 40.

The final destination of the car is in Leonberg, which is a satellite of Zuffenhausen on the line to Calw mentioned elsewhere on this blog. The table below shows that on regular weekdays Leonberg is served by train 69100 leaving by 6am, and on Saturdays by train 69102 leaving on 9am. There are no trains scheduled on Sundays.

Thus, this car likely spent its Sunday in Zuffenhausen and was put on train 69100 on Monday morning for the final few kilometers to Leonberg.

I had a lot of fun exploring 30 year old paper work to figure out how a car I photographed when I was a teenager got on that train, why it got there, and where it went.

Third Sunday of Advent

Weihnachtsmarkt Tübingen

The Christmas Market in Tübingen is only on one weekend in December. Throughout the old city are booths and stands manned by artists, local vendors, and members of local clubs and organizations. It was cold, though that didn't stop the youth from getting some Italian ice cream.

I preferred local specialties like Bratwurst, or Schupfnudeln with Sauerkraut.

Someone planted a Bratwurst on a fence.

I love the atmosphere here. It's nice to follow the narrow streets, discover more stands around the corner, and chat with locals.

Ingenious conversion of a former cigarette dispenser to sell flower seeds instead.

The crowds grew more and more dense as the afternoon went on, so eventually we called it a day and drove back home.

Mind made up

The skies settled for snow, but then ran out of supplies 10 minutes later. Nothing remained on the ground.

Sunday Morning

Neckarrems - Altes Rathaus

Jetlag woke me up early today, so I walked through town to the bakery at dawn. On the way back the skies can't quite decide whether they want to let it snow or rather settle for a light drizzle of rain.

DV 605 Anlagen: Gueterbefoerderungsvorschrift - Ortsdienst

Bei way of another ebay purchase I picked up a booklet containing the appendix for DV 605 "Guterbefoerderungsvorschrift I" which describes in intricate detail how freight is supposed to be handled on German trains by Deutsche Bundesbahn. The Appendix has all the forms to be used to identify and route the various types of freight in Germany in the early 1970s.

When I made car cards for the Welztalbahn, I relied on various Internet finds that were "close enough" for my purposes to make progress. This booklet has the forms as used during the exact time period the Welztalbahn is set in. There are various variations for Hauptzettel depending on purpose and destination. E.g. Express LCL shipments, express freight, and regular freight use distinctly different forms. International shipments have extra markings for customs handlings. There are forms for weighing cars. Forms and markers for perishables. To my surprise there's even a form for re-icing (DV 605 54) which seems oddly appropriate.

More detailed study will be needed to use this to its full potential. For now I'm just happy that I have it.

Update December 21st:
I wrote a post with various examples.

SFO - CDG - STR

The aircraft for AF83 arrived late from Paris. We took off with a delay of about an hour. Gloomy  weather hung over San Francisco, but I like how this shot of the Golden Gate Bridge came out (photo credit: Tatjana)

The flight itself was eventless. A few bumps here and there, 3 movies,  some work on the laptop, dinner and breakfast and we touched down in Paris.

When we left the plane we had 45 minutes to make our connection to Stuttgart. Amazingly enough, there were no lines anywhere, so we where at gate G22 in less than half an hour.

Even our luggage made it.

Arrival in Stuttgart. On to fighting with jet lag ...

And again ...

Joining the family for Christmas.

Someone is at the gate ...

The building Silicon Valley Lines is in increased security a while ago, primarily by installing an automated gate requiring a key code to get on the property, as well as at the door to the basement. That's great for security, but bad for random visitors to the layout, especially if they arrive after most club members showed up.

We tried to address this problem with signs, a door bell, or a portable phone at the gate. All these approaches share the common problem that someone needs to remember to put the sign out, or the phone, and visitors need to notice, too. I'm told that many people wanting to see the layout just kept on driving when they saw the gate was closed.
For a while I hung a sign with my personal cell phone number at the gate, and that worked reasonably well. However, I'm not at the club every week, so another solution was needed.

I acquired a Google Voice phone number for the club, and set it up so that it rings the Hangouts client on a spare Android phone. Now we just need to remember to turn the phone on when people are at the club. Not going to happen consistently. Ditto for launching a browser with a Hangouts client. Whatever we do needs to work with no manual intervention. This week I finally acquired an Obihai Obi200 VOIP adapter. It connects a regular analog phone to a Google Voice number, and so the layout phone rings when you call (408) 753 6196. Setup is very simple via the Obitalk web site. It appears the site uses some Google Voice API, since there is no way to configure the device in the regular Google Voice Web interface. There isn't even an indication that the Voice number rings on the Obi200.

This is currently set up with a stand-alone phone. The next step will be to connect the obi200 to the layout phone system, so that an incoming call will ring most phones in the layout room. In the meantime, when visiting SVL on a Friday evening and the gate is closed, give us a call. We'll come out and get you.

Possum

I was working at our dining table when I noticed something moving in the back yard. Indeed, it was an opossum. These guys look like a giant rat and are completely harmless. I expect that it will hang out here for a few weeks and then move on.

Awake

The Bearded Dragons are done with their 2 month hibernation and are both quite awake during the day. They still like to disappear into their cave as soon as it gets dark outside.

Pear Almond Tartlets

Still delicious dessert at the cafeteria today, but no flowers today.

Abgefahren! Die Extremeisenbahner.

This is an extremely well done German TV report about a FREMO meet in Kiel this year. Highly recommended if you understand a little bit German.
Even if not, you might appreciate the excellent modeling and well captured atmosphere of a modular model railroad meet.

Santa Cruz Delivery

Clear skies, windy, and cold evening at UCSC Rachel Carson College. The Pacific is in the distance. You can't see it in the photo, but it's there, right behind that horizontal line of faint lights.

First Sunday of Advent

It's that time of year. During Advent, family tradition is to sit down on Sunday afternoon with Christmas goodies, Tea (or Gluehwein), and Christmas-themed stories with a good shot of humor.

Potter!

A birthday present that got a little bit more involved than planned turned the clock below into the clock above.

Reminder to self: Working with a glue stick is sticky business and messier than you remember.

"Dispatch, this is train 276..."

Another first: I dispatched the Silicon Valley Lines Operations session tonight. And I didn't completely mess it up. At roll call the yards where taken care of, but our usual dispatcher was out sick. So I volunteered to do it, and I survived the evening. A quite different assignment than usual, but I had fun, and that's what it's all about.

Company in the dispatchers office: Mike, Griffy, Steve,  and John

SVL employs Direct Traffic Control (DTC), following the example of the Southern Pacific. FRS radios are used for communication between train crews and the dispatcher. The dispatcher gives verbal authorization to the train crews and marks the authorization on the dispatch panels shown in the first photo. When we deploy occupancy detection, the computer will clear the reservation as the train moves from block to block. For the moment train crews are expect to call in their location to dispatch as the pass major stations or junctions.