Long-term readers may recognise this location (Image from the ‘Roter brummer‘ site) as the ‘Mystery Station‘ at Eyach that I blogged about in summer. A bit of research has shown that the station is a meeting point of the Hohenzollerische Landesbahn AG (HzL) and Deutsche Bahn. The HzL line from here is usually freight only. These aren’t service railcars: they are preserved units used on a special service last weekend to transport people between here and Hechingen where they could change to a regular HZLB service (using railcars like the ones below) to go to the Christmas market in Haigerloch.
The HzL system is 123 km long and serves a fairly remote rural area centred around the town of Sigmaringen (system map here). They also run passenger services under open access rules that cover about 430km of DB owned lines, as well as freight services. This is fairly normal for Germany: smaller companies -usually owned by local authorities- run passenger and freight services in lots of places, showing that if authority and finances are kept local, you can have a genuine rail service in rural areas. As the weekend service shows, they aren’t just running on subsidy either: they saw an opportunity here to get more cash and took it.
Normal HzL railcars in Herrenberg. Sept 2008
The private companies are doing well in Germany, and they have a reputation for networking and cooperating in the hunt for business- especially in freight. They have increased their traffic in recent years (and if I was a real journalist I’d have the figures, but I’m not) and several are beginning to start long-distance traffic flows. The growth is also at the expense of road transport: Deutsche Bahn’s market share remains stable.
But perhaps not much longer. in 2012 the contract between the State of Baden-Württemberg and DB Regio (the company running local trains) ends and the franchises will be re-let. I strongly suspect many of these smaller companies will be snapping at the larger organisation’s heels, and the local authorities will be taking advantage of this to push for better local services.
Sources: http://www.drehscheibe-online.de
http://www.roter-brummer.de/
Further pictures of the preserved railcars and snow here
