Then came a curveball - work were sending me to Munich suddenly for an overnight trip. My boss told me to take the train there and back - so this meant I could catch the ICE's. Although the timings for my work in Munich narrowed the range of trains down I could book, I was also told to book a full-priced ticket which meant I could catch any train at any time on those days if for whatever reason I finished up early or needed to catch a later train back. Suddenly the Bible was infinitely valuable! And so I made my way to Munich on a Wednesday morning departing Berlin on an ICE1 - and not only that, the very-recently Duplo Chocolate liveried ICE1. It didn't go over 200km/h however (ICE1's have a top speed of 250km/h), even on the new high-speed section which was the same as the ICE-T train Sasha and I had taken to and from Nuremberg on the same section. At Nuremberg I changed onto an ICE3 set as per my timetable as it got there quicker - and that train got just over 250km/h, which was the highest so far but still short of the ICE3's top 300km/h speed.
At the beginning of the year there were a few train things I was beginning to lament I hadn't been able to do and didn't see much opportunity to do in the time left. Mostly these revolved around the ICE high-speed trains of Germany - namely that I had not travelled aboard an ICE1, the original kind of ICE train which are slated for retirement in the next few years; that I had not travelled any faster than 200-230km/h by high speed train in Germany, when the maximum some of them can go is 300km/h; and that I had not been able to see the Prototype ICE locomotive, which holds Germany's speed record and was in a museum in Munich (407km/h) - which I only found out as we were at Munich airport when about to fly back to Berlin after Oktoberfest, our last trip to Munich. All three of these things I have wanted to do or see ever since coming to Europe - 3 years later I had not achieved them, although I had ticked off many other ICE-related things! Remaining chances to ride on ICE's were slim - but we were planning our Western Germany trip, and possibly one to Leipzig. Being able to go faster than 200km/h, let alone 300km/h seemed remote but being able to ride on an ICE1 should be possible - if I can work out which trains are ICE1 and the others. This was largely accomplished by finding some (slightly out of date) listings in the back of a book about ICE's, and also visiting Berlin Hauptbahnhof one lunchtime - German trains almost always visit the same platforms, so the large stations have a board on each platform showing each long distance train that will stop there and a diagram of where each carriage will stop on the platform. Although it never actually stated what type of train it would be, the diagram was enough since each ICE train type was a fixed formation and I could work it out from that. I put this into a spreadsheet and called it the "ICE Bible". Then came a curveball - work were sending me to Munich suddenly for an overnight trip. My boss told me to take the train there and back - so this meant I could catch the ICE's. Although the timings for my work in Munich narrowed the range of trains down I could book, I was also told to book a full-priced ticket which meant I could catch any train at any time on those days if for whatever reason I finished up early or needed to catch a later train back. Suddenly the Bible was infinitely valuable! And so I made my way to Munich on a Wednesday morning departing Berlin on an ICE1 - and not only that, the very-recently Duplo Chocolate liveried ICE1. It didn't go over 200km/h however (ICE1's have a top speed of 250km/h), even on the new high-speed section which was the same as the ICE-T train Sasha and I had taken to and from Nuremberg on the same section. At Nuremberg I changed onto an ICE3 set as per my timetable as it got there quicker - and that train got just over 250km/h, which was the highest so far but still short of the ICE3's top 300km/h speed. As for my work in Munich, it was quite productive - to the point where I ended up with spare time on the Thursday where I had the opportunity to go visit that prototype ICE train in the Museum, which as it happens is located across the road from the Oktoberfest grounds! The day was raining and not nice, and the Oktoberfest grounds area was just a wide open plain of concrete and shingle/mud - the only building existing was the Police and Lost & Found building, there was nothing else at all, not even the Beer Halls/Tents and no real sign that they were ever there! The Museum itself was fairly interesting with a large collection of transport items, not just trains but it did have what was either the original, or a replica, of the first Electric train in the world which was German - but I cannot for the life of me establish whether it is real or not. Afterwards I was able to head to Munich Hauptbahnhof and catch an earlier train back to Berlin - an ICE3, which was billed as one of the "Sprinter" trains on this line. Sprint it certainly did, and I hit the magic 300km/h quite a few times on the way back! Visiting the museum in Munich reminded me that I needed to go back to the Berlin Technik Museum to finish it off, as the one time Sasha and I had gone there not long after arriving in Berlin we had to leave after a number of hours due to Sasha's hayfever medication making her drowsy (and she promptly fell asleep when we got home for a few hours!). So on the weekend we made the visit there - and discovered that its definitely not a Museum you can do in a single day really! Although there are many trains to be seen (including a research train for the ICE's, and either a replica or the original of that same first Electric train that I had seen in Munich) there is an extensive collection of all manner of things, including vehicles (and some from Daimler - which makes them the fist cars or motorbikes ever made) but also communication equipment, computers and Science-aspect stuff as well. We saw a helper robot running around one building, played with many science experiments and there was an interesting take on digital espionage - relating back to the spying done by the East German Stasi and giving examples of it in the modern day world. It flies under the radar but its there and its prevalent, the Russians being big perpetrators of it. Lastly there was one more train thing - Sasha decided to surprise me and take me to a Cocktail bar that is located in a former S-Bahn suburban train, so we had a few here before we headed home! So, thank you work for sending me on work-related travel - something I'd been hoping for for a while, and in the process allowing me to complete all 3 of my outstanding ICE "wishes". It also means something else - this extra visit to Munich means I have now visited the city 5 times, which brings it into 1st-Equal with Zurich as the Most Visited City. It doesn't displace Zurich from the top spot entirely, and nor is it planned for it do do so... that would require something quite extraordinary to happen. However its quite possible, maybe even likely, that before we reach Oceania that another city at least will join Munich and Zurich at first-equal spot - but I don't see any other place potentially moving into 1st place by itself. We shall see however!
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
About Me
A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
|