Wernigerode Station
Wernigerode station is the Northern terminus and main depot of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways.
It has an interchange with the Deutsche Bahn, that runs between Goslar and Magdeburg.
This Google Map shows the layout of the station.
It appears to me that the station has a common layout for this part of Germany, where there is a loop that serves the platform closest to the station building.
Trains on Deutsche Bahn seem to be about every hour and although the local diesel services seem to link together fairly well, the information isn’t as good as it might be.
I certainly think that if the weather had been better, it would have been a more interesting town to visit.
Drei Annen Hohne Station
Drei Annen Hohne station is a junction station on the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways.
We stopped on our way to Wernigerode to change locomotives, so that our locomotive could be replenished with water.
By Steam Between Eisfielder Talmühle And Drei Annen Hohne Stations
At Eisfielder Talmühle station, we changed from the diesel rail-car to a steam-hauled train.
Note.
- I sensed that the train climbed quite a bit.
- There were a lot of level crossings.
It’s certainly a spectacularly railway.
Nordhausen
Nordhausen has two stations close together.
- Nordhausen is the main Deutche Bahn station.
- Nordhausen Nord is the Southern terminus of the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways.
These pictures show the two stations, the Bahnhofsplatz that connects them, the trams and the town.
It’s certainly not difficult to get between the two stations.
I was hoping I’d find something to eat, but I couldn’t find a food shop, so had to be content with a good coffee and a banana. Although, since I’ve looked on the map and find that there is a Lidl in walking distance of the stations. I have struck lucky for gluten-free food in the former East Germany before, as I wrote about in Lunch In Chemnitz, but on this visit I wasn’t very lucky.
Along The South Harz Railway
Getting from Göttingen to Nordhausen for the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways was not the simple process it should have been.
My first attempt was to take a train changing at Eichenberg totally failed, as I wrote about in A Wasted Journey To Eichenberg.
After getting back to Göttingen, I took a direct train along what is known as the South Harz Railway.
The route is not electrified and it looked like it had been improved since the reunification of Germany.
A Wasted Journey To Eichenberg
This journey illustrated a lot of the problems of Deutsche Bahn.
They may have some good trains, but they use methods, that if a train company used in the UK, would see them featuring heavily in the pages of the tabl;oids.
I wanted to get from Göttingen to Nordhausen and I just missed the hourly direct train. So the ticket machines suggested I change at Eichenberg.
These pictures show Eichenberg station.
The train didn’t arrive and there was no announcement about what was happening. But there wasn’t any. Even the bahn.de web page gave no information on lateness. Eventually, as it was cold on the platform, I went looking for help, but the station was unmanned and totally devoid of any useful information. Whilst, I was away, the train turned up unannounced.
I then had a choice of wait two hours for the next train on a cold station or catch another train to civilisation. Luckily, it was Göttingen and I was able to restart my journey.
The moral of this story, is that if there is a direct train in Germany, then make sure you catch it. Even if you have to wait for an hour in the warm.
Göttingen
Göttingen is a German university town.
I took these pictures as I explored after a very good German gluten-free breakfast.
London To Karlsruhe Via Paris
I took Eurostar and a TGV to Karlsruhe, using these trains.
- Eurostar – St. Pancras 08:19 – Paris Nord 11:47 – £115 from Eurostar
- TGV – Paris Est 13:55 – Karlsruhe 16:25 – £69.19 from Voyages SNCF
I took these pictures on the way.
Note.
- I bought both tickets on-line.
- Premium Economy in the new Eurostar trains is more cramped than the old ones.
- Eurostar’s Premium Economy gluten-free breakfast more than filled a hole.
- Paris Nord to Paris Est is just a Metro.
- I took a diversion via Republik, which was a good place to wait in the sun.
- I stayed in the Schlosshotel in Karlsruhe, which was one of several acceptable ones by the station.
I could probably have done the journey cheaper by flying, but it would have had more hassle.
German Trains With Batteries
One of my Google alerts found this article on Rail Journal, which is entitled DB to convert DMUs to bi-mode hybrid trains.
This is said.
GERMAN Rail (DB) has announced it is working with technical universities in Chemnitz and Dresden to develop bi-mode (diesel and electric) trains with lithium-ion battery storage. Between 2017 and 2021 DB intends to convert 13 existing Siemens class 642 Desiro Classic DMUs to hybrid bi-mode configuration.
It seems the Germans share my belief that trains with batteries are the future.
Snot Wars
There is no other title for a post about this article on the BBC, which is entitled Antibiotic resistance: ‘Snot wars’ study yields new class of drugs.
The research has been done at the University of Tübingen, which is one of Germany’s classical universities. Wikipedia says this.
Tübingen is one of five classical “university towns” in Germany; the other four being Marburg, Göttingen, Freiburg and Heidelberg.
It certainly sounds to me that ideas for this research, possibly started after a good academic dinner with lots of food and alcohol, if classical German universities are anything like our’s.
After all the idea has been literally up researchers noses for years.
These last two paragraphs of the BBC report describes how the antibiotic-like action was possibly created in the human body.
Prof Kim Lewis and Dr Philip Strandwitz, from the antimicrobial discovery centre at Northeastern University in the US, commented: “It may seem surprising that a member of the human microbiota – the community of bacteria that inhabits the body – produces an antibiotic.
“However, the microbiota is composed of more than a thousand species, many of which compete for space and nutrients, and the selective pressure to eliminate bacterial neighbours is high.”
So why hasn’t this new class of antibiotics been found before?
Could it be that medical research is too much about Loadsamoney and Big Pharma, rather than about ideas, seriously out-of-the-box thinking and dilligent research?
Brains are a lot easier to throw at a problem, than money. Except that good brains are much more difficult to find than good money.
The Anonymous Widower 