The Railway and Technical Museum on Rügen

Rügen’s Railway and Technical Museum (“Eisenbahn & Technik Museum”) is located in Prora, between the “Koloss” and the railway line. In fact, it is only a short walk from Prora’s station.

The sign at the entrance is a welcome sight for any museum visitor, but especially for bloggers: “entry includes free use of the toilets, the car park and unrestricted photography and filming”. There is indeed a large car park and flash photography is not a problem. Although the museum is so large, that in the main hall a small compact camera’s flash may not have much effect. The toilets, however, are at the furthest possible point in the museum from the entrance.

The entrance to the railway museum on Rügen is through a tramThe entrance to the museum is through a tram

The entrance itself is an usually but fitting way in – through a tram. You climb in at the middle, pay, and go out through one end. For those not able to climb up the steps into the carriage there is, however, a level way in as well. [Read more…]

More railway strikes in Germany

We thought it was all over – but obviously it isn’t. The Bahnstreiks, or railway strikes. It seems that the union that represents the train drivers is planning strikes for next week, even though they effectively got what they were asking for.

Just listen to the details of the deal that they worked out with Deutsche Bahn recently:

  • an extra wage agreement “Tarifvertrag” for train drivers
  • a back-dated one-off payment
  • an 8% wage rise from March 2008
  • a further 3% wage rise in September 2008
  • a reduction of working hours from February 2009 onwards

There are probably many unions out there that can only dream of an 11% wage rise!

But now they cannot agree on what to do with shunters, or with temporary staff leased from other parts of the company.

And because they cannot agree, the GDL – the union representing the train drivers – says that they are going on strike again on Monday. Indefinitely.

Indefinitely? Because of a few small details? They didn’t even go that far to get their main targets met!

In the meantime the poor passengers are left stranded, and probably wishing that they could have an 11% wage rise as well.

Visiting the trains – the Dampf-Bahn-Club Taunus

Yesterday the Monday Podcast visited the DBC Taunus grounds in Oberursel to see the model railway that they have built up over the last 30 years.

We spoke to the chairman, Matthias Zundel, and took a ride behind one of the steam trains.

Listen to the podcast to find out more:

trains1.jpg

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(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Homepage of the DBC Taunus e.V.

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