Saturday 12th May 2018 sees a particularly high-mileage railtour featuring an ex-Deutsche Reichsbahn V100 type diesel loco (ex-DB 202 – specific loco not currently known), departing Staßfurt at 06:45, picking up through Magdeburg to run approximately 200 miles north to the Baltic Sea coastal town of Warnemünde and back. This is being promoted by Nostalgiezugreisen Lipsia (link). The fare for the day is an astonishingly reasonable €49.
Staßfurt – a town of only 23,000 people and with just one hotel within 5 miles of the station listed on Trip Advisor – is not the easiest place in the world to get to for 06:45, however – the only train that comfortably “makes” it is the 05:44 DMU from Aschersleben, which is not exactly the centre of the universe itself. If you are intending to cover this excursion to Warnemünde, I would strongly suggest that you stay in Magdeburg, the state capital of Sachsen-Anhalt. The railtour picks up there at a currently projected time of 07:10.
However, if you do so, you may wish to investigate the possibility of heading south to intercept the train, to Schönebeck – its intermediate call on the way in from Staßfurt, at 07:00. You can do this on the 06:36 RegionalExpress DMU from Magdeburg Hbf (which gives you a +10), or – on paper – you could precede that on the 06:30 special train departure – which is another V100!
The Eisenbahnfreunde Traditionsbahnbetriebswerk Staßfurt are also running a charter on that day (link), advertised to be hauled by 202 484, departing Magdeburg Hbf at 06:30, calling at Schönebeck at 06:43 (+17 onto the other tour), running south to Staßfurt where it is replaced by steam loco 44 1486 for a day out to Meiningen.
This 11-minute video uploaded to YouTube by user ecpaganini shows V100s at work in the former East Germany two decades ago. Those days will be resurrected in a small way on 12th May 2018. 202 484 – one of the locos involved – is seen making a strong departure at 7m20s in the video.
Of course, you may wish to alight from the northbound charter back at Magdeburg where – if all had gone to plan – you will have been able to have had two V100s on two trains by 07:10.
An important note
I should note that I have not approached the operator of either railtour myself to see if they would entertain a “part fare” on this occasion, and I strongly suggest you do this if you are considering this move. Although very common in the UK, German railtours in general do not have any kind of “part fare” culture, although I find that railtour organisers are – in the main – happy to negotiate a reasonable arrangement if they are expecting you.
In the unlikely event that the response is a “no”, please respect that. We are lucky that British enthusiasts enjoy a good relationship with German railtour operators and this is not something that should be jeopardised.
European Traction 