Most Interesting Border crossed by Train (Land)

[Cloud Strife]

Probably the most interesting for me was Terespol (Poland) - Brest (Belarus) on the local train that no longer runs since the start of the Ukraine war.

Buying tickets was an interesting experience, as they were only sold at the station in Terespol for the PL->BY route. Curiously, Belarusian Railway sold the return ticket online without any problem at all, although it had to be picked up at the station in Brest.

Anyway, the travel was an interesting experience. First of all, you had to queue up outside the international station in Terespol, which is on the other side of the tracks to the domestic station. At about 45 minutes before departure, you could see a large amount of migrants being kept in the station waiting room, who had been denied entry into Poland. They were then processed through passport and customs controls before the door to the international station was unlocked.

You could then go in and through passport and customs controls, but curiously, there is/was no ticket office inside the international station. You then went down the stairs and under the track, then up into the international platform which is fenced off and guarded. The migrants had (by this time) all been placed in a separate locked carriage.

The train itself took only 20 minutes to Brest, and upon arrival in Brest, you entered the international part of the station. First of all, you could buy duty free on arrival, and it was seemingly possible to simply buy duty free and then stay on the platform for a few hours to return to Poland. Then, after entering, you came into this huge hall with about 12-14 passport control positions, although the experience was very professional and correct. Then followed customs controls, which were about looking for drugs. They weren't interested in my phone or laptop however.

Current politics aside, I've always wondered why this route wasn't served by more frequent trains. The visa situation is one barrier, but it seems that it never had more than a couple of departures daily.

 

[merry]

To contribute an opposite, a candidate for the *least* interesting border might have been a couple of hours ago, from Belgium to Holland on the train between Essen & Roosendaal. I blinked and missed the border - there us nothing at all to show the change!
But today operation is "interesting".
SNCB Trains from Antwerp & Essen terminate just over the border in Holland at Roosendaal. NS trains commence from here, going to Breda. All change! Odd how there are so few passengers...;-/
Not sure if this is the usual working method, certainly discouraged many passengers - only a handful of people left the dilapidated 8 car train, which had run 'all shacks' ftom Antwerp. Totally overkill in terms of rolling stock!

 

[rvdborgt]

SNCB Trains from Antwerp & Essen terminate just over the border in Holland at Roosendaal. NS trains commence from here, going to Breda. All change! Odd how there are so few passengers...;-/
Not sure if this is the usual working method, certainly discouraged many passengers - only a handful of people left the dilapidated 8 car train, which had run 'all shacks' ftom Antwerp. Totally overkill in terms of rolling stock!

There's an hourly all stations service (Puurs-)Antwerp-Roosendaal. There's a second service that ends in Essen, but which is supposed to be extended to Roosendaal once ProRail finally has ETCS from the border to Roosendaal.
Some train are busy enough to warrant 8 carriages, although maybe not all the way to Roosendaal. If you really travelled today, there's also a strike going on, which will also have an influence on the number of passengers who actually travel.
Passengers who want to go fast have enough trains via the high speed line.

 

[DanielB]

SNCB Trains from Antwerp & Essen terminate just over the border in Holland at Roosendaal. NS trains commence from here, going to Breda. All change! Odd how there are so few passengers...;-/

From Antwerp to Breda travelling via the high speed line makes more sense.
The reason the Belgian train terminates in Roosendaal is that the units aren't multi-voltage capable: they run at 50% power into the Netherlands and haven't got ATB what is allowed until the border station.
Before the high speed line opened Roosendaal was the main border crossing with Belgium and through trains (from Brussels to Amsterdam) were passing there, currently only the local train is remaining.

 

[MarcVD]

To contribute an opposite, a candidate for the *least* interesting border might have been a couple of hours ago, from Belgium to Holland on the train between Essen & Roosendaal. I blinked and missed the border - there us nothing at all to show the change!

The border is just a few meters north of Essen Station.
For people who know what to look for, the border location is obvious : OHLE equipment as well as lineside signals are totally different. Note however that the voltage change is not located at the physical border : the Dutch catenary remains energized at 3 kV from the border to nearly the entrance of Rosendaal Station.

 

[sh24]

Were there any other tourists/non-Koreans in the carriage with you? Seems surprising that NK allowed visitors in that route without a 'chaperone' - Helmut seemed to indicate that their route via Tumangan in 2008 was *very* unofficial.

Tangentially, it seems NK is allowing some tourists atm - provided they have Russian passports.....

Didn't have guides from Pyongyang through to the Chinese border. We were free to wander up and down the through carriages to Beijing.

 

[zwk500]

To contribute an opposite, a candidate for the *least* interesting border might have been a couple of hours ago, from Belgium to Holland on the train between Essen & Roosendaal. I blinked and missed the border - there us nothing at all to show the change!

Same with Vise on the Liege-Maastricht Line. Easier to tell from the motorway signs than the train line which country you're in!
I also had the interesting experience of being challenged for documents by Belgian plain-clothes officers at Maastricht station (in the Netherlands). I'd got there a bit early (or possibly my intended train had been cancelled) so I'd been kicking about and had a bulky rucksack with me. Decided to have a bit of a look around the belgian train before getting on which caught the eye of the gentlemen, who explained who they were and asked for my documents. They were slightly surprised to hear I was travelling to London that day, wishing me good luck on handing my passport back.
Maastricht station has some of the historic customs signs still preserved in the station building, with some quite nice photographs of what it was like for both Belgian and German arrivals.

But today operation is "interesting".
SNCB Trains from Antwerp & Essen terminate just over the border in Holland at Roosendaal. NS trains commence from here, going to Breda. All change! Odd how there are so few passengers...;-/
Not sure if this is the usual working method, certainly discouraged many passengers - only a handful of people left the dilapidated 8 car train, which had run 'all shacks' ftom Antwerp. Totally overkill in terms of rolling stock!

Maastricht has a similar situation with although the presence of Maastricht Randwyck station south of the main station means NS and SNCB trains overlap slightly. I don't know if Dutch trains have ever run through to Liege (I think I did see something on the forums that said they did once), but while I lived there it was very much NS trains went no further than Randwyck and it was the 1tph SNCB all-stations from Maastricht Central to Liege and on to Hasselt, which provided the only service to the Dutch station of Eisjden before reaching Belgium. I think a Liege-Maastrich-Aachen train now runs, not sure if in addition or as a replacement. Maybe one day the Amsterdam-Maastricht will be (re-?) extended to Liege and provide further cross-border connectivity? It's probably unlikely as the presence of HSLs means I expect the journey time changing at Brussels is quicker than any direct train could achieve.

 

[rvdborgt]

Maastricht has a similar situation with although the presence of Maastricht Randwyck station south of the main station means NS and SNCB trains overlap slightly. I don't know if Dutch trains have ever run through to Liege (I think I did see something on the forums that said they did once),

NS rolling stock (Plan X) ran to Liège before electrification.

but while I lived there it was very much NS trains went no further than Randwyck and it was the 1tph SNCB all-stations from Maastricht Central to Liege and on to Hasselt, which provided the only service to the Dutch station of Eisjden before reaching Belgium. I think a Liege-Maastrich-Aachen train now runs, not sure if in addition or as a replacement.

Aachen-Heerlen-Maastricht-Liège runs instead of the previous Aachen-Heerlen-Maastricht and Maastricht-Liège services. Rolling stock is Arriva; carriers are Arriva on Aachen-Heerlen-Maastricht, NS on Maastricht-Visé(fr) and NMBS/SNCB on Visé(fr)-Liège.

 

[Beebman]

The border is just a few meters north of Essen Station.
For people who know what to look for, the border location is obvious : OHLE equipment as well as lineside signals are totally different. Note however that the voltage change is not located at the physical border : the Dutch catenary remains energized at 3 kV from the border to nearly the entrance of Rosendaal Station.
View attachment 179179

I’ve noticed at Essen that the change in OHLE types seems to happen a couple of hundred metres north of the physical border just where a headshunt siding ends. I’m guessing that this is the infrastructure boundary to allow Infrabel maintenance access to the headshunt?

 

[185143]

I'm on the sleeper from Berlin to Stockholm at the moment.

No issues at the Danish border, aside from the train failing and a 90 minute delay.

Awoken at Malmo by Customs banging on the couchette door wanting all of our passports and asking if anything to declare. Asked where we were going and why, and left it at that. Just what you want at 05:40 when crossing a Schengen border. Still... should be greatful for the delay I suppose or that'd have been 04:00!

 

[jamesontheroad]

I'm on the sleeper from Berlin to Stockholm at the moment.

No issues at the Danish border, aside from the train failing and a 90 minute delay.

"No issues"

Awoken at Malmo by Customs banging on the couchette door wanting all of our passports and asking if anything to declare. Asked where we were going and why, and left it at that. Just what you want at 05:40 when crossing a Schengen border. Still... should be greatful for the delay I suppose or that'd have been 04:00!

Not customs. There are no customs checks on internal EU borders. "Temporary", "proportionate" and "targeted" border checks, norally conducted by the Swedish police in your example, are permitted. When SJ or Snälltåget night trains from/to Germany change direction in Malmö Central station, these checks often happen at the more remote Svågertorp station on the southern side of Malmö (handy for IKEA, if you're allowed into Sweden and are looking for a Djungelskog in a hurry...) a few minutes before arrival in Malmö C.

 

[MarcVD]

I’ve noticed at Essen that the change in OHLE types seems to happen a couple of hundred metres north of the physical border just where a headshunt siding ends. I’m guessing that this is the infrastructure boundary to allow Infrabel maintenance access to the headshunt?

OK, let's look at this border crossing in full detail. See the pictures below. First one is a Google Street View at the level crossing north of the station, looking north.

You first see the "administration change" sign, telling the driver that from now on, he must drive in accordance to the Dutch rulebook. Then the max speed signal, 125 km/h (belgian speed is 130 but I think there is a speed restriction to cross the station). You'll note that those signals are not repeated on the right, which means that this line is not equipped with bidirectional signalling.

Next catenary support is still belgian, and support switches that can isolate belgian catenaries from Dutch ones. There is a second set of switches on the next support, I don't really know why. I think that 3 kV power is provided by SNCB to NS, NS does not have 3 kV production.



Next support is Dutch, which you can see from the top catenary cable going above the beam and not below like in Belgium. Note also that there is a complete separation of the cable sets.

In distance, you see the entre signals of the station from the north. Although not bidirectional, SNCB has put a signal on both tracks (usual practice) but the left one in the picture is almost only open for shunting moves.

Second picture is a view from the first level crossing in the Netherlands, looking south, where the first belgian signals can be seen.



Third view is from the previous level crossing in the Netherlands, looking north, where you can see the distant signal for the wrong main entrance signal in Belgium. It's there because there is no wrong side automatic block system on this line. You see it's a distant signal because there is no red light bulb. So in the south direction, the Belgian rules are already applicable although we are still clearly in the Netherlands.



And then last two are from yet another level crossing, showing in the first picture the "administration change" board and in the second one, the last Dutch signal, which is also the distant signal for the first belgian one.



The voltage change is further north, near Rosendaal station entrance, so that belgian locos and EMUs going there have to run on reduced power only for a limited distance. The switch from left hand to right hand running also takes place in Rosendaal because, unlike Essen, it's a station where all trains stop, so it's not a problem if they have to slow down for switches.

Railway border crossings are really fascinating places...



Found the voltage change...

 

[zero]

Railway border crossings are really fascinating places...

Thanks for this, I wish this post had been made before I travelled on this route - sadly it is difficult to see this stuff from a train itself, and I am never sure which side to sit on (and if there are lots of passengers it looks weird to run from side to side looking out the windows...)

 

[Beebman]

Thanks for this, I wish this post had been made before I travelled on this route - sadly it is difficult to see this stuff from a train itself, and I am never sure which side to sit on (and if there are lots of passengers it looks weird to run from side to side looking out the windows...)

Over recent years I've found various cab videos which happen to show in detail various infrastructure changes at borders. They can of course be run forwards and backwards and I've found them very interesting. In this way I've found a number of oddities, e.g. OBB infrastructure on the lines to Buchs and St. Margarethen continues into Switzerland on both routes for a couple of kms (including OHLE, signals and km posts).

 

[Oxfordblues]

1978 Probstzella, travelling from the Bundesrepublik Deutschland to visit the Socialist Fatherland, in particular to grice the steam at Saalfeld which then had, reputedly, 65 steam trains per day plus a busy shed and marshalling yard.

There were a only handful of passengers on the train but we were greeted by at least 25 grenzpolizei, customs and immigration officials. They were efficient and thorough, but as they were all probably on good salaries what an expensive way to keep out a few potential "troublemakers"! No wonder the DDR, crippled with debts to the West, eventually collapsed.

 

[The exile]

1978 Probstzella, travelling from the Bundesrepublik Deutschland to visit the Socialist Fatherland, in particular to grice the steam at Saalfeld which then had, reputedly, 65 steam trains per day plus a busy shed and marshalling yard.

There were an only handful of passengers on the train but we were greeted by at least 25 grenzpolizei, customs and immigration officials. They were efficient and thorough, but as they were all probably on good salaries what an expensive way to keep out a few potential "troublemakers"! No wonder the DDR, crippled with debts to the West, eventually collapsed.

The East German border guards were less concerned with keeping troublesome foreigners out than with keeping their own citizens in.

 

[DanielB]

@MarcVD You're still missing one oddity on that border crossing, though I doubt it is visible on Streetview: the signals upon entering Roosendaal have arrow-signs next to them to remind the Belgian drivers which signals are valid for them (as in the Netherlands they are on the other side of the track).

The border near Maastricht, though similar, has some additional oddities: trains run on the left till Maastricht including the domestic ones to Maastricht Randwijck and Eijsden station has 3 kV OHLE fed from Belgium, so can only be served by Belgium capable trains.
Though the most odd thing there are the fares as you need to tap in at NS when travelling beyond Roermond and with Arriva when travelling in the direction of Heerlen.

 

[The exile]

Going off at a bit of a tangent but in the same part of the world… Going across a level-crossing on long stretches of the now moribund Vennbahn involves crossing from Germany into Belgium and back again as the railway forms a thin strip of Belgian sovereign territory passing through Germany.

 

[merry]

Thanks for this, I wish this post had been made before I travelled on this route - sadly it is difficult to see this stuff from a train itself, and I am never sure which side to sit on (and if there are lots of passengers it looks weird to run from side to side looking out the windows...)

+1
I shall look out for what I can see on the return journey tomorrow morning.
Hopefully none of yesterday's disruption - we saw (through the workshop windows) Eurostars passing through Roosendaal towards Belgium early afternoon, which apparently only happens when the highspeed line is not useable. There were a number of incidents affecting services, looking at the live traffic page...

 

[MarcVD]

@MarcVD You're still missing one oddity on that border crossing, though I doubt it is visible on Streetview: the signals upon entering Roosendaal have arrow-signs next to them to remind the Belgian drivers which signals are valid for them (as in the Netherlands they are on the other side of the track).

Yes you can...



Note that there is such an arrow on each of the 4 tracks. So not only to the attention of belgian drivers, as the two leftmost tracks come from Vlissingen and are thus only used by Dutch drivers.

These arrows are used in Belgium also, for the same reasons.

Going off at a bit of a tangent but in the same part of the world… Going across a level-crossing on long stretches of the now moribund Vennbahn involves crossing from Germany into Belgium and back again as the railway forms a thin strip of Belgian sovereign territory passing through Germany.

Yes, comes straight from the treaty of Versailles.
Same treaty supposedly specifies that this belgian strip of land should return to Germany if the rail line is put out of use. Apparently hasn't happened yet...

 

[nwales58]

Mention of the Vennbahn and the pre-/post-WW1 border reminded me, if we include light rail, that not only did Aachen’s trams run into Belgium and the Netherlands (Vaals), in Kerkrade/Herzogenrath the single track line *was* the border in the middle of the road, Nieuwstraat on one side Neustrasse on the other. I’ve seen aphoto of the track with a barbed wire fence running along one side.