Strassenbahn Mainz (1)

 

fbb's brain hurts! 

It's complicated!

There is an English Wikipedia page helpfully entitled Trams in Mainz, but it shows only the present situation and even that is in summary form. Also available is a Wikipedia entry in German called Strassenbahn (literally "street way" with "rail" implied) Mainz.

It is a bit beyond a simple one-day blog and considerably beyond fbb's "O" level German, passed 66 years ago! To add to the blogger's woes the button that allows Google to present the German site in English appears and disappears at some kind of electronic whim!

But the Mainz tram network begins with privately operated horse trams, running between 1883 and 1904. The horse tram below is standing in Leichhof ...

... a little square in the town centre. "hof" literally means "yard" as in back yard.

The "hof" is now part of a wide-ranging pedestrian area, BUT buses enter and stop nearby.

Leichhof is the "pin" bottom right. And here is a 57 doing it!

Most of the buildings are original so below we see the horse tram stop as it appears today.

Note the roundel above and to the right of the present door.

The well embellished hut is now a tree plus bench!

Next historical comes the Steam Tram running from 1891 to 1923.

German Wikipedia provides us with just one picture.

The above view can be roughy reproduced today ...

... with current trams 50 and 51 following part of the steam tram route. Yes, it is he same church!

There were two steam tram routes going their separate ways after the "Central Station" (now Hauptbahnhof) as per this map.

These steamy routes were eventually handed over to one of the suburban railway companies and they passed them on to the municipal tram company. Here is a Wikipedia extract about these services.

Back to the horse trams; and one nugget of particular interest. One route crossed the Rheinbrucke ...

... the main link to the rest of the sprawling urban area.

It terminated just "on the other side" at Mainz Kastel railway station. Mainz Kastel is, as it's name suggests, in Wiesbaden!

It's complicated!

Here is a horse tram at Mainz Kastel station.

Back then, the Rheinbrucke was a toll bridge and a toll was added to every tram fare.

Later electric trams made the same crossing but toll-less..

It became a complex junction on the Mainz riverbank with a spectacular viewing and sheltering edifice.

Trams last ran across the Rheinbrucke in 1957. Below is a night view of the bridge today with gardens replacing the shelter above.

In case you are a bit confused, the old maps extracted above do not face north!  Here is the bridge today from Google Earth, correctly orientated on a broad bend of the river.

And here is where the two steam tram routes diverged east of the main railway station.

Back then, this was open country and the right hand fork set off across fields, eschewing the road, where the shiny new buildings are on the right.

A good point at which to pause.

Today's tramway system will be examined in  Friday's  blog.

Tomorrow's blog will consider how not to present a timetable and where not to build a bus station.

 Next Anglo-German blog : Thurs 12 June 

Seaton's Surprising Sabbath Service

379 Full Round Trip (mini blog)

Axe Valley Mini Travel has run route 885 for many a long year. Its latest manifestation connects Beer and Seaton seaside communities with Colyford, Colyton, Whitford ...

... Musbury and Axminster. As far as fbb knows there has never been a Sunday service since AVT's predecessors Western National was the provider. Since April, and thanks to support from a rail campaign group, Stagecoach have held the contract for the new Sunday service 379.

Yes it is daft to have a separate number from the Monday to Saturday route, but at least Devon Bus' roadside publicity merges the two timetables.

On Sunday last, fbb presented himself at Seaton sea front to join the short working to Beer.

There were FOUR passengers, one of whom paid actual money - well not proper specie but a bleep on a mobile phone!

This was the end of lunch break for our affable driver.

The 1510 departure from Beer was, for the 379, quite busy ...

... with six passengers and a dog! The dog, fbb noted, enjoyed his ride. None was travelling any further than Seaton and, yet again, one paid an electronic fare.

A couple of boarders had availed themselves of an ice cream from the adjacent village shop. 

And so back to Seaton

Five boarded at the sea front stand, of whom three alighted in the suburbs (one was waiting fot a 9A and had no idea what a 379 was) ...

... whilst one paid a fare to Colyton. One remained as far as Axminster. There were no passengers for Colyford, Whitford or Musbury and none joined at Axminster station.

The one long distance passenger alighted before the bus delved into the Millwey Estate.

There were no takers for the return from Millwey ...

... but our driver, affable still, alighted for a "vape", the slightly dodgy alternative to an even more dodgy fag or ciggy!

He carried a rather swish camera and, in discussion with fbb, revealed that he shared your blogging ancient's frustration about the total lack of promotional publicity for this new service. The driver was hoping his pictures might be used by Stagecoach to get a PR lift for the service.

Apparently a bus passenger who lives on the Millwey estate has been plastering the 379 on "social media", so, tech savvy Axminster folk may well know about it. But, sadly, Seaton, Beer and the intervening villages live in a sea of omniboligical ignorance.

But., back at Axminster Station ...

... fbb was in for a surprise.

Three boarded having alighted from a train! They all travelled to Seaton.

fbb has noted previously the new display screens at Axminster with relatively illegible scrolling text. 

Why "Beer Cross" but just "Weymouth"? 

More significantly the departure time was shown as 1608 when the actual set-off time is 1615!

The return journey to Seaton was uneventful and lacking any extra passengers except one local (who paid CASH - shock horror) from Colyton and, like fbb alighted at The Underfleet in Seaton.

Both fbb and the driver (more aff!) expressed the view that passenger numbers were small, but remarkable as there had been no advance or printed publicity. How much more the service could have been used if either Stagecoach or Devon Bus had distributed a leaflet.

But that would be too much trouble.

Readers may wonder why Axe Valley is not running  the Sunday service on their route. Apparently, Auntie Frances (AVT proprietrix) was offered the job (on a de minimis deal) but turned it down as "we do not run buses on Sunday."

Pity!

Worryingly AVT did not run the bus to Sidmouth on Saturday 7th.

Unusual, as AVT is renowned for its reliability!

And another black mark for Devon Bus.

Nowhere is there any mention of the 379 on the County's bus stop flags. Back in the day, you could simply bolt on the Devon equivalent of a London Transport "C" plate ...

... but now ...

A contractor will have to tender, the Council will have to review the tenders and the work will have to be scheduled. New route numbers will mean that the stop flags will need a compete rebuild, so the correct routes will probably appear in the week before the service ceases for the winter.

Good, innit!

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It Used To Be Called Whitsun

fbb usually marks the big Christian festivals with a "thought for the day" and, horrors of horrors. he forgot about Pentecost Sunday on 8th June. Were he of the Roman Catholic persuasion, he might have been spending all night in the confessional box.

Whilst some illustrations of this powerfull event are difficult to interpret; the Bible says that "what looked like" tongues of flame appeared above the disciples ...

... as the Holy Spirit "descended".

What is absolutely and historically certain is that a group of frightened men, hiding indoors for fear of arrest and execution like their Master, became powerful preachers and teachers of the Christian faith, facing, in come cases, horrific persecution, even death.

The video makes a very good attempt to communicate what reallyhappened and how.

Yes it is "supernatural" - but so is God, so what would you expect?

Millions of people, your author included, will attest to the Power of God's given Spirit as a boost to call upon in serving Him.

It's about Making A Difference.

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 Next Mainz tram blog : Weds 11 June 

More Than Pints - A Look At Mainz

It's Complicated!

Modern Hesse corresponds loosely to the medieval Landgraviate of Hesse. In the 19th century, prior to the unification of Germany, the territory of what is now Hesse comprised the territories of Grand Duchy of Hesse (also known as Hesse-Darmstadt), the Duchy of Nassau, the free city of Frankfurt, the Electorate of Hesse (also known as Hesse-Kassel), the Principality of Waldeck and the Landgraviate of Hesse-Homburg.

So Mainz is in Hesse which was an independent "Grand Duchy" before Germany was Germany.

Administratively Mainz is now capital of The State of Rheinland Palatinate with a population of around 220,000. It is broadly similar in size to Northampton, the town of fbb's birth, childhood and youth. Unlike Northampton, Mainz has trams and a cathedral!

The transport operator (that's complicated as well!) has just ordered 22 shiny new trams which is what prompted fbb to wonder where Mainz was. 

Hmmm...

... that's Hesse and not much help. 

Mainz sits on the River Rhine near its confluence with the River Main (pronounced "mine").

"Greater" Mainz spreads across the river ...

... where, as well as Hochheim am Main (above map, centre right) there are many "am main" towns nearby.

The biggest is Frankfurt am Main, one of the two Frankfurts in Germany. The other is Frankfurt an der Oder.

But, the sainted Wikipedia tells us - so it must be right - that Mainz has nothing whatsoever to do with the River Main. Its Etymology has taken a very different route from the Latin.

It's complicated?

The challenge is, simply, where to start with the town's public transport.

It's complicated!8

Various route maps and diagrams are available a-plenty on the dreaded interwebnet; and below is an extract from one of the best.

It is geographical (so not bafflingly diagrammatic) but fbb has yet to work out how to download it. The above extract, however shows the area round the Hauptbahnhof - the main railway station.

So off went a brave fbb to Google maps aiming to travel from bottom left to said main station.

There he met a bendy bus running along a piece of reserved track passing under a viaduct. Just past the viaduct he met a tram!

And just past the tram was a view across the tracks to the station.

The viaduct carries a road which passes east of the platforms ...

... but access is there none.

The obvious way would be to follow that multicoloured skein of bus routes as it veers left to get tto the main station forecourt; so follow the tram tracks!

Only you can't. Google's Nickendes Auto has not been allowed anywhere near the forecourt!

So we have to piece things together from old pictures, common sense and, doubtless, a little guess work!

The first principal station was, as it turned out ...

... in the wrong place.

So a new set-up was created to the west of the city centre. 

It's complicated!

The work lasted two years from 1884 to 1884, but a grand main building emerged as appropriate for the former Grand Duchy of Hesse. It stood in an extensive station square as seen below.

Horse buses ...

... and horse-drawn trams ...

... gave way to electric trams from 1904.  

The building lost some of its roof architecture but remains recogniseably the same today.

Buses were quite a late arrival but not as late as the 1967 motor below!

The city also tried steam trams, but fbb could find no pictures of such a beast. The example below is from Bern (Switzerland).

But it is to the tram network that fbb will turn for  Wednesday's  blog.

For tomorrow, a bus ride investigation is completed!

 Next 379 blog : Tuesday 10th June