I Wonder If There Is Demand For Cross Border Germany To The Netherlands

Just asking a question here if there is demand in the community for cross-border Germany to the Netherlands routes?

If there is demand for it they should be doing the main one Duisburg-Oberhausen-Arnhem/Utrecht Centraal. the other one is 129 km Oldenburg Hbf Leer Ostfriesland Bad Nieuwschans Groningen. This one OGR is actually the missing gap between BRO and OGN routes. The first one is tri voltage 15kv 16.7hz Duisburg Hbf Emmerich am Rhein 25kv 50hz Emmerich am Rhein Zevenaar 1.5kv DC Zevenaar Arnhem Utrecht. The second one is a diesel only crossword I wonder if they are sufficient to satisfied the community to play an international route changing signals and voltages. Which would make it different from the Germany to Austria Routes were you just simply drop the pantograph yet run PZB Salzburg Rosenheim Mittenwaldbahn and Vorarlberg Bahn known in TSC as Dreiländerbahn​

 

Shouldn’t this be in Suggestions?

Anyhow if set in the classic era, yes. Several trips in the early 80’s on “D” trains out of Hoek Van Holland towards Hamburg then Denmark which crossed into Germany at Bad Bentheim. Quite fascinating with the NS electric coming off and DB going on. Marred only by the rancid DB Bm232 stock which tended to be used on these services. Hard plastic seats for a 10 hour plus journey. Though I recall the night trains were formed by DSB UIC stock which did have more comfortable cloth seating. My other memory of those trips is passing through Osnabruck twice, once on the high level then the train did some sort of loop line around the town before going back through and stopping on the low level (and vice versa).

 

There are six main rail border crossings between the Netherlands and Germany. The ones that you're missing are:

• Hengelo - Bad Bentheim
• Venlo - Monchengladbach - Düsseldorf - Hamm (Westfalen)
• Heerlen - Aachen
• Enschede - Gronau - Münster

Hengelo - Bad Bentheim is a major crossing, seeing not only local trains (Eurobahn) but lots of freight, the NightJet and European Sleeper services, and a DB IC service between Amsterdam and Berlin (consisting of DB carriages and an NS Vectron, soon to be temporarily replaced by ICE3neo and eventually by ICE-L trains)

Venlo - Monchengladbach is interesting as it takes 15 kV and PZB into the Netherlands, allowing any electric German stock to cross the border and halt at the dual voltage platform at Venlo. Local services by EuroBahn depart every hour, and the ICE to Cologne and the NightJet are diverted through Venlo if Zevenaar - Emmerich is out of service.

Heerlen - Aachen is served by Arriva only, who run a train between Liege in Belgium, over Heerlen in the Netherlands to Aachen in Germany - all with one type of rolling stock (Stadler Flirt MS).

Enschede - Gronau - Münster is not electrified, and sees hourly services operated by DB Regio consisting of BR 642s in EuregioBahn livery.

A seventh crossing, Nijmegen - Kleve is still there, but currently no trains operate on it. You can hop on a railbike and cross the border using the tracks though.

The last sevices here ran in 1991, with local trains every two hours between Nijmegen and Kleve (usually a BR 212 and a single BDnf "Karlsruher Kopf" cab car with an extra n-wagen car in between during rush hour), and international services between Amsterdam and Cologne, usually consisting of a BR 218 (or 215/216) with IC cars, as this crossing used to be faster than Zevenaar - Emmerich was at the time.

This route is not electrified, and extends from Kleve Hbf to Nijmegen over Kranenburg Hp, Groesbeek Hp and Nijmegen Heyendaal Bf.

There've been quire a few studies done into reopening this crossing, but no actual plans have been announced lately.

Reactivation would require a new route in Kleve,as a parking lot has been built over a few hundred meters of track there, and a new connection at Nijmegen Heyendaal, as the track has been partially removed there to make room for a bus lane.

 

I wouldn't be interested in a cross-border DE-NL route if it doesn't operate any NS rolling stock.

 

There is definitely demand or shall we rather say a LAMPOIL-steadfast concept behind that, as both german and dutch audience would potentially be targeted, even if not all of dutch and german people would like a half or less of their home territory.

Viewing on the majority of latest released German DLCs crossing borders to Austria (Vorarlberg, Salzburg-Rosenheim, Mittenwaldbahn) it definitely seems to be a new marketing concept to focus on border crossing routes because of the wider focused audience.

Since we also will have the dutch signal system in game soon, its very likely that we might get a border crossing route from Germany to Dutch at some point.

Only question is route choice. For me personally, the ICM Koploper should be playable to drive (even for just a few services/scenerios only). I'm absolutely flashed by the photos shared yet and we need to have more use of this fantastic loco.

But even as a german, my personal preference would rather be Amsterdam-Rotterdam or an Amsterdam City network still.

 

Currently, NS doesn't offer cross border services with their own rolling stock, with the exception of the combined Amsterdam - Berlin intercity (DBAG coaches which is hauled by an NS Vectron locomotive).

The only other border crossing to Germany in which NS participates, is the ICE International service between Amsterdam and Cologne which until just two years ago was operated by a combined pool of ICE3M's, of which three were owned by NS and carried the NS logo instead of the DB logo. But the ICE3M has been withdrawn from that route, with the ICE3neo replacing it. Those units are all owned by DBAG.

If we look back to the past, things get more interesting. Up until the introduction of the ICE 3M in 1999/2000, quite a lot of NS rolling stock made the journey to Emmerich (Westfalen), which at the time still had switchable catenary (1500 V DC and 15 kV AC) and ATB up to the yard entrance.

Heerlen - Aachen was operated by NS in the past too, using modified DM90 DMU's with extra steps for the lower German platforms, and of course PZB.

Allowed stock
Not all NS stock was certified to run into Germany - only if they didn't use choppers to control the motors. So ICM (Koploper) was allowed into Germany, but only resistor based subseries 0 (units 4001 - 4007) and subseries 1 (units 4011 - 4050) that still used resistors. ICM Koploper subseries 2, 3 and 4 (units 4051 - 4250) were chopper based from the factory, so even from before the refurbishment program, and were never allowed into Germany because of this.

Other Dutch stock that was allowed, are the resistor based MAT'24, MAT'46, MAT'54, MAT'64 and SGM EMU's and the 1100, 1200, 1300, 1500, 1600/1800 and 1700 series electric locomotives.

Stock that is excluded includes the DDZ, SGMm, SLT, FLIRT, SNG and VIRM(m) because of the use of choppers in their power systems.

Of all the current electric NS stock, only the ICNG-D ( a new subseries of the existing ICNG range fitted for use in Germany, until very recently undergoing certification in the Leipzig area) and the E193 (Vectron) are allowed into Germany. The E186 is technically allowed, but its door control systems are not, so that locomotive is useless for operating in Germany.

About choppers and resistors
The Dutch DC powered trains used to use resistors to bring down the voltage taken from the overhead lines to precisely control how fast the motors are spinning (and therefore how fast the train is going). The lower the voltage, the slower the motor would spin and the slower the train would go. This is incredibly inefficient, as the energy that's filtered out is thrown away in the form of heat.

Choppers work by quickly switching on-and-off the DC power supply, giving the motors short bursts of power, and control the motor speed by either lengthening each burst or give more of these bursts of power to the motor if the train needs to accelerate. This is efficient, as less power is lost in the form of heat, but also introduces radio interference and an unpredictable electromagnetic field. DB Netz didn't allow chopper based DC stock onto their network, as they interfere with the 16.5 Hz power supply used by DB Netz, the PZB magnets and radio equipment.

 

A cross-border route isn't very likely. It would need to be quite long, because there aren't any logical start/endpoints in the vicinity of the border. Groningen / Leer could be interesting, but traffic on the route is very limited. You could extend to Emden to include more variety in rolling stock, but it would be weird because the Arriva stock does not go there. You'd essentially have two disconnected routes with a interchange in Leer.

For the Bad Bentheim crossing you would have to look at Osnabruck as the nearest logical German endpoint, but the Dutch part would be awkward. Hengelo is the endpoint for the Eurobahn but otherwise a rather small town. Maybe Deventer could be used? It would have an interesting service pattern across the route, with Dutch-only, German-only, cross-border Eurobahn, and full-distance freight services. It would be very long, though.

 

Thank you for the detailed explanation, e.leerentveld

Found this picture on Wikimedia, the special case of ICM 4013 taken over a ICE 121 service near Emmerich on 22 july of 2013.


Also I found this picture on Flickr. Its taken near Emmerich as well and the photo has been uploaded in 2008.


So the route backdated might be feasible to get the ICM in?

Hmm, just had a quick look on the route. Oberhausen-Arnhem would lengthwise be the most viable option, however the amount of track in the Netherlands compared to the german part is low. So moreover a german route but indeed a border crossing one.

 

I guess this could be a fun little three-country route, but it misses iconic NS rolling stock to please the Dutch, iconic NMBS rolling stock to please the Belgians, and iconic DB rolling stock to please the Germans. So I fear such a route would really only appeal to locals familiair with the route.

 

Yes, backdating the route would allow the ICM to be used, as long as they're resistor based units and not the chopper based units. I've modified my original post, as the ICM-1 series was not retrofitted with choppers during the refurbishment into ICMm, unlike I stated before - my bad.

However, DTG have only shown ICMm2 trains in screenshots so far, as the unit shown has number 4051. These are all chopper based. So I'm afraid there won't be any resistor based ICMm units in the game when the route releases.

So, in short:

ICM0 (4001 - 4007), resistor based but taken out of service in 2003
ICM(m)1 (4011 - 4050) - resistor based, taken out of service in December 2023
ICM(m)2 (4051 - 4097) - chopper based, still in service, and appears to be the series that will be depicted in TSW
ICM(m)3 & 4 (4201 - 4250) - chopper based, four car units instead of three car units and still in service today

 

Correct and I wonder if this route works out in the game Osnabrück Hbf Bad Bentheim Hengelo. This one is the main Corridor between Hamburg and the Netherlands eventually the train ferry at Puttgarden Vogelfluglinie. What would make the Voltage change at Bad Bentheim hard is that you would need to switch the one track from the Dutch voltage to the German voltage if you own the following DB BR103 Linke Rheinstrecke DB Baureihe 101 Hauptstrecke Rhein-Rhur technically the German domestic section Hollandstrecke Duisburg/Bochum Utrecht Zevenaar. If done incorrectly you would have to reset the simulation or delete the train then spawn another one in its place.

 

From what I can see with Mönchengladbach Venlo that is actually the international segment of this route Rhein-Rhur Osten if the missing section was built Wuppertal Steinbeck Düsseldorf Monchengladbach basically this one can become Rhein-Rhur Osten Hagen Hbf Venlo. You would need to be cautious on the Venlo side due to some tracks having an unelectrified gap between the German and Dutch voltages. For the station just press tab to change the voltage from the dispatcher

 

In fact that is my suggestion technically it's Duisburg-Oberhausen-Arnhem Hollandstrecke. If they have the technology to do a 202 km root that might as well make it Hollandstrecke Duisburg/Bochum Utrecht. That way you have a busy service alongside the triangle junction at Mülheim an der Ruhr Styrum and solves the issue of HRR not having enough train traffic. Right now it is dead because you only have the S3 even though in reality you have freight trains from the Netherlands using that. If you want to up the ante on the HRR segment of The Hollandstrecke the 189 C-Akv couplers with Falnqqs Falrrs due to their 6.6 US tons weight when loaded

 

That one would really benefit the community if made and I wonder what were the German stock on their local trains because we already have the 103 Linke Rheinstrecke. To me this route needs DB Baureihe 141 Knallfrosch electric brake equipped version 139

 

That was said by Oldvern at top with the Bm232 which went to Puttgarden from Hengelo. The thing I see with Bad Bentheim is that it needs timetable to reflect NS series 1500 alt livery form of Woodhead class 77 for DB BR103/110

 

Just soem small things: Aachen lays very close near limburg(netherlands) and irl ICE trains drive from there to the netherlands I guess... And, If you own the br 101 and the RP vectron, You can just download a dutch livery and you can make the NS vectron with IC choaches (same can be doen whit bmz, download a nightjet livery)

 

The only trains from Aachen to the Netherlands are the Arriva Trains from Aachen to Heerlen - Maastricht (- Liège in Belgium).
ICE trains on Cologne - Aachen go further to Liège - Brussel without touching the Netherlands.
International long distance trains between Germany and the Netherlands normally use the route via Emmerich - Arnhem (ICE International Frankfurt - Amsterdam, Nightjet) or Bad Bentheim - Oldenzaal (IC Berlin - Amsterdam, from summer, latest December 25 ICE).
During construction works the route over Venlo is also used for Nightjet and ICE trains.