Notes

During a recent (as in, yesterday) train journey I had nearly an hour between trains in Cologne, so I went out of the station to buy me a sandwich. On the way I saw this train standing on the two northern tracks of the above-ground part of Neumarkt station.

It’s, as far as I can tell, one of the later generations of the Stadtbahnwagen (LRV) Typ B. The Type B is one of the most successful LRVs in Germany. Originally, the plan for the North-Rhine Westphalian standard type called for a Type A, which was less street-car like. Cologne and Bonn (which are connected by LRV lines) didn’t and couldn’t use such a vehicle though, since their trains use normal rail lines (with streetcar electrification) and the older tunnels in Cologne are built to streetcar specifications with rather tight corners. So the type B was developed, and in the end the type A was never produced, with all cities that would have used it settling on the type B instead.

The red-white livery is the first that was used for LRVs on Cologne’s lines, so this is a real classic. The vehicles are rather similar to those used on the London Docklands Railway (I’d link to a picture by cjsutcliffe, but my internet isn’t working right now so I’m typing this offline).

Seeing it here is rather unusual for a number of reasons. First of all, the northern tracks are hardly ever used anyway, and even when they are, it’s by low-entry trains, while this one has a high entry and retracting steps. High-entry EMUs normally use the subway tunnel at this station. Last but not least, it’s standing on the left track but is, according to the lights, pointed away from me. According to it’s destination sign it was heading for the beautiful town of “Nicht einsteigen” (don’t enter).