Recently on platform 21, Nuremberg main station, from here the trains to Bayreuth run. One is the second largest municipality in Bavaria, the other the capital of Upper Franconia, so you can assume a contemporary connection. Something is announced on the track, probably something important about the upcoming journey. It’s just stupid that you can’t understand a single word. If there is a diesel train in operation, you would have to put your ear to the loudspeaker.
Nobody on the track can laugh about it, people are obviously not used to it any other way. Announcements on platform 21 when the diesel is running in the direction of World Heritage, University and Wagnerstadt? you can forget which is stupid. Because: Only this rattling diesel drives there.
But that’s only in the better cases. On this year’s July 25th, for example, the diesel train didn’t run as planned, which was unpleasant, because July 25th is every year: the opening of the festival. One could start to ponder whether it was well thought out to cancel the rattling diesel trains in the direction of Bayreuth on this very day and to set up a “rail replacement service” via various villages. But good.
However, neither a diesel train nor the substitute transport drove to the “Tristan” premiere. In the morning, the railways reported on their digital channels that all traffic to Bayreuth had been canceled. At the opening of the Franconian world event, the green hill could not be reached by train from the south. In his distress, the SZ reviewer had himself chauffeured to Bamberg by ICE, from where he took a taxi. Not exactly cheap.
Now you can say: That’s nice, that boosts the regional economy! In Bayreuth, however, it’s not even enough for sarcasm. If you talk to the locals about the train, you don’t have to worry about a lack of slurred language. They have been praised for decades for improvement. But they still drive to Nuremberg, a city of half a million people: Diesel. (Which, by the way, would be rather inadequately described as an “eco-fiasco”.)
No less than the most far-reaching electrification gap in Central Europe’s rail traffic gapes at the interface between Bavaria, Saxony and the Czech Republic – and mind you, on Bavarian territory. A proper connection to long-distance traffic? No talk about it.
This has been changing since the 1990s, over and over again. But nothing happens. An expert has just examined the route through Franconian Switzerland, not for the first time. Prospects of an early start of construction, especially in these times? “Almost zero,” fears one from City Hall. Poor, unreachable Bayreuth.