Notes

I had a test today which went well (I don’t know the results yet though), so I decided to go to Cologne and try and take the pictures that I couldn’t when my borrowed camera gave out half a year ago. The weather wasn’t as good, but I figured that it wouldn’t matter that much.

Now, soaked and freezing, I realize that I’m an idiot, but I did get some good pictures (or pictures I like anyway), so I’m still calling this one an overall success. Let’s start here at the Ubierring LRV station. Here is where the line 16 leaves the rest of Cologne’s LRV system and heads down to Bonn (30 km or roughly 20 miles), always following the shore of the river Rhine - hence it’s called the Rheinuferbahn (Rhine shore line). Shortly south of Cologne, it stops being classified as a streetcar and starts operating as a real railway line, but it has separate right of way already a little before then.

The long-term plan is that the line will no longer go via this particular crossing, but instead drive through a new city tunnel directly to the central station. However, construction of that line has hit major delays, so the 16 will probably continue via Ubierring for a while.

KVB’s (Kölner Verkehrsbetriebe, Cologne traffic agency) 2319 is a Type B LRV, which is the default type in Cologne (type A was planned for different cities and ultimately never built), although new, Bombardier-built types are steadily replacing it on many lines. To me it looks rather frightening how much it leans outside in this curve (which it takes with astonishing speed if you consider how tight it is), but it seems to all work fine.