Wed 07 Sep 2011

With another dull day forecast there was little point in hanging around in Rheinland-Pfalz so I carried on south-eastwards to the Allgäubahn in southern Bayern, a horrible journey on busy Autobahns in pouring rain much of the way.

The temporary closure of the Oberstdorf branch for engineering work means that ALEX trains are running through to Lindau without dropping off an Oberstdorf portion at Immenstadt. That means five coach trains west of Immenstadt, which make much better photos in the glorious Allgäu landscape than the usual two or three coach sets. That’s not all, until Friday all four pairs of München - Zürich ECs are also running via Kempten.

I spent the afternoon around Oberstaufen where, against the odds, the sun actually broke through on a few occasions when there wasn’t a train about. Everything ran as expected with the usual 223s on the ALEX trains and 612s on all the DB Regio workings. The ECs were worked by pairs of Mühldorf 218s and both trains seen appeared to be making an effort to lose as little time as possible. During these diversions the trains aren’t retimed, despite the routing via Kempten taking about 30 minutes longer than the usual Memmingen line. Instead, they just run late. The eastbound EC appeared to be going for an on time arrival at München and made a superb noise climbing up to Harbatshofen, a good five minutes earlier than expected, with the locos working flat out.

Zell, N of Oberstaufen

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
218.405
218.400
EC194 12:34 München Hbf - Zurich HB 14:35
223.069 (VBG) ALX84151 13:59 Lindau Hbf - München Hbf 14:36

Harbatshofen, E of Röthenbach

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
223.065 (VBG) ALX84148 13:19 München Hbf - Lindau Hbf 15:30
218.400
218.405
EC195 13:16 Zürich HB - München Hbf 15:56

Zell, N of Oberstaufen

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
223.066 (VBG) ALX84153 15:59 Lindau Hbf - München Hbf 16:38
223.067 (VBG) ALX84150 15:19 München Hbf - Lindau Hbf 17:24