How are carriages allocated on cross-boundary international trains

[Ethano92]

Whilst travelling across Europe, I’ve noticed quite a few trains which have carriages from multiple different national operators. For example, during a changeover in Villach Hbf, Austria, a train passed which had an OBB loco with 2 Slovenian railway carriages and 2 Croatian railways (HZPP) carriages. How was this allocation of loco and carriages decided? Is the train operated by the owner of the loco. More often are locos not swapped over at borders?

Cross-border services using fixed units such as SNCF TGV services are more easily understandable as to who they’re operated by as the units are only branded by one operator.

 

[StephenHunter]

The allocation is negotiated by the various companies. Timetable conferences have historically been a thing.

Driver/guard allocation is beyond my knowledge.

Border loco swaps were historically the norm, but with multi-system locos, those are becoming less common.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Driver/guard allocation is beyond my knowledge.

On a classic international train these would change at the border, as would the nominal operator to the relevant national railway.

 

[30907]

Part of the answer with classic trains is equalisation: the coaches are supplied by the national operators in proportion to the distance each side of the border.

Alternatively, the "foreign" loco or stock is (legitimately!) borrowed for internal services, meaning that you can see Hungarian coaches at Lienz in Austria's southern Tirol and locos at Ceske Velenice just over the Czech border!

 

[StephenHunter]

Part of the answer with classic trains is equalisation: the coaches are supplied by the national operators in proportion to the distance each side of the border.

Alternatively, the "foreign" loco or stock is (legitimately!) borrowed for internal services, meaning that you can see Hungarian coaches at Lienz in Austria's southern Tirol and locos at Ceske Velenice just over the Czech border!

In which case, the operator would pay a fee for the hire, I believe. That was the practice in the UK pre-nationalisation and the Clearing House system would total up what everyone owed each other.

 

[DanielB]

On a classic international train these would change at the border, as would the nominal operator to the relevant national railway.

With the IC services between Amsterdam and Brussels staff is also equally distributed, so Dutch staff is working in Belgium and Belgian staff also in the Netherlands.
Rolling stock on that route used to be divided: NS supplied the coaches, NMBS the locos, but currently it's mostly NS stock on that route.

IC Berlin has a loco and staff change at the border, but coaches are DB-only. So it really depends on the route.

Most diverse would be the Zürich - Amsterdam Nightjet which has an NS-loco (till Frankfurt), OeBB sleeper and couchette cars and DB and SBB seated coaches. So all countries en route are represented.

 

[StephenHunter]

The NS loco is actually leased from ELL and has a German registration. The OeBB sleepers are also German registered for some reason.

 

[Austriantrain]

In which case, the operator would pay a fee for the hire, I believe. That was the practice in the UK pre-nationalisation and the Clearing House system would total up what everyone owed each other.

AIUI fee payment is now the rule in all cases (no „natural compensation“ anymore), but of course, the aim is to equilibrate fees as much as possible.

Is the train operated by the owner of the loco.

No. In their great majority, international services are still operated in the traditional way, ie the legal operator is the railway in the country where the train actually finds itself. Eg the EC Zurich - Munich is operated by SBB sets. But the train operators are SBB from Zurich to St Margrethen, ÖBB from St Margrethen to Lindau Reutin and DB from Lindau to Munich.

Train personnel is still another matter. In my example, SBB guards operate all the way to Munich, as do ÖBB drivers.

All of that is agreed between railway companies.

Nowadays of course, increasingly services are open-access, where one operator legally runs the train (often via subsidiaries) on the whole journey with its own staff. Examples would be Trenitalia on Milan - Paris, WESTbahn on Vienna - Munich or Regiojet on its international routes.

 

[dutchflyer]

In the past with only those national state-owned ´companies/entities´ it was much easier: each had its own jurisdiction and responsibility-incl. setting driver and conductors etc.-and urgent maintenance in case of failures. All railways met at least 2/yr in a conference te set timings, routes etc. Fares were as such also simply the sum of what each country would want to receive between its own borders.
This has both changed and not due to the new privatised (well, hum, liberalised might suit better) world in which railways are supposed to operate.
I think the MAX-excl. the loc, of various nations having its cars in 1 train is now 3, this was also even more in the distant past.
There could also be coaches attached at just over border and detached just before next to offer domestic travel in a through running international train.

 

[StephenHunter]

Train personnel is still another matter. In my example, SBB guards operate all the way to Munich, as do ÖBB drivers.

All of that is agreed between railway companies.

Nightjet's service staff are from Newrest Wagons-Lit, successor to CIWL.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

The OeBB sleepers are also German registered for some reason.

When DB stopped running night trains in 2016 ÖBB bought 42 sleeping cars and 15 couchettes from DB.

 

[Planesandtrain]

I know that DB staff do regular checks on trains they take over at a border point. Recently Czech coaching stock has been cancelled from Decin onwards as there were faults that did not meet german standards so reliability on the Berlin-Prague corridor has tanked big time recently. Czech Railways have been having big issues with their Slovakian refurbished coaching stock so often coaches are missing etc etc.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

In which case, the operator would pay a fee for the hire, I believe. That was the practice in the UK pre-nationalisation and the Clearing House system would total up what everyone owed each other.

The point is that by using foreign carriages to operate domestic services, the mileages are equalled so that no hire fee is due.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I think ÖBB trains crossing into Italy are operated there by Trenord, the Lombardy regional operator.
The "national operator" thing is fading with improved cross-border access regulations, common TSI compliance and compatible control systems (notably ETCS).

Eurostar set a new standard in 1994 for through working of cross-border trains and crews, between London-Paris and London-Brussels.
On a recent trip to Italy I was interested to see that the Trenitalia on-board crew for their Milan-Paris service swapped at Chambery, about half way.
Whether that applied to the train crew (driver/conductor) I don't know.

 

[Trainbike46]

I think ÖBB trains crossing into Italy are operated there by Trenord, the Lombardy regional operator.
The "national operator" thing is fading with improved cross-border access regulations, common TSI compliance and compatible control systems (notably ETCS).

Eurostar set a new standard in 1994 for through working of cross-border trains and crews, between London-Paris and London-Brussels.
On a recent trip to Italy I was interested to see that the Trenitalia on-board crew for their Milan-Paris service swapped at Chambery, about half way.
Whether that applied to the train crew (driver/conductor) I don't know.

Yet still, officially Eurostar is not an operator in the Netherlands and Eurostar trains are operated by NS international; they also supply drivers (and possibly train managers?) to Eurostar and Thalys

 

[Austriantrain]

I think ÖBB trains crossing into Italy are operated there by Trenord, the Lombardy regional operator.

The Vienna - Venice RJ and the Venice NJ are open-access ÖBB operations. The Rome NJ are run in cooperation with Trenitalia. The Brenner services have changed more than once on the Italian side, so I am not sure who is the operator now.

The "national operator" thing is fading with improved cross-border access regulations, common TSI compliance and compatible control systems (notably ETCS).

I think „fading“ is too strong a word. In those regions of Europe where international services are frequent and well run, cooperatively run services are still very much the norm and I don’t see that changing because it offers so many advantages.

But of course, nowadays there are alternatives and their share will increase.

Eurostar set a new standard in 1994 for through working of cross-border trains and crews, between London-Paris and London-Brussels.

For the crews yes, certainly not for the trains though.

Crew through working is on the increase, but hampered by language issues mainly.

 

[D6130]

On a recent trip to Italy I was interested to see that the Trenitalia on-board crew for their Milan-Paris service swapped at Chambery, about half way.
Whether that applied to the train crew (driver/conductor) I don't know.

The drivers and train managers change over at Modane....or did when I last made that journey at the end of June.

 

[AdamWW]

Yet still, officially Eurostar is not an operator in the Netherlands and Eurostar trains are operated by NS international; they also supply drivers (and possibly train managers?) to Eurostar and Thalys

When I caught the Amsterdam to London service the train managers changed at Brussels.

I presume the catering staff also changed since the "buffet" closed before Brussels and opened again after we left.

 

[biko]

When I caught the Amsterdam to London service the train managers changed at Brussels.

I presume the catering staff also changed since the "buffet" closed before Brussels and opened again after we left.

In my experience it's fully Dutch staff between Brussels and Amsterdam including the buffet staff

 

[Trainbike46]

In my experience it's fully Dutch staff between Brussels and Amsterdam including the buffet staff

I've had some belgian staff as well, and I know NS drivers do sometimes operate beyond Brussels, even to St Pancras, which implies the reverse (non-NS staff operating to Amsterdam) may also be true, assuming the relevant staff speaks Dutch

 

[Kreissignal]

IC 2070 runs in the early morning from Berlin-Südkreuz to Hamburg-Altona with Czech rolling stock and a DB locomotive: this then forms the EC 177 from Hamburg to Prague. Same game in reverse in the afternoon, with EC 176 arriving in Hamburg and turning into the IC 2071 to Südkreuz again. IIRC, the staff on the ICs are German, but it's been a while since I used either of them.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

It still runs, but personally I don't consider it particularly unusual since there is a regular 2 hourly Hamburg - Berlin - Prague service in that configuration. It's essentially a Prague - Hamburg train that paused in Berlin overnight.

More exotic is the 'borrowing' of foreign coaches for domestic routes that are entirely seperate from their regular destinations. A Hungarian coaching set is used for an domestic ÖBB intercity from Wien to Lienz(not Linz!). It's stopped now I believe, but there used to be Berlin - Dresden Intercity formed of Polish carriages.

 

[43096]

It still runs, but personally I don't consider it particularly unusual since there is a regular 2 hourly Hamburg - Berlin - Prague service in that configuration. It's essentially a Prague - Hamburg train that paused in Berlin overnight.

More exotic is the 'borrowing' of foreign coaches for domestic routes that are entirely seperate from their regular destinations. A Hungarian coaching set is used for an domestic ÖBB intercity from Wien to Lienz(not Linz!). It's stopped now I believe, but there used to be Berlin - Dresden Intercity formed of Polish carriages.

SBB used to (still do?) make use of ICE sets for Swiss internal workings such as Zürich-Basel and Interlaken-Basel.

With locomotives, the use of MÁV class 470 locos out of Wien FJB is well out of their normal operating area. Similarly, DB use ÖBB Taurus locos on Stuttgart-Singen trains.

 

[duesselmartin]

ÖBB borrowed German coaches in the past or integrated them into their timetable.
There used to be an ICE running Innsbruck to Vienna, a HZ set running Munich to Vienna.

As to staffing, currently the ÖBB EC from Munich to Italy have both ÖBB and DB staff from Munich to Innsbruck, sharing the task of ticket checks, so no duplication.
ICE International (in the unlikely event of it actually running) has the same staff for the full distance.

 

[AdamWW]

ICE International (in the unlikely event of it actually running) has the same staff for the full distance.

Interesting. On a recent ICE journey we seemed to change guard every hour or so.

(I think it was domestic - can't remember now what the ultimate destination was).