Trigger's Train (or the Train of Theseus)

[Barry169]

There used to be a daily service from Belgrade to Zurich (discontinued a couple of years ago).

By the time it got to St Johann im Pongau in Austria it would only have one bit of the starting rolling stock (a Serbian passenger carriage).

The Serbian carriage would be uncoupled there and picked up later by the returning service.

So the train would continue with none of it's original stock.

Any more examples of this?

 

[Gloster]

The Lairg newspaper van?

 

[pdeaves]

There used to be a daily service from Belgrade to Zurich (discontinued a couple of years ago).

By the time it got to St Johann im Pongau in Austria it would only have one bit of the starting rolling stock (a Serbian passenger carriage).

The Serbian carriage would be uncoupled there and picked up later by the returning service.

So the train would continue with none of it's original stock.

Any more examples of this?

I can't remember the start/end points (something like Worcester to Westbury) but I think there used, in Wessex Trains, days to be a service that started with unit A. It picked up unit B on the way, the two running together. Then unit A was left somewhere and unit B continued to the destination.

I can't remember the full details, but maybe someone else can recognise it from my limited description!

 

[popeter45]

I can't remember the start/end points (something like Worcester to Westbury) but I think there used, in Wessex Trains, days to be a service that started with unit A. It picked up unit B on the way, the two running together. Then unit A was left somewhere and unit B continued to the destination.

I can't remember the full details, but maybe someone else can recognise it from my limited description!

cant seem to find of vagonweb but swear ive seen similar wth some ICE services, think the one i saw was Hamburg-Berlin-Munich-Vienna that Set 1 did Hamburg-Munich and Set 2 did Berlin-Vienna

 

[A S Leib]

Some Bamberg – Bayreuth – Pegnitz services run normally, but I think some have the Pegnitz carriages added on at Lichtenfels with the portion from Bamberg going to Hof.

 

[dutchflyer]

Here in Nederland on normal IC-service, every half hour even, but not wagons thus, but sets:
advertised as Maastricht-den Helder, via the main core north-south railway, 1 set starts Maastricht (far south, close by Belgium), couples on to a standing same type of set in Eindhoven, via Utrecht-AMSterdam- in Alkmaar front detaches and the Maastricht starter uncouples, thus does NOT reach as far as den Helder (marine/seaforce base in far north of Noord_Holland province). But by now discontinued, due to ´ETMET= Every Ten Mins Een Trein´ on main central corridor-hit by a tragic accident-see other topic here- recently and just being restored now

 

[Siemens Staines]

Back in the pre-electrification days when 165s still worked the stopping trains to Paddington, there was a late night Banbury - Paddington (almost) all stations train. The 165 from Banbury coupled to the rear of another at Oxford. At Reading the pair split, with the front unit going forward to Paddington and the rear unit (i.e the one from Banbury) going on to Reading TCD, so no part of the train worked throughout.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

Until a few years ago there was a seasonal Prague - Beograd - Bar through sleeping car run by the Czech railways which started it's journey attached to the Hamburg - Berlin - Budapest EuroCity. So it was still kind of possible to travel by direct train from Northern Germany to the furthest depths of the Balkans long after all other such connections were gone.

I have a feeling the Beograd - Zurich situation came about because SBB didn't trust the Serbian carriages on their infrastructure!

 

[Tester]

Going back a while (and from memory) - the Direct-Orient Express, by which you could travel from Calais to Istanbul, but not in the same carriage.

Calais-Trieste overlapped with Paris-Istanbul.

 

[The exile]

I have a feeling the Beograd - Zurich situation came about because SBB didn't trust the Serbian carriages on their infrastructure!

Having used the train end-to-end in 2018 I’m not entirely surprised by that possibility.

 

[superalbs]

Ankara to Tehran, it had a train ferry partway through the journey, but only the luggage car was taken all the way through.

Not 100% in the spirit of the thread, as it's not a passenger carrying vehicle, but worth a mention I feel.

 

[coppercapped]

There was a similar thread in the forum back in 2023 (https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/through-trains-which-arent.247741/page-2#post-6210068) in which I mentioned the 'Tauern Express'.

The Tauern Express was an international long-distance train that operated from 1951 to 1988 between Ostend and various destinations in what was then Yugoslavia. In the 1950s it was one of the most important long-distance connections between Germany, the Benelux countries, and Southeast Europe. In some years it also offered through carriages to Athens and Istanbul and from Oostende to Copenhagen as far as Köln.

Back in the 1970s I was working in Ulm in southern Germany and I used to use the sleepers in the Tauern Express three or four times a year to come to see my family. The train left Ulm around 23.00 arriving at Oostende the following morning. A short walk over the quayside saw me on the ship for the three and a half to four hour crossing to Dover.

It was always a dramatic experience as the train swept into Ulm Hbf at night in winter through swirling snow. Snow used lie in the vestibules, wedged into the window slides with the underframes and bogies covered in the stuff.

I found the Tauern Express (known as D218 in those days) fascinating as at the time only one coach ran all the way from Split in Jugoslavia to Oostende. My sleeping car was added at either Klagenfurt or Salzburg, the restaurant car was dropped at München and various other coaches went to and from a whole series of other destinations such as Hamburg to Oostende. A (German language) listing of the composition of the train in 1971 can be found at:

https://www.vonderruhren.de/aachenbahn/seiten/d218.php#1

A different world. By the time I arrived in Reading from Ulm some 22 hours had elapsed... There is a lot to be said for budget airlines.