IT'S A PROTEST? German Revenue Steam in 2024! - Hyce Reacts

When the man tells you you can't run your normal locomotives due to axle loading, you improvise. Well done Germany!

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[tobiasbruckner]

The Locomotive is the 50 3616 from Schwarzenberg from the Saxon Railway Friends Association

Or VSE 😅 as we call it

ITs almost fresh Out of the RAW Meiningen where she got a full overhaul that Took around six and a half years

😅 Sorry for blabering and for the grammer i Speak better than i write

The only thing i can Tell you about this is that it only was a 7 day Protest we from VSE wished that our Lok could do more but its still a museums Lok so 😅

We were Happy to Help them with there loads and that she could pull more than the normal five to six passanger Cars

[burnerheinz]

it says:

"Rails like 1950, Locomotives like 1950.
Protest against the state of Infrastructure in Thüringen Forrest"

for those that are curious.

[mczg]

Imagine the call,
Company: hey could we borrow your steam locomotive?
museum/preservation group: Sure, but why?'
Company: We want to protest government

[RexAnger.]

Malicious compliance, Railroader Edition.

[proof]

By the way, the diesel at the end is also a museum piece. That's the class 107, a imported Czechoslovak CSD T435.0 from the early 1962's. It most likely helped pushing the train after they had trouble pulling the train with class 50.35 alone. There is a video that shows the same section of track seen at 9:16 with the steamer having a very bad time and having a lot of wheel slip.

[schwarzermoritz]

As for how this happens? These freight services are operated by small private companies that own or lease their motive power and buy "Trassen", spot trackage use slots from the rail infrastructure companies, which, all else being equal, is usually DB.

The network between those companies and the rail preservation scene is pretty tight knit. Foamers do be working on the railroad. So the person booking freight movements during the week might very well be a volunteer at a local museum on the weekends. Somebody knows someone, people sit around after hours and bitch about the mess DB is making of the railroad, someone makes a half-serious jab about "might as well run it with a Class 50 at that point", and then things fall into place.

Beauty of an open access rail market: as long as the choochoo meets the saftey requirements to operate in that secrion of track, and you as the operating company pay the infrastructure company the appropriate fees for running the train, what sort of traction you actually put on the service is your decision. So long as it the mod cons like air brakes and PZB (intermittent train control), nothing in the rulebook says it can't be a steam engine.

[RexAnger.]

Hi Hyce. A very basic and nasty internet translation of the placard is "1950s Railway Locomotives Protest Against the State of the [Rail] Infrastructure in the Thuringia Forest."

The story (from the OG video description, commentary and a spot of wiki searching) seems to be that the State-owned private company providing rail infrastructure maintenance services on behalf of the German Federal Government, is not able to fully maintain the line at Themar in the State of Thuringia to a suitable state for freight haulage, and to reduce its resource burdens, has abruptly downgraded the status of track around that section. The little passenger shuttle railcars that run to Themar are unaffected, but freight haulage is limited to light, lower-capacity stock and locomotives.

However, while the freight services are allegedly sporadic, it is quite clear what is lifted out of there (logs aren't light) isn't the sort of stuff that tolerates something a small shuttle car will float over. As the protesting company has pointed out, it's not viable to run their log trains using the little branch line units the lower track class requires.

On-the-spot corrections and clarifications from any German watchers are most welcome and desired. I only wish I had the means (and an on-call roster of steam engines) to run Plandampf ops in Australia. For pleasure or to make a point...

[carolinarailfanning]

28 full loads, 1 partial, 3 empties, for 32 cars total. Thats sizeable for Europe.

[JChristiansenLuckythebrony]

Running revenue steam is really the perfect way to protest any railroad related problem if you think about it; People go out of their way to see and film Steam locomotives in action, especially when they're working in revenue service, the point of every protest is to make as many people aware of the problem you're protesting as possible so that something will be done about it, so putting the two together is an excellent way of accomplishing the goal of your protest.

[grossbahner]

I'm from this area and for years there was a Event called "Plandampf". In Plandampf there were 3 to 5 steamengines pulling regular trains. You sould look a bit into this as well. You may find the right Videos under "Plandampf im Werratal".
In germany there are still many steamengines that can run and in the area where this Video was filmed is the biggest an I think only Workshop that can complitly rebuilt steamengines, it's called the RAW Meiningen. This is one of the reasons why there are often events with steam there, like passenger excursions and Things like in the Video.
I hope my Englisch is good enough that you can understand what i mean.
Yours Großbahner

[FuelFire]

5:37 We aren't obligated to blow crossing signals when the railroad crossing has barriers. You could bring up the "What if they dont lower because the circuit or some other component is broken?" and you'd be right to do so. I don't understand it either.
6:20 "Trackwork like in 1950. Locomotives like in 1950. Protest against the infrastructure's [bad] state/condition in the Thuringian Forest"

The whistle on the locomotive is a hooter (shocker I know) but I love this one because it sounds similar to E&P 4's hooter and we love Eureka.

[warmstrong]

"Stack Talk" sounds like a railroader podcast.

[catfish]

About the different types of tenders: The Class 50 obviously has a normal, conventional tender. One of the wartime simplifications was the "Wannentender" (tub tender) you saw on the Class 52s / Class 33s in Bosnia. Inspired by tank cars, these don't have a frame; the water tub is the main structural element. This saved material as well as weight – the T30 tub tender used on the Class 52 has a lower empty weight than the Class 50's T26 tender, while also being able to carry a little more water and coal.
As such, they remained a valuable piece of equipment for a long time: Even when Class 52s left service post-war, their tenders stuck around, being given to some Class 50s, as well as upgrading around 700 of the smaller Class 38 (formerly Prussian P8) locomotives, which gave them a significantly larger range. Learned this from a lovely little Youtube channel called Steel Bridge Models, I recommend checking it out!

The locomotive, 50 3616, belongs to the "Verein Sächsischer Eisenbahnfreunde" or Club of Saxonian Railroad Enthusiasts. They operate a small museum, as well as the occasional excursion train. They bought 3616 from the former East German state railway in 1991 (the country was unified at that point, but it took a while longer for the railways to fully integrate) and have operated it ever since. As other commenters have mentioned, if you have the right permits and equipment, you can run on German main lines, and ties between the preservation community and "normal" railways are tight, so things like this happen every so often.


And yes, East Germany kept using steam for a LONG time, in part because they had domestic coal deposits, but were short on money to import oil. The official last standard gauge steam service in the German Democratic Republic (incidentally also a Class 50) ran in *1988*, and steam locomotives were kept in reserve even after that.

[PennsyPappas]

For some fun context on when the last revenue steam run was done (at least in West Germany) was around 1976 or 1977 around the time my mom had joined the army and was stationed over there. When they got there they were told they had missed the last revenue steam run by 1 week so i may have to show this to my dad so he can see a revenue steam run in germany. Thank you for sharing this video with us and what a great way to celebrate Decapod month.

Edit 32 cars on last part of clip. I asume same length for whole video

[genoobtlp]

Far as I understood, they basically went to a preservation club (there’s a bunch of clubs in Germany dedicated to keeping their steam locos mainline certified) and asked to borrow their loco (and crew)

[shimesu]

Locomotive: I've been waiting for this for YEARS! I still got it!

She was hauling 32 cars, three of which were empty. I wonder what the total weight of it was. Interestingly enough, I tried to see if I could find any info about her, but the only thing I found was her number on two lists of preserved locomotives in Germany, and both of them listed her as non working.

This is the kind of protest I can get behind. ;) It's also a perfect example of why I DON"T want the US government to take control of our railroads. The class 1s have their issues, but they generally take care of their stuff. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Meanwhile our government squabbles like a bunch of three years old fighting over the last piece of chocolate.

[Austriantrainguy]

By the way: There was an experiment conducted in germany a few years ago about if steam locos could use wood pellets as fuel and how it influences the performance. The team made quite a good reportage about it so maybe you could give it a watch.

[mateokuo]

Student learning German's take on what the tender translates to: "railway locomotive protest against the infrastructure condition in the Thüringer forest." The red square translates to "like 1950." Anyone who speaks German fluently, please correct me, I want to learn.

[kevinhicks]

This was neat. I have to admit though, first thought on seeing the engine and then the cars was "Oh Lord, It's the ES&DT heading to the Sylva Paperboard"

[GP_Foamer]

This reminds me of an old documentary I saw on RFD TV as a kid, it was about this German railway in the 1980’s or 1990’s putting steam on the head of revenue commuter and freight trains for a festival. There were streamlined Pacifics and tank engines running double decker commuter trains and decapods running logging trains, it was so surreal to see.