Concepts and related naming that differ between Germany's railways and the UK

[Bletchleyite]

As an extreme example, the hourly S1 in Rhein-Neckar (Homburg – Kaiserslautern – Mannheim – Heidelberg – Osterburken) is a similar length and duration to Gloucester – Weymouth (or, admittedly, Peterborough – Horsham).

The Rhein-Ruhr is a bit like the North West, and similar long distance stopping services run across Castlefield, we just don't call them S-Bahn. Liverpool-Crewe via just about everywhere is one example. You've also got fairly long ones around Birmingham - the Snow Hill Lines themselves, indeed. It's not all like Merseyrail or Hamburg.

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

* RE can be used for all stations stoppers - RB is normally only used for services that are *not* "im Takt", unless that has changed.

I don't think that has ever been the case. I think in the 90s the differentiation between RB and the previous unbranded N trains ("Nahverkehrszug") was precisely that an RB line is "im Takt".

These days 99% of RB trains are part of a Takt line, with only very few exceptions.

 

[cactustwirly]

They certainly by far exceed the Swiss definition of S-Bahn, but SBB often use that (or RER in the French speaking bit) for what DB would call a RegionalExpress* - it just means a regional network with consistent calling patterns and a clockface timetable (i.e. "im Takt") - quite a lot of them are just hourly.

It's interesting, actually, that we tend not to talk about this sort of system as a metro and complain about not having them, whereas they do exist in our larger cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool (even in addition to Merseyrail), Glasgow, Leeds and the likes (the Bradford lines are clearly S-Bahn in a sense). We're maybe more like India than Germany is - we have these things, they're just a bit haphazard, not separately branded and operated by the mainline railway rather than the city. You've also got an extensive network of S-Bahn like services south of the Thames where the Tube mostly doesn't go.

* RE can be used for all stations stoppers - RB is normally only used for services that are *not* "im Takt", unless that has changed.

What parts of Germany have you been to?

Clearly you haven't taken a RB train before...

RE is rarely all stations except for the extremities of a route.

RB is the all stations stopper version of an RE

It's all meaningless now as most of the regional services in Germany are private operated with their own codes

 

[rvdborgt]

It's all meaningless now as most of the regional services in Germany are private operated with their own codes

REs (or any other regional trains) are not only DB anymore.

 

[cactustwirly]

REs (or any other regional trains) are not only DB anymore.

In Baden-Württemberg they have their own codes like MEx (Metropol Express)

 

[The exile]

As an extreme example, the hourly S1 in Rhein-Neckar (Homburg – Kaiserslautern – Mannheim – Heidelberg – Osterburken) is a similar length and duration to Gloucester – Weymouth (or, admittedly, Peterborough – Horsham).

That was precisely the example I was thinking of as the “watered down S-bahn”

 

[U-Bahnfreund]

In Baden-Württemberg they have their own codes like MEx (Metropol Express)

MEX are the former RBs into Stuttgart and RE12. it's a brand name mandated by the state and it's nothing to do with private vs DB. Some MEX are DB, others aren't. Internally they're still RB and RE

 

[The exile]

Merseyrail is certainly one.

But in reality it's only Hamburg and Berlin that has that 100% segregation. Most other cities have some segregation but it's a bit more watered down.

Just look at the infrastructure added in the Rhein / Ruhr / Sieg, Stuttgart or Nuremberg regions in the 70s - 90s to segregate the incipient S-Bahn networks. (Rhein/Main annd Munich ans well but they’ve anlready been mentioned) The East German and later Western networks / extensions are different, of course, though even the ex-DDR has done quite a bit of catching up.