Through the curtain - the cold war years

[Czesziafan]

I remember once seeing a Soviet Railways sleeper complete with cast gunmetal emblem on its side in the stock of the Ost West Express at Ostend. Given that this train took about 50 hours to reach Moscow when one could fly there from Western Europe in about 3 hours I have always been puzzled as to who actually used this service and its sibling services from the USSR into Western Europe.

There were various through trains that crossed the iron curtain in both directions and I was wondering whether anyone has any memories of travelling on these services and what their experiences were of crossing from West to East or vice versa. Was it really the Bond-type high drama and tension that writers and film makers would have us believe, or was it a rather more mundane event.

 

[Joe Paxton]

I remember once seeing a Soviet Railways sleeper complete with cast gunmetal emblem on its side in the stock of the Ost West Express at Ostend. Given that this train took about 50 hours to reach Moscow when one could fly there from Western Europe in about 3 hours I have always been puzzled as to who actually used this service and its sibling services from the USSR into Western Europe.
...

Air travel was really expensive in decades past. And the train stopped at many calling points along the way - not everyone was going to Moscow!

 

[Peter C]

Someone I know told me a story where they were on a train across Russia in the Cold War years and they said it took them days to get across. However, their train was fully supplied with waiters and people to look after them!
The train would stop at regular points along the way to pick up and set down passengers, with people living in the towns the train called at, having known the times beforehand, setting up stalls to sell passengers food and the like!
I believe that the route my friend took was a longer route due to flooding or something in a lake (I can't remember for the life of me what it was) and was routed "over the top" from a map perspective rather than "under" it. That's why it took him longer.

Hope this is of any interest.

-Peter

 

[Czesziafan]

In the 70's the Moscow - Vienna train was one of the few means allowed by the Soviets for Jewish people to legally emigrate from Russia, ostensibly to go to Israel though many in fact went on from Vienna to the US. The Bank of Israel even issued a commemorative coin for this migration.

 

[MarcVD]

What amazes me the most is this Moscow-Madrid sleeping car that ran on three different track gauges, and thus swapped its bogies twice, over its jouney.

And this Moscow-Tehran trip that took five days, as long as the transsib...

 

[Peter C]

What amazes me the most is this Moscow-Madrid sleeping car that ran on three different track gauges, and thus swapped its bogies twice, over its jouney.

Now you mention it, my friend did mention (in his story which I've said in Post#3) that they changed the bogies, and the passengers were detrained whilst they did it. Very interesting!

-Peter

 

[Czesziafan]

What amazes me the most is this Moscow-Madrid sleeping car that ran on three different track gauges, and thus swapped its bogies twice, over its jouney.

And this Moscow-Tehran trip that took five days, as long as the transsib...

There were some extraordinary routes in the late and immediate post-Soviet era. These included (at various times) through trains from Berlin deep into Russia beyond Moscow to such places as Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and even a special to Vladivostok. I am sure there was at one time a through service between Berlin and Kazakhstan. How long they lasted I don't know.

 

[WesternLancer]

I remember once seeing a Soviet Railways sleeper complete with cast gunmetal emblem on its side in the stock of the Ost West Express at Ostend. Given that this train took about 50 hours to reach Moscow when one could fly there from Western Europe in about 3 hours I have always been puzzled as to who actually used this service and its sibling services from the USSR into Western Europe.

There were various through trains that crossed the iron curtain in both directions and I was wondering whether anyone has any memories of travelling on these services and what their experiences were of crossing from West to East or vice versa. Was it really the Bond-type high drama and tension that writers and film makers would have us believe, or was it a rather more mundane event.

Yep - took train from west germany to berlin overnight in 1988 as a teenager (2 of us dossed down in a DR seated compartment - more spacious than the DB equivalent we realised) and the border crossing was fairly high drama by standards we were used to within western europe. So I bet a trip on the full russain deal would have been even more so! Little did we know that within 18 months of our inter rail trip that border would be pretty much down.

Certainly recall seeing the USSR sleepers in consists of various night trains we encountered in those days. Our standard method of night time accomodation to save on hostel costs was every other day or so just to find a night train with an empty compartment in it and just get on to wherever it went that night and then decide where to go from there next morning. So this did involve a lot of station time at night hence seeing these sleepers.

 

[duesselmartin]

Despite cheap air travel there are still sleeper services from Moscow to Paris and Nice.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I got a 1st class special weekend return from Hannover - Berlin in about 1984 (it was cheaper than a priv !) , and the standard LHCS set with a diner was rather down at heel. This was explained by the conductor on the return as "good" stock was kept off this service , as it berthed overnight in East Berlin and there was a tendancy for the DR to do unauthorised swops of seat cushions etc - and even the toilet soap and paper. DR toilet paper was the nearest thing to sandpaper I have ever seen.

The on board visa and passport checks were brisk and searching - full eye contact etc , and the Stassi official had a portable desk , where the paper visa was inserted manually into the passport. The border checking procedure was very through , mirrors etc to check the underneath and a plethora of armed guards.

The DR section was exceedingly impressive - a train of Trabants observed had armed police guarding it , masses of mixed freight and non operating , stored steam locos at various locations. Carriage washing observed to be done manually by gangs of women with buckets and brushes.

Another observation on a later trip was a Mitropa diner on the Hook - Berlin train , a good source of hard currency no doubt. Limited choice - but plenty of cheap beer.

 

[WesternLancer]

I got a 1st class special weekend return from Hannover - Berlin in about 1984 (it was cheaper than a priv !) , and the standard LHCS set with a diner was rather down at heel. This was explained by the conductor on the return as "good" stock was kept off this service , as it berthed overnight in East Berlin and there was a tendancy for the DR to do unauthorised swops of seat cushions etc - and even the toilet soap and paper. DR toilet paper was the nearest thing to sandpaper I have ever seen.

The on board visa and passport checks were brisk and searching - full eye contact etc , and the Stassi official had a portable desk , where the paper visa was inserted manually into the passport. The border checking procedure was very through , mirrors etc to check the underneath and a plethora of armed guards.

The DR section was exceedingly impressive - a train of Trabants observed had armed police guarding it , masses of mixed freight and non operating , stored steam locos at various locations. Carriage washing observed to be done manually by gangs of women with buckets and brushes.

Another observation on a later trip was a Mitropa diner on the Hook - Berlin train , a good source of hard currency no doubt. Limited choice - but plenty of cheap beer.

Excellent snapshot

On my trip mentioned above we didn't really know what to expect - even to the point of assuming that because West Berlin was in West Germany, and because the train we went on was from a West German station (Frankfurt I think) we assumed the inter rail pass would be valid!!! Obv some time after crossing the boarder when the DR guard came to check tickets we found out this was not the case and had to pay on board. We spoke little common language so we were worried that we had been charged some punitive fare by the guard (or even just ripped off) - who was friendly and reasonable in his manner, but such that on alighting at Berlin Zoo in the morning we went to the ticket office to get this checked, but all was in order.

Crossing the border itself was after midnight IIRC - so we didn't notice much of the border crossing checks of the train itself I guess. 1st thing we noticed was the train had stopped, then as we dozed off again 1st thing was a lot of banging and repeated US voices walking along the outside of the train banging on on the carriage sides and repeatedly shouting "Any Americans on this train, Any Americans on this train" - we looked out to see US soldiers doing this. Unsure if any Americans presented themselves, then that stopped and calm descended, then I think the train moved forward a bit, stopped again, and then DDR passport control people came on (just as we were dozing off again) - they checked the passports etc etc. Lots of dogs about I recall, outside the train.

Then eventually the train moved off again and peering out through the night we clearly went though the barbed wire fenced zone etc - biggest thing to notice was that both the train speed was much slower and the track quality much poorer.

We dozed off again, before the disturbance of the previously mentioned ticket inspector. Each of these disturbances was long enough for you to think you could get back to sleep, then you got woken up again!

In a way it would have been good to have done the trip in the day time, but of course night added to the mystery of it all.

Although the DR carriages were more spacious, the standard of cleanliness was a bit lower than the DB ones.

Put it this way, you certainly knew you had crossed a border! But on another level you sort of took it for granted. Very few people you knew had ever been to the 'east', as a teenager the iron curtain seemed a consistent thing, all part of the natural 'world order' I suppose, it was unthinkable to us then that in a very short time this would all be gone.

It would be interesting to hear what it was like at periods of heightened cold war tension - eg 1950s / 60s etc from people who did it then, or also crossed borders to the east from Austria etc - maybe thread needs to go in 'History and Nostalgia too'.

 

[WesternLancer]

I remember once seeing a Soviet Railways sleeper complete with cast gunmetal emblem on its side in the stock of the Ost West Express at Ostend. Given that this train took about 50 hours to reach Moscow when one could fly there from Western Europe in about 3 hours I have always been puzzled as to who actually used this service and its sibling services from the USSR into Western Europe.

There were various through trains that crossed the iron curtain in both directions and I was wondering whether anyone has any memories of travelling on these services and what their experiences were of crossing from West to East or vice versa. Was it really the Bond-type high drama and tension that writers and film makers would have us believe, or was it a rather more mundane event.

A recollection of this service here it would seem

http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track11/ostwest197105.html

And looking at the timings listed - given that I have recently booked a Eurostar + DB ICE service London to Berlin, I'd much rather have had the Ostend - Berlin through train option really - arriving Berlin in the morning much better than the evening arrival I have to accept with present times and connections (plus unwanted changes of train and thus possible missed connections).

I seem to recall doing Ostend trips from Dover by sealink jet foil - and then onwards into Germany (certainly to Cologne), earlier in the 80s on family trips.

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detai...oss-channel-news-photo/90745764?adppopup=true

And of course you could just book the tickets for this at your local BR station! Even the small BR(SR) station near where we lived in Sussex would arrange the booking. You just told the staff what you wanted to do, then at some quiet moment in the day time the staff would ring the SR 'Continental Office' or whatever it was called, and get a price / itinerary for you. If that was what you wanted they would then book it and you paid at the local station. Tickets presumably sent via some internal BR post system. Obv a lot of high street travel agents also could do all this too.

Even in about feb 1993 I used a travel agent (at the local university student union) to book Dover - Ostend (I think) - then to Cologne - on to Prague with no fuss. I don't recall changing trains in Brussels.

As I recall cheap flights were only for the charter market to popular holiday destinations, or so it seemed, in the 70s and 80s. Other places were flights for business travelers really. Only those on expenses would use them - certainly not to take the whole family anyway - unless this was just the way our family did stuff!

 

[Beebman]

I travelled to West Berlin by train with my parents in 1977. Traction from Helmstedt was a DR 132 'Ludmilla' but I think steam on the service hadn't long ended, maybe a couple of years earlier although I did see a least half a dozen steam locos on the journey through the GDR. Coaching stock was all DB apart from a DR Mitropa diner. Apart from those dampfloks I recall that there wasn't much to see on the way, mostly lots of uninteresting scenery, the highlight was probably passing through Magdeburg Hbf which was festooned in GDR flags for some reason. The stop at Marienborn for issuing transit visas was a little scary but it was all done efficiently. What I didn't realise at the time was that I apparently entered the country illegally! I was 15 at the time and on my father's passport which was fine under UK rules but I later learned that the GDR didn't allow foreign nationals over 14 to be on a parent's passport even for transit visas. Anyway I got my visa and I still have it as well as the one for the return journey.

I made one further journey to the GDR before reunification but it was in September 1990, nearly a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when I travelled from Frankfurt (am Main) to Erfurt. The train still stopped at the border station of Gerstungen for about 45 minutes each way but nothing happened! In fact I was able to get out and take photos right under the noses of border staff who were all sitting around trying to kill time by playing cards, etc. Traction on the outward journey was another DR 132 from Bebra with a second attached for double-heading at Eisenach which started my fandom for the class. The return journey was behind a single DB 216 all the way from Erfurt to Bebra which I wasn't so thrilled about but I knew it had been diagrammed as such for a few months and of course now looking back it was very rare traction for the route.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

This page on Railfaneurope.net includes photos of Soviet sleeping cars on Ost-West Express and Moscow-Madrid services. According to the captions the Moscow-Madrid sleeper was a summer service operating from 1990 to 1992, running "via Berlin, Karlsruhe, Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lyons, Toulouse, Irun and Valladolid".

 

[parkender102]

In 1989 my Girlfriend and I travelled to Budapest in Hungary before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We took the train from London to Dover then the Jetfoil to Ostend for the Night Sleeper to Vienna where we changed for the Budapest Train and had a lovely lunch in the Restaurant Car complete with small electric lamps on every Table. We hung around in Budapest for a few weeks waiting for Visas for China and Russia for the next part of the journey to Beijing. The Overnight train Budapest to Moscow seemingly had only 3 Westerners on board – me and my girlfriend and a young guy from Norfolk who was travelling the same route but then heading to Japan to meet a girl he knew. We were approached by a guy on the train to change money at what seemed like a great rate. It was only when we arrived in Moscow that we found out the Iron Curtain had crumbled and the Rouble had been devalued and we’d been ripped off! It wasn’t a large amount of money so we weren’t too fussed (no Internet or Mobile Phones in those days). When we arrived in Moscow someone had told us to look for a guy called Boris who would let you sleep at his house for $5. On arriving there a guy introduced himself and I said ‘I’m looking for Boris’ – ‘I am Boris!’ he said. It was then that we realised the Trans Manchurian train left that evening so we had no need for accommodation! We had a day in Moscow in the snow and everything seemed very austere but the Underground was fantastic with its crystal chandeliers.

The next 6 days to China were spent eating and drinking with a variety of colourful characters – Polish Sailors on their way to meet a ship in Vladivostok, a Siberian Car Salesman and plenty of people who could have been spies. Plus lots of Chinese Student who were studying at Moscow University heading home for Christmas. The time of the year was now November and the frozen landscapes were magical with clear blue skies, lots of snow and temperatures of -18 Degrees. I remember crossing the border late at night on the train between Russia and China through a no mans land of barbed wire and ghostly figures of soldiers before all the Chinese breaking into cheers as the Chinese Dining Car was hitched up. I remember looking in awe at huge steam trains pulling both passenger and cargo trucks in Northern China at a station (think it was possibly Harbin or Shenyang). Eventually arriving at Beijing Station 2 minutes early after a 6 day train journey we spent a week in a feezing cold Beijing before heading south for warmer climes (Hong Kong, Thailand and Australia).

 

[WesternLancer]

In 1989 my Girlfriend and I travelled to Budapest in Hungary before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We took the train from London to Dover then the Jetfoil to Ostend for the Night Sleeper to Vienna where we changed for the Budapest Train and had a lovely lunch in the Restaurant Car complete with small electric lamps on every Table. We hung around in Budapest for a few weeks waiting for Visas for China and Russia for the next part of the journey to Beijing. The Overnight train Budapest to Moscow seemingly had only 3 Westerners on board – me and my girlfriend and a young guy from Norfolk who was travelling the same route but then heading to Japan to meet a girl he knew. We were approached by a guy on the train to change money at what seemed like a great rate. It was only when we arrived in Moscow that we found out the Iron Curtain had crumbled and the Rouble had been devalued and we’d been ripped off! It wasn’t a large amount of money so we weren’t too fussed (no Internet or Mobile Phones in those days). When we arrived in Moscow someone had told us to look for a guy called Boris who would let you sleep at his house for $5. On arriving there a guy introduced himself and I said ‘I’m looking for Boris’ – ‘I am Boris!’ he said. It was then that we realised the Trans Manchurian train left that evening so we had no need for accommodation! We had a day in Moscow in the snow and everything seemed very austere but the Underground was fantastic with its crystal chandeliers.

The next 6 days to China were spent eating and drinking with a variety of colourful characters – Polish Sailors on their way to meet a ship in Vladivostok, a Siberian Car Salesman and plenty of people who could have been spies. Plus lots of Chinese Student who were studying at Moscow University heading home for Christmas. The time of the year was now November and the frozen landscapes were magical with clear blue skies, lots of snow and temperatures of -18 Degrees. I remember crossing the border late at night on the train between Russia and China through a no mans land of barbed wire and ghostly figures of soldiers before all the Chinese breaking into cheers as the Chinese Dining Car was hitched up. I remember looking in awe at huge steam trains pulling both passenger and cargo trucks in Northern China at a station (think it was possibly Harbin or Shenyang). Eventually arriving at Beijing Station 2 minutes early after a 6 day train journey we spent a week in a feezing cold Beijing before heading south for warmer climes (Hong Kog, Thailand and Australia).

Great post - what was the border crossing like on the Vienna - Budapest leg like then? In terms of checking / passport control etc?

wasn't it summer '89 when the Hungarians stopped 'enforcing' the border with Austria in the 'old way' - allowing DDR citizens to get into Hungary, from which they could just cross to Austria and thence to west Germany? Thus negating the whole point of the barrier between east and west Germany? Was that already happening when you made that crossing?

which I see is outlined here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Hungary's_border_fence_with_Austria

 

[parkender102]

I don't seem to remember anything particularly different about crossing the border into Hungary from any other 'normal' border crossings in those days. Just a couple of officials on the train checking Visas/Passports. At this point we had no onward tickets to anywhere as we purchased the tickets to Moscow and Beijing from an agency called Ibusz in Budapest who also arranged our Russian Visa although I seem to remember having to organize our Chinese Visa at the Chinese Embassy in Budapest. All tickets etc were paid for in cash and we had to leave our passports at the agency for a few days whilst the Visas were processed. One way Budapest to Beijing in 2nd Class 4 Berth Sleeper was £150 each one way.

The whole trip was literally put together as we went along as no Internet in those days and paid cash for everything. The only resource we had was a copy of 'The Trans Siberian Rail Guide (1988)' by Robert Strauss 'borrowed' from the local library!

 

[Czesziafan]

Found these among my collection - various Soviet Railways badges from the '70s and 80's: through services to various Western capitals (in the case of Moskva-London via the Ostend or Harwich ferry) and at the bottom a silver and enamel Mitropa long service badge.

 

[Czesziafan]

I do remember a Polish girl I once knew going by train from London to Warsaw to see her extended family back in the eighties. She didn't say much to me about the journey, but my impression was that the entire trip was rather depressing.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I don't seem to remember anything particularly different about crossing the border into Hungary from any other 'normal' border crossings in those days. Just a couple of officials on the train checking Visas/Pssports. At this point we had no onward tickets to anywhere as we purchased the tickets to Moscow and Beijing from an agency called Ibusz in Budapest who also arranged our Russian Visa although I seem to remember having to organize our Chinese Visa at the Chinese Embassy in Budapest. All tickets etc were paid for in cash and we had to leave our passports at the agency for a few days whilst the Visas were processed. One way Budapest to Beijing in 2nd Class 4 Berth Sleeper was £150 each one way.

The whole trip was literally put together as we went along as no Internet in those days and paid cash for everything. The only resource we had was a copy of 'The Trans Siberian Rail Guide (1988)' by Robert Strauss 'borrowed' from the local library!

Forget Paul Theroux , you ought to write this up. Superb

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I do remember a Polish girl I once knew going by train from London to Warsaw to see her extended family back in the eighties. She didn't say much to me about the journey, but my impression was that the entire trip was rather depressing.

On my once daily trudge to work , via West Hampstead - there was a long gone travel agency advertising incredibly cheap bus tickets to Poland from North London. Now that would have been an ordeal - about £40 I think.

Area is far too gentrified these days to sustain such businesses.

 

[sheff1]

1st thing we noticed was the train had stopped, then as we dozed off again 1st thing was a lot of banging and repeated US voices walking along the outside of the train banging on on the carriage sides and repeatedly shouting "Any Americans on this train, Any Americans on this train" - we looked out to see US soldiers doing this.

I was just about to post the same thing, except that on our journey the US soldiers came through the train. Does anyone know why they did this - what happened if an American passenger(s) presented themselves ?

 

[WesternLancer]

On my once daily trudge to work , via West Hampstead - there was a long gone travel agency advertising incredibly cheap bus tickets to Poland from North London. Now that would have been an ordeal - about £40 I think.

Area is far too gentrified these days to sustain such businesses.

Booking my Berlin ticket I looked on loco2 and it offered a London - Berlin coach for £30, 23 hour journey from victoria coach station. I bet there is a market for this with some people....

 

[WesternLancer]

I was just about to post the same thing, except that on our journey the US soldiers came through the train. Does anyone know why they did this - what happened if an American passenger(s) presented themselves ?

Yes, I wondered that. Maybe they just had firmer policies on which of their citizens were going in, and collecting their details. But in my 18 year old mind I envisaged they would get some sort of special breifing, or even get talked out of it! I did wonder.

I assume we were leaving a US occupied border zone.

Looking at the list of rail crossing points here and a rail map I think we might have crossed at Bebra. If I found my old Thomas Cook I could be sure. On a Frankfurt - Berlin night train. Maybe Bebra was a crossing in the US zone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_inner_German_border_during_the_Cold_War

 

[Please Explain]

Loving this thread, some great memories of the good old days here.

Someone I know told me a story where they were on a train across Russia in the Cold War years and they said it took them days to get across. However, their train was fully supplied with waiters and people to look after them!
The train would stop at regular points along the way to pick up and set down passengers, with people living in the towns the train called at, having known the times beforehand, setting up stalls to sell passengers food and the like!
I believe that the route my friend took was a longer route due to flooding or something in a lake (I can't remember for the life of me what it was) and was routed "over the top" from a map perspective rather than "under" it. That's why it took him longer.

Hope this is of any interest.

-Peter

Now you mention it, my friend did mention (in his story which I've said in Post#3) that they changed the bogies, and the passengers were detrained whilst they did it. Very interesting!

-Peter

All of this still goes on.. Bogies are changed every day/night on the many of RZhD's through trains from the west on the former Soviet borders into Byelorussia, Ukraine, Moldova as well as the once weekly through train from Paris and Nice to Moskva there is still a Praha - Moskva train once per week and of course the Polonez also still runs with RIC cars every two days from Warszawa.
You also have a twice weekly Berlin Ost - Moskva through Talgo with auto gauge changing at Brest so no need for time consuming bogie chages.
What you describe on the Trans-Sib is still very much alive and has hardly changed in thirty years. I enjoyed the classic Russian train experience on my epic Glasgow - Khasan overland trip during the World Cup last summer.

There were some extraordinary routes in the late and immediate post-Soviet era. These included (at various times) through trains from Berlin deep into Russia beyond Moscow to such places as Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, and even a special to Vladivostok. I am sure there was at one time a through service between Berlin and Kazakhstan. How long they lasted I don't know.

The Sibirjak trains were sadly discontinued with the winter TT change of 2013..: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibirjak

Yep - took train from west germany to berlin overnight in 1988 as a teenager (2 of us dossed down in a DR seated compartment - more spacious than the DB equivalent we realised) and the border crossing was fairly high drama by standards we were used to within western europe. So I bet a trip on the full russain deal would have been even more so! Little did we know that within 18 months of our inter rail trip that border would be pretty much down.

Certainly recall seeing the USSR sleepers in consists of various night trains we encountered in those days. Our standard method of night time accomodation to save on hostel costs was every other day or so just to find a night train with an empty compartment in it and just get on to wherever it went that night and then decide where to go from there next morning. So this did involve a lot of station time at night hence seeing these sleepers.

I can relate to this even thirty years later, its still possible! I did exactly what you describe many times over the past few years on my travels across the continent on IR's and FIP coupons. Vagonweb is an excellent resource for this way of "ultra budget travel" but I will upgrade to a C6 couchette at least most of the time these days especially if the train in question is formed of more "grossraum"s than "abteil"s!!

I got a 1st class special weekend return from Hannover - Berlin in about 1984 (it was cheaper than a priv !) , and the standard LHCS set with a diner was rather down at heel. This was explained by the conductor on the return as "good" stock was kept off this service , as it berthed overnight in East Berlin and there was a tendancy for the DR to do unauthorised swops of seat cushions etc - and even the toilet soap and paper. DR toilet paper was the nearest thing to sandpaper I have ever seen.

The on board visa and passport checks were brisk and searching - full eye contact etc , and the Stassi official had a portable desk , where the paper visa was inserted manually into the passport. The border checking procedure was very through , mirrors etc to check the underneath and a plethora of armed guards.

The DR section was exceedingly impressive - a train of Trabants observed had armed police guarding it , masses of mixed freight and non operating , stored steam locos at various locations. Carriage washing observed to be done manually by gangs of women with buckets and brushes.

Another observation on a later trip was a Mitropa diner on the Hook - Berlin train , a good source of hard currency no doubt. Limited choice - but plenty of cheap beer.

If you want to relive all this, just take one of the through RZhD trains to Russia and travel around a bit and you'll get a good taste of the closest thing to the good old days of the Reichsbahn and that "Soviet feeling", especially from the FSB pass control units at the border who still wear Sibirskii-Ushanka hats with red stars on them in winter!
I went well off the beaten track in Russia last year and it really was a step back in time in some places..

Excellent snapshot

On my trip mentioned above we didn't really know what to expect - even to the point of assuming that because West Berlin was in West Germany, and because the train we went on was from a West German station (Frankfurt I think) we assumed the inter rail pass would be valid!!! Obv some time after crossing the boarder when the DR guard came to check tickets we found out this was not the case and had to pay on board. We spoke little common language so we were worried that we had been charged some punitive fare by the guard (or even just ripped off) - who was friendly and reasonable in his manner, but such that on alighting at Berlin Zoo in the morning we went to the ticket office to get this checked, but all was in order.

Crossing the border itself was after midnight IIRC - so we didn't notice much of the border crossing checks of the train itself I guess. 1st thing we noticed was the train had stopped, then as we dozed off again 1st thing was a lot of banging and repeated US voices walking along the outside of the train banging on on the carriage sides and repeatedly shouting "Any Americans on this train, Any Americans on this train" - we looked out to see US soldiers doing this. Unsure if any Americans presented themselves, then that stopped and calm descended, then I think the train moved forward a bit, stopped again, and then DDR passport control people came on (just as we were dozing off again) - they checked the passports etc etc. Lots of dogs about I recall, outside the train.

Then eventually the train moved off again and peering out through the night we clearly went though the barbed wire fenced zone etc - biggest thing to notice was that both the train speed was much slower and the track quality much poorer.

We dozed off again, before the disturbance of the previously mentioned ticket inspector. Each of these disturbances was long enough for you to think you could get back to sleep, then you got woken up again!

In a way it would have been good to have done the trip in the day time, but of course night added to the mystery of it all.

Although the DR carriages were more spacious, the standard of cleanliness was a bit lower than the DB ones.

Put it this way, you certainly knew you had crossed a border! But on another level you sort of took it for granted. Very few people you knew had ever been to the 'east', as a teenager the iron curtain seemed a consistent thing, all part of the natural 'world order' I suppose, it was unthinkable to us then that in a very short time this would all be gone.

It would be interesting to hear what it was like at periods of heightened cold war tension - eg 1950s / 60s etc from people who did it then, or also crossed borders to the east from Austria etc - maybe thread needs to go in 'History and Nostalgia too'.

I'd have thought the Deutsche Reichsbahn was a member of InterRail as were most of the Warsaw Pact countries railways? And surely the crews that worked the "Interzonenzueg" would only be worked by West Berliners? The Reichsbahn was one of the biggest employers there despite being the state railway of the DDR.
Zoo bahnhof was / is until recently a step back in time as well, very neglected since it lost most of its international trains to Lehrte Bahnhof / (the new Hauptbahnhof).
I believe renovations are underway now but I did always like the old-school feeling of the place with the unchanged 80's tiles and old lockers outside were still in situ when I was last there in December, with the Reisezentrum now moved to a portakabin along the street with the works are going on inside.

A recollection of this service here it would seem

http://www.streamlinerschedules.com/concourse/track11/ostwest197105.html

And looking at the timings listed - given that I have recently booked a Eurostar + DB ICE service London to Berlin, I'd much rather have had the Ostend - Berlin through train option really - arriving Berlin in the morning much better than the evening arrival I have to accept with present times and connections (plus unwanted changes of train and thus possible missed connections).

I seem to recall doing Ostend trips from Dover by sealink jet foil - and then onwards into Germany (certainly to Cologne), earlier in the 80s on family trips.

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detai...oss-channel-news-photo/90745764?adppopup=true

And of course you could just book the tickets for this at your local BR station! Even the small BR(SR) station near where we lived in Sussex would arrange the booking. You just told the staff what you wanted to do, then at some quiet moment in the day time the staff would ring the SR 'Continental Office' or whatever it was called, and get a price / itinerary for you. If that was what you wanted they would then book it and you paid at the local station. Tickets presumably sent via some internal BR post system. Obv a lot of high street travel agents also could do all this too.

Even in about feb 1993 I used a travel agent (at the local university student union) to book Dover - Ostend (I think) - then to Cologne - on to Prague with no fuss. I don't recall changing trains in Brussels.

As I recall cheap flights were only for the charter market to popular holiday destinations, or so it seemed, in the 70s and 80s. Other places were flights for business travelers really. Only those on expenses would use them - certainly not to take the whole family anyway - unless this was just the way our family did stuff!

Brilliant. I'm sadly not old enough to have been around to enjoy all that, its one of my greatest bug bearers that what you describe is impossible now in this country, despite international CIV tickets being still readily available from the counter across most of Europe.

You can still make Berlin overnight from London but only in a seat now since sadly on ICE 949 from Aachen / Koeln after the cancellation of the EuroNight Jan Kiepura in 2016.

Great post - what was the border crossing like on the Vienna - Budapest leg like then? In terms of checking / passport control etc?

wasn't it summer '89 when the Hungarians stopped 'enforcing' the border with Austria in the 'old way' - allowing DDR citizens to get into Hungary, from which they could just cross to Austria and thence to west Germany? Thus negating the whole point of the barrier between east and west Germany? Was that already happening when you made that crossing?

which I see is outlined here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Hungary's_border_fence_with_Austria

Indeed. the DDR refugee crisis was exactly thirty years ago right now and is hot topic in DE again.
Kettcar sum this time up brilliantly in their song "Sommer '89" about the actions of an anonymous young Hamburger who made his way down to Moerbisch am See on 12 August to assist some DDR citizens commit Republikflucht..:

Good news on this route recently, MAV have reinstated their excellent Ammendorf DDR built restaurant cars on all of the EuroCity train pairs they operate between Wien and Budapest.

@parkender102 -I too approve! Brilliant post, I think you wrote more of this round the world trip a year or so ago if I remember right?

@Czesziafan -That is an impressive collection, Ive never seen the SZhD logo before and often wondered what it looked like. Funny to see it in Latin-script, no doubt it was widespread in Cyrillic within the CCCP?
I particularly like your Mitropa badge.

Intresting story about the Polish girl, before '89? How did she make it out to live in England and still be allowed to come back for a visit?! Diplomat or government official to the Peoples Republic of Polska?!

@ChiefPlanner -It indeed is.. That's one thing I do not miss about North London!

@sheff1 -I think the Yankee government have always been a bit funny about their citizens visiting "hostile states" and therefore quite keen to question anyone going east as to what they were doing there (even if only heading for West Berlin), I think similar questioning would be likely to any US citizen going /returning from DPRK or PR China. No doubt someone older and experienced can shed more light.

 

[eMeS]

I did some of my National Service, 1958-9, in West Germany. The wall hadn't been built at this time but tension was high. We had an out-station in West Berlin, and some of our number made regular visits there. We were all under strict instruction not to travel on the Berlin S-Bahn. This was because it wasn't unknown for our people to be coerced/drugged into travelling further than they planned; being arrested in East Berlin, and then used as collateral for an exchange at Checkpoint Charlie or similar.

 

[citycat]

This features memories of childhood trips to Poland by train to visit my grandparents and other Polish relations. We would go every two years.

Traveling on a ferry across the North Sea from Harwich Parkeston Quay to Hoek van Holland. The crossing would take six hours as part of the Day Continental service from Liverpool Street, and the ferry was the St George I believe. The boat train from London was usually Mk 1 stock and a class 31 or 37 at the head.

Arriving at the Hoek to find the station full of trains. There was the local one to Amsterdam of course, usually one other, and then our train, the Nord West express. As you walked down the platform, the train would consist of DB coaching stock in green or blue for Berlin, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. There was also PKP green couchette and seating coaches for Warsaw. However, as we only went every two years, my dad would pay extra for the very last coach at the head of the train. A very imposing dark green coach with ribbed sides, brass badging on the side, and lace curtains at the windows. The RZD Russian sleeping car from Hoek to Moscow via Berlin and Warsaw. Complete with stern looking sleeping car conductor.

Ex BR electric loco at the head of the consist, that used to run over Woodhead. Sorry, I don't know the class.

Sitting on the plush bottom bunk, looking out over the flat farmland of Holland as the train made its first stops at Rotterdam Schiedam and Utrecht Centraal. Little did I know then that as the train went from Rotterdam to Utrecht, it passed through the town station of Woerden, the Dutch town in which I now live.

Remembering the first of many border guards that would board the train during the journey, the first being at Hengelo I believe near the Dutch/West German border.

My dad doing ilicit money exchange with the sleeping car conductor, exchanging US dollars for Polish Zlotys. Also agreeing to help the conductor smuggle packs of 200 Marlboro in exchange for unlimited tea, served in glasses with exotic looking holders.

Other passengers changing into pyjamas for the entire trip.

The scary (for a little boy) passage between two coaches, via the concertina curtains and the bouncing corrugated step plates, with the track passing beneath.

Being awoken in the early hours of the morning by loud rapping on the door and the light being switched on, as the West German guards and then the East German guards did the passport check at Helmstedt.

Being awoken again by more passport checks at the East German/West Berlin border at Marienborn.

Watching out of the window as we traversed West Berlin at Hauptbahnhof and Zoo stations, and even more intense passport checks by East German guards.

Watching out of the window again as the train slowly passed through the Berlin Wall, seeing all the watch towers, barbed wire, no mans land, and the wall itself as the train passed through on an elevated section of track.

Arriving into Berlin Ostbahnhoff and seeing green DR coaching stock and Mitropa sleeping and restaurant cars on various other trains.

Remembering the grim and depressing looking blocks of flats near the station, so different from what I saw in West Berlin.

Remembering our Russian car and the PKP cars being shunted into a siding near Ostbahnhoff for a couple of hours with no explanations, and no one asking, it was just accepted, and then finally coupling up to some DDR stock and trundling to Frankfurt Oder for the final border check with Poland.

Remembering the Polish PKP locos that reminded me of class 82 and 83's from the WCML.

Finally arriving into Warsawa Gdansk station some 28 hours after leaving Liverpool Street, and seeing lots of massive black PKP steam locos puffing through the station pulling iron ore or coal wagons. And about twenty of my relatives waiting on the platform as arriving cousins from the West was a big event in those days.

The return journey was the same, except even more intense at Berlin Ostbahnhoff. As another poster said, they would run barking guard dogs under the train, use mirrors, lift all the seats in the compartments or all the mattresses in the sleeper. They would search the locomotive, and border guards would ride the train back to West Berlin.

I was in Berlin Ostbahnhoff a few weeks ago, and now it is just a sleepy Berlin station. It was strange to stand there and remember back to those Cold War days !

 

[Czesziafan]

Loving this thread, some great memories of the good old days here.





All of this still goes on.. Bogies are changed every day/night on the many of RZhD's through trains from the west on the former Soviet borders into Byelorussia, Ukraine, Moldova as well as the once weekly through train from Paris and Nice to Moskva there is still a Praha - Moskva train once per week and of course the Polonez also still runs with RIC cars every two days from Warszawa.
You also have a twice weekly Berlin Ost - Moskva through Talgo with auto gauge changing at Brest so no need for time consuming bogie chages.
What you describe on the Trans-Sib is still very much alive and has hardly changed in thirty years. I enjoyed the classic Russian train experience on my epic Glasgow - Khasan overland trip during the World Cup last summer.



The Sibirjak trains were sadly discontinued with the winter TT change of 2013..: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibirjak



I can relate to this even thirty years later, its still possible! I did exactly what you describe many times over the past few years on my travels across the continent on IR's and FIP coupons. Vagonweb is an excellent resource for this way of "ultra budget travel" but I will upgrade to a C6 couchette at least most of the time these days especially if the train in question is formed of more "grossraum"s than "abteil"s!!




If you want to relive all this, just take one of the through RZhD trains to Russia and travel around a bit and you'll get a good taste of the closest thing to the good old days of the Reichsbahn and that "Soviet feeling", especially from the FSB pass control units at the border who still wear Sibirskii-Ushanka hats with red stars on them in winter!
I went well off the beaten track in Russia last year and it really was a step back in time in some places..



I'd have thought the Deutsche Reichsbahn was a member of InterRail as were most of the Warsaw Pact countries railways? And surely the crews that worked the "Interzonenzueg" would only be worked by West Berliners? The Reichsbahn was one of the biggest employers there despite being the state railway of the DDR.
Zoo bahnhof was / is until recently a step back in time as well, very neglected since it lost most of its international trains to Lehrte Bahnhof / (the new Hauptbahnhof).
I believe renovations are underway now but I did always like the old-school feeling of the place with the unchanged 80's tiles and old lockers outside were still in situ when I was last there in December, with the Reisezentrum now moved to a portakabin along the street with the works are going on inside.



Brilliant. I'm sadly not old enough to have been around to enjoy all that, its one of my greatest bug bearers that what you describe is impossible now in this country, despite international CIV tickets being still readily available from the counter across most of Europe.

You can still make Berlin overnight from London but only in a seat now since sadly on ICE 949 from Aachen / Koeln after the cancellation of the EuroNight Jan Kiepura in 2016.



Indeed. the DDR refugee crisis was exactly thirty years ago right now and is hot topic in DE again.
Kettcar sum this time up brilliantly in their song "Sommer '89" about the actions of an anonymous young Hamburger who made his way down to Moerbisch am See on 12 August to assist some DDR citizens commit Republikflucht..:

Good news on this route recently, MAV have reinstated their excellent Ammendorf DDR built restaurant cars on all of the EuroCity train pairs they operate between Wien and Budapest.

@parkender102 -I too approve! Brilliant post, I think you wrote more of this round the world trip a year or so ago if I remember right?

@Czesziafan -That is an impressive collection, Ive never seen the SZhD logo before and often wondered what it looked like. Funny to see it in Latin-script, no doubt it was widespread in Cyrillic within the CCCP?
I particularly like your Mitropa badge.

Intresting story about the Polish girl, before '89? How did she make it out to live in England and still be allowed to come back for a visit?! Diplomat or government official to the Peoples Republic of Polska?!

@ChiefPlanner -It indeed is.. That's one thing I do not miss about North London!

@sheff1 -I think the Yankee government have always been a bit funny about their citizens visiting "hostile states" and therefore quite keen to question anyone going east as to what they were doing there (even if only heading for West Berlin), I think similar questioning would be likely to any US citizen going /returning from DPRK or PR China. No doubt someone older and experienced can shed more light.

Thanks for the complement on the badges. All obtained from Ebay over a period of time. I'm not sure whether they were worn by the train staff or sold/given to passengers, but suspect the latter.

 

[duesselmartin]

Yes Ostbahnhof is sleepy now. Back in DDR days, Berlin Lichtenberg was also important for DDR to USSR trains. Now it only has regional services.
It is also difficult to see the border situation at Friedrichstadt nowadays.

 

[parkender102]

Found these among my collection - various Soviet Railways badges from the '70s and 80's: through services to various Western capitals (in the case of Moskva-London via the Ostend or Harwich ferry) and at the bottom a silver and enamel View attachment 68581 Mitropa long service badge.

Think we were given similar badges by the guard on the Trans Manchurian trip we did in 1989. I must dig one out as I'm sure they are at home somewhere.