Why is this station so neglected?

[@denzzlinga]

I Like it to find stations like this. Everywhere else everything is modernized all the time, but the railway is the only place where you can find unchanged strucutres and technology from many decades ago. When i had a girlfriend in Ludwigshafen 10 years ago in 2011, i vistited her by train once, and at the abandoned station building there was a sign in one window that the ticket counter will be closed from August 1st 1970 on :D Time just stopped to pass on there, for 40 years.

[@ravanpee1325]

Why invest money in a building which has no actual use? The DB sell this old buildings all the time, but it's hard to make something usefull out of them.

[@lonestarr1490]

It's like an open-air museum. Imagine, the person who set up that sign might be long dead for all we know.

[@NoZoDE]

My local train station (single tack line with hourly trains) still has it's old name written on the sign at the former ticket office. The sign is ahr dto read but it still reads [part of town 1] - [part of town 2] which is outdated since 1971 when the 2 towns got merged. Until 2015 you could still see the higher platform formerly used for cargo (and I guess bags?) but it was demolished to raise the platform to 76cm. The old ticket office is rotting away and I'm pretty sure nobody was inside of it in at least 2 decades. The windows are barricaded as well as the door.

[@SomePotato]

Given the speed of infrastructure projects in Germany over the last decades, I wonder how they rebuild the country after the war at all.

[@ravanpee1325]

There were lot's of minor stations where 1 dude sold tickets. There's an ticket automat there now

[@lonestarr1490]

There is a low German idiom: "Wat mutt, dat mutt". It translates to something like, "What has to be done, has to be done" and means that if the need to do something is sufficiently dire, you'll find a way to make it work. I suppose that's the main difference between the time right after the war and now: there are no dire needs anymore. Thus we have the freedom to regulate everything into impracticability.

[@ravanpee1325]

@@lonestarr1490 Yeah, but it hasn't to be done, because there's no value in it in this case. In the 50s/60s there was a clerk in every town who sold tickets. Automatization, the dude has been vanished. My village bought one of this stations and it would cost over 1 Mio € to renovate it. If you can make something out it good, if it's just sunken cost- don't do it.

[@SomePotato]

@@lonestarr1490 For sure. Also, I guess over the decades we've amassed a bunch or rules, that all make sense on their own, but all in all amount to just too much regulation.

[@heysemberthkingdom-brunel5041]

Fun fact: Both Prague and Copenhagen have an S-Bahn abbreviated with an S. The "S" does not actually stand for anything in either Czech or Danish (In Denmark they used the backronym "station", but the S started showing up at S-tog stops in Copenhagen before that definition was given)

[@idnwiw]

This video is the first time I heard it is supposed to stand for StadtSchnellBahn. Here in Austria we only call it Schnellbahn (fast train) which is really confusing, as it is the slowest of all trains (just faster then trams or underground trains). So the S not standing for anything is in fact "better" information that having it stand for it "fast train".

[@ArfurFaulkesHake]

@@idnwiw In Berlin it is just Stadtbahn. Makes more sense don't you agree?

[@blahfasel2000]

So do a number of Belgian cities and Milan in Italy.

[@COPPAS70]

And several other cities as well around Europe.

[@nicolasblume1046]

@@idnwiw "Schnellbahn" bezieht sich auf den Stadtverkehr. Innerhalb einer Stadt ist die S-Bahn ja meistens das schnellste (wenn es nicht noch nen Regionalexpress gibt)

[@matthiasfranz4470]

Use public transport in the Rhein-Main-area. You can take many pictures of badly neglected train stations next to modern infrastructure of the highest possible standard.

[@qjtvaddict]

USA infrastructure: Hold my beer

[@PiscatorLager]

In rural Saxony we have badly neglected train stations next to badly neglected towns and villages.

[@Colaholiker]

I watched the introduction about Mainkur and Frankfurt Ost, and being from Frankfurt, I was already about to explain why things are the way they are. But then I thought wait.. this is rewboss, he doesn't just show something negative, I am sure he will explain things perfectly. And I couldn't have said it any better. ;-)

[@S1lentSt0rm]

Looks like every other small town train station. That's their "be happy there are tracks and sometimes trains stop by" style ;-)

[@NerdX151]

Reminds me of the town I used to live in here in Denmark. Our local station was basically two small narrow platforms slapped between the noise barriers and the track. If you felt adventurous you could go stand on the island platform, which was 2 meters wide, full of holes, barely above the track level and situated between two mainline tracks, were trains would pass by at 180 km/h every 15 minutes.

[@FemboyTrain]

We had a station where the platform was literally grass.

[@blahfasel2000]

The station from which I took the train to school every day back in the 1990s was the same. It was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields with the occasional house dotted around. The actual village that the station was named after was about 2km away from it. But it still had trains in each direction stopping every hour. And it had a lot of bicycle stands which saw good use.

[@perdbeer6713]

In Berlin we have stations that smell of grass.

[@mrvnkev3695]

Duisburg Hochfeld süd vibes

[@MxIraAram]

@@perdbeer6713 Usuallly not within the 'Ring'. As far as I know the further you go towards the outskirts/ suburbs the more likely it is that you think you are standing in the middle of a park.

[@emelyc.4332]

we still have grass in brandenburg lol

[@ssj3gohan456]

"The good citizens of Offenbach" - let me stop you there, Offenbach is a pretty bad place.

[@casperbetz1949]

Alle Offenbacher sind Verbrecher, denn sie klauen Aschenbecher. Oh, wait, that sounds... wrong.

[@CrazyKraut20]

Almost everything bordering Frankfurt (including vast parts of Frankfurt itself) is a run down ugly mess

[@MuunNii]

@@CrazyKraut20 What a statement

[@lindsaywebb1904]

@@CrazyKraut20 tell that to the wankers in Kronberg

[@btudrus]

Well if I meet a car with registration plate from Offenbach, in 80-90% of the cases the driver behaves like an idiot... (which doesn't mean necessarily driving fast, but driving dangerous)

[@sinform9714]

The problem is you can’t expect people change from car to public transport if stations looks like this. In Germany are a lot of railway station looks like Frankfurt Mainkur.

[@NicolaW72]

Indeed - unfortunately. And you can´t forbid short-haule-flights like many environmental activists wants to do it without running a proper railway system. And the stations are only one problem of the railway system and probably not even the worst.

[@mnsegler1]

1:47 400 Bad request. Nice touch - that’s classic and all too frequent.

[@asahearts1]

Imagine the day you're born, your parents hear good news that there will be a new train system. 35 years later, you're still hearing the good news while taking your child on this crappy train.

[@NicolaW72]

Yes, indeed.

[@MrToradragon]

It seems too common in Europe. In my town they promise to build new road bypass as it is really not sustainable to have about quarter of country to go through centre on something that is between road and stroad and planned in 30's and build shortly after WWII as it was necessary to rebuild it as Wehrmacht blew up about 6 or 7 bridges on short stretch, and it is still not finished after 30 years. Only luck is that town on other side of border had banned cars above 6t otherwise there would be even more trucks going through.

[@sascharasmussen]

I passed my A-Levels 1991 in Hanau, living in in Maintal-Dörnigheim then. Ever since then I've been told the S-Bahn north of the River Main is only five years away. Every now and then when I come back home from Berlin I like to pay Frankfurt-Ost a visit to shudder in disbelief how rotten down the station has gotten.

[@lillywho]

They're now supposedly planning a tunnel I think and a new overground line somewhere, and it all might connect with the underground rework of the Hauptbahnhof... I really don't know what'll come of it. Hopefully not equal to Stuttgart 21 in engineering ineptitude.

[@NicolaW72]

@@lillywho If you´ve good luck you will finally have something like Stuttgart 21 - where the construction work at least finally has started...

[@hassanalihusseini1717]

It must be very frustrating to wait for the (re)building or extension of public transport, especially rail services. Come here to Bangkok and learn how an urban rail/monorail system is built quickly.

[@bomcabedal]

Although the name S-Bahn was chosen in 1930 (as a parallel to the U-Bahn), the Berlin S-Bahn is in fact much older than 1930. You could even argue it goes back as far as 1838 (the opening of the "Stammbahn" from Potsdam to Berlin's Potsdamer Bahnhof). But S-Bahn-like, exclusively regional/local rail systems have been around since the opening of Berlins Ringbahn in 1871.

[@uamsnof]

I live in the region and I love watching your videos. I’m learning so much about my home region and it’s so nice to see shots of familiar places in such well-made videos online

[@niduroki]

I mean, these stations look alright-ish, there are some horrid stations in the Ruhr area, too, which shouldn't be neglected by design. Duisburg Main Station for example has >10 platforms, and is also slowly falling apart. There was a plan to rebuild it, starting 2018 or so, I think. In 2021 there are some nice stickers on some walls inspired by the way the rebuilt main station is supposed to look, so that's something!

[@RC534]

I was shocked in the past years to see how derelict some stations in Germany were when traveling from the Netherlands where stations are often in excellent condition. Especially the track hall in Duisburg when coming from Arnhem... It had nets above the tracks to prevent debris from the dilapidated roof falling on travelers heads! But when I started looking into that a bit I found that the plan is to replace the entire roofing structure by a new one as a grander plan to renew 150 stations in NRW starting 2022. Well, here's hoping that doesn't get delayed any further...

[@arrjay2410]

I'm in Canada. We are sometimes given the impression that Germany is some sort of Commuter paradise. I love the candid dose of reality. I currently travel between Toronto and a small city called Peterborough. It has excellent highway service, but one neglected freight line to Toronto which hasn't had passenger service since about 1984 (many of the stations have literally rotted away). The Federal government recently announced that it would be on the route for a new high speed passenger service from Toronto, Ottawa to Montreal (it's about 60 kilometres away from the Lake Ontario and just outside the urbanized area of Toronto - think on the edge of classic Canawilderness

[@nicolasblume1046]

In terms of frequency of connectivity, even the bad stations in this video are way better than most Canadian ones. I mean even in the Toronto metro area some lines still don't have all day service, while these shitty stations in the video get a train every 30 minutes all day long

[@xaverlustig3581]

Not a paradise. Public transport of some sort is almost everywhere, but you can't say that the service is good and it's a pleasure to use. Actually it's been going downhill in the past 20ish years.

[@ThamiorSilberdrache]

As a citizen in the area of Stuttgart, I might add: the only thing that is worse then a neglected station is a station where they already started the modernization... but you already know that they won't finish for at least the next decade (if ever)...

[@niduroki]

Or the modernization is already done. Look, there's a cool, new, futuristic, display on the platform, that shows you, that the next train is just 20 minutes late, without you having to wait for an announcement telling you the delay! Accessibility! Hurray! (Rest of the platform is still a piece of garbage)

[@MarioFanGamer659]

For that matter, the project to convert the line to the S-Bahn network has been greenlit a couple months ago so you can expect renovated stations in the next couple years. Hopefully, the line will finally exist sooner than later.

[@Eurobazz]

Germany has really let the railway infrastructure decline into a sorry state. I'm not talking about the trains or the permanent way, but the stations, signals and overhead catenary system. I live in the Netherlands and whenever I return home after being in Germany (and also Belgium) it's so nice to see clean and bright stations with no vegetation growing either on the track bed or the platforms. The Netherlands is a well-manicured country.

[@VoodooMcVee]

True. While I don't really mind how it is here in Germany (Ruhr Area specifically) I always enjoy how neat you guys keep everything when I visit once in a while.

[@mnsegler1]

Yes better maintained but slower for long distance foreign trains which must use the shared local tracks even if they only stop in Arnhem, Utrecht and Amsterdam. If those could be faster less people would choose to fly from Frankfurt to Amsterdam as the trip time (including airport time) is close.

[@NUeB_net]

"SS Bahn" never was really official, and S-Bahn was btw introduced in late 1930.

[@ap9970]

35 years so far? Lets hope they don't put the team that built the new Berlin airport in charge.

[@NicolaW72]

At least this team would have experience... :-)

[@Arcturus367]

By the way: the flying horses of Frankfurt Ost are gone? Too bad, they were the only pretty thing there. And you should have filmed the tunnel in rainy weather

[@fhs7838]

This situation is way worst in China... CR (China railway) is only good at operating long distance train and cargo trains. (We have a very cheap but very convenient and decent long distance passenger railway system, that's rare across the world.) But due to it is state owned, not city owned. CR can't feel the benefit of its service that developed the city or TOD. Investigating so much at commuter train, while occupying more profitable long distance/cargo trains' slots, makes CR just ignore any commuter train demand. And even worse, CR is formerly a department at nation level, it has same power of a province... Even Beijing government are just "equal level" as CR... Beijing gov subside S trains in Beijing for hundreds millions per year, but CR still very lazy at providing any commuter trains. While the rest of China, most stations (including many small cities main stations) are closed for passenger service. And force most mid distance travel (I mean 10~200km, that's very long for other countries) to long distance coach or bus service. BTW, our airspace is controlled by China air force... causing LCC airlines way expensive than rails. Also, same for Beijing East railway station, you can see the CBD's skyscrapers there, but the station in front of you is just as poor as the ost bahnhof in the video...

[@HippoXXL]

It's DB, a delay of 37 years is nothing to worry about.

[@XX9X25]

Frankfurt Ost will not closed down. The new line is only a additional route for the S-Bahn. There will be 4 tracks in the end. Two used by the S-Bahn, two used by the other trains. The RB-Services will be replaced by the S-Bahn services, so that the old routes will have more capacity for the long distance services and the fast regional services. But the old route will keep the stations at Maintal and Frankfurt Ost.

[@markovermeer1394]

Large investments in a line are not the only thing: you need travellers as well. When you have misstreated your travellers away for such a long time, you start with much fewer users, which is bad for investments. So: I is very probable that minor improvements to buildings which will get destructed will pay-off later. Certainly when plans are not yet executed.

[@sethanix3969]

The half hourly service was bursting Pre-C with 150meter trainsets and additional peak relief trains because even with the stations in their state of disrepair, the route itself is well kept and a far superior option to the heavily congested Hanauer Landstraße and it's jams.

[@sizanogreen9900]

As someone living near Stuttgart 21 I am wishing this railway project all the best... but I wouldn't expect too much...

[@Alfadrottning86]

lol, didnt know that. Would be awkward to be in Germany and announce to use the "SS" to get from a to b hehe

[@SleepTrain456]

Good riddance to that talk of "SS-Bahnen"! After all, who wants to ride on a secret police train?

[@m.struck6535]

Well in the Final days of ww II the troops could use the s-bahn to reach the frontier lines. So, you could say, the ss hadcto use the ss-bahn ...

[@MTobias]

Where did you hear that Ffm-Ost will be completely replaced by the underground station? As far as I know, it will only receive an additional underground station for the S-Bahn, while the mainline services will still be stopping in the current overground station.

[@sethanix3969]

The commuter platforms will stay. There will still be REs calling because of the EZB, but probably only once per hour.

[@CrippleX89]

3:11 "Schnell! Get into the SS train!" 😬

[@510Russ]

Your story of non-happenings on your local S-Bahn are very similar to those about the restoration of service to the one-time engineering marvel known as the Lackawanna Cutoff. For that one, I'm not holding my breath, either. ;)

[@Bearleena]

This is rather good - or is it unfortunate - timing, coming on the back of a train drivers‘ strike that wrecked not only most train services but also SBahn lines for two days. My husband was due to travel across Germany to The Netherlands yesterday, instead he had to go by plane - so much for the German commitment to the environment. In fact, due to the S-Bahn strike he couldn’t even get to the train station. Here in Berlin we‘re used to the stations looking rubbish - we just want the trains to run.

[@markus1351]

Mainkur and Frankfurt Ost are special cases, as there are plans to create an S-Bahn System on that rail line for decades now,... with no progress

[@fennecfox2366]

Some of us in North America would love to even have a passenger train. They shut down and don't get replaced here.

[@holger_p]

The separation into to Metro-Systems, S-Bahn and U-Bahn originated in Berlin, U-Bahn had more narrow cars, in order to dig only narrow tunnels, and Both S-Bahn and U-Bahn (in Berlin) had an earth bound third electricity rail, which made them incompatible with conventional rail, up to today. All other cities made slight copies of this idea, but must often with conventional railway equipment, S-Bahn was more a matter of route and timetable design. Over the years, they got these separate stations or platforms in stations, to avoid conflicts with long distance traffic. In Franfurt, it's technicly only tunnel heigh separating some specialized routes. S-Bahn tunnel cannot be used with double-decker-cars or Cargo. Today you have trams in the tunnel, U-Bahn overground, S-Bahn underground, any kind of combination.

[@Anson_AKB]

even when power is a third rail for U-Bahn and S-Bahn, they are incompatible in Berlin because one is accessed from below and one from above

[@KyleKartan87]

Hey Mainkur and Frankfurt Ost just look like the station of my hometown! My hometown and the DB are fighting for over 10 years who should pay what amount...

[@roberth.5938]

Hey Andrew, I see you are gaining a hundred more subscribers per day. Congratulations. Ich gönne es dir, mein Lieblings KZbinr!

[@bowfinger26]

At first sight, I thought Mainkur was Darmstadt Nord ^^

[@ChristopherNewman63]

nice video :) been a while since I've been in Germany, but those stations for sure seem familiar, as neglected as they are.

[@Malte_OJ]

Alles dauert seine Zeit. Als die Bahnstrecke in meiner Heimat 1928 fertiggestellt wurde, wurde auf dem Bahndamm bereits Platz für ein zweites Gleis gelassen, das man bald ergänzen wollte. 93 Jahre später ist es immer noch nicht da und wie die S-Bahn-Strecke in Frankfurt ein Dauerthema in den Zeitungen, weil wieder irgendein Politiker verkündet hat, dass das Projekt bald kommen würde :)

[@ruedigernassauer]

I used to be a daily train commuter from Frankfurt. Whenever I passed this station there were no passengers to get in or get out. Anyway, what is "Mainkur"? Do they have a spa there? The same with S train station Frankfurt (Main) East and Offenbach main train station which has largely become futile by the circumvention of the S rails going another way..

[@rewboss]

It's named after an old customs post between the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel and the city of Frankfurt, which was called "Main Cur". I'm not sure where "Kur/Cur" comes from, but I assume it's as in "Kurfürstentum" and "Churfranken", not as in "Kurort".

[@adayinthelifeofanorthkorea]

Living in Alt-Fechenheim not far from the station I can only say: this is where the rich and damous come to spa weekends to refill their batteries

[@mnsegler1]

Great video! Informative and well constructed with great footage. I have lived in Frankfurt and am a transit and rail nerd.

[@YesterchipsMIG]

Offenbach Hauptbahnhof (central station of a city with more than 120K people living there) lost all long distance trains, as the S-Bahn Citytunnel was opened. This central station is also in a pretty bad shape. There ist nothing there. No shops, no service, not even an elevator or escalator. Only regional trains stop here. It's kind of sad.

[@barbarossarotbart]

Ist halt Offenbach! Frankfuft ist halt wichtiger und eutlich größer ... Sei froh, es hätte schlimmer kommen können. Braunschweig hat es in gewisser Hinsicht schlimmer getroffen. Viele ICEs fahren nur über das wesentlich kleinere benachbarte Wolfsburg und nicht über das deutlich größere Braunschweig. Und alles nur wegen VW!

[@YesterchipsMIG]

@@barbarossarotbart Alle Fernzüge brettern durch Offenbach auch nur noch durch. Das ist nur noch ein Regionalhalt. Und nennt sich peinlicherweise immer noch "Hauptbahnhof".

[@dirkspatz3692]

@@YesterchipsMIG Das Haupt in Hauptbahnhof beschreibt ja auch eher die Regionale Bedeutung. Wenn eine Stadt mehrere Bahnhöfe hat ist derjenige der am meisten angefahren wurde oder in Zentraler LAge war/ist halt der Hauptbahnhof gewesen. Und wenn so eine Bahnstation mal ein Hauptbahnhof war aber kaum noch genutzt wird, nennt man den ja nicht einfach um.

[@YesterchipsMIG]

@@dirkspatz3692 Es wäre aber deutlich weniger peinlich für die Stadt Offenbach. An einem Hauptbahnhof erwartet man doch, dass man dort einen Bäcker oder Imbiss vorfindet, oder einen Frisör, oder zumindest eine Dönerbude. Hier gibt es aber wirklich gar nichts mehr.

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@YesterchipsMIG Das ist nicht peinlich, das ist ganz normal. Wenn es innerhalb einer Stadt noch einen weiteren Bahnhof gibt, trägt der größere der beiden immer den Zusatz Hauptbahnhof, selbst wenn da nur noch Regionalzüge halten. Nur wenn ein Ort auch nur einen Bahnhof hat, entfällt dieser Zusatz.

[@Picolinni]

Wait. That’s neglected? You should see some of the stations I’ve seen personally in Australia, and from friends and family in the US!

[@sethanix3969]

At least everything actually needed to run the station is being upkept. Including lighting, timetables and a working clock that even got repaired last year after being broken by a stone threwn through the glass...

[@pega17pl]

Wenn die DB einen Bahnhof "auffrischt", muß das nicht unbedingt zum Vorteil des Bahnhofs sein. Besonders bei den Farben hat die DB ein blindes Händchen. So z.B. beim "Aussegnungshallen-Weiß" was bei Köln-Deutz und dem Nürnberger Hbf zum Einsatz kam. Warum reißt man die Gebäude nicht nieder und läßt eine Schutthalde übrig, wenn man Fahrgäste vertreiben will? - Heinz

[@jrgptr935]

Bei uns ist das beliebte Staubgrau der dominierende Farbton, aufgelockert mit frischbraunen Kackelementen (kein Wunder, da die Toiletten seit einem halben Jahrhundert geschlossen sind, um Verunreinigungen durch Benutzung zu vermeiden).

[@stefan0325]

If you think Mainkur is bad, go visit Offenbach Hbf (Offenbach central station)

[@Baccatube79]

Will they expand the S-Bahn to Alzenau and/or Aschaffenburg?

[@rewboss]

Maybe Aschaffenburg, or at least Kahl. Definitely not Alzenau, though.

[@Baccatube79]

@@rewboss That's great to hear - I hope these glory days are nigh.

[@lpt2606]

this guy has never bin in belgium i think

[@GeFlixes]

TBH, those pictures look like any "normal" rural train stations, more or less. The train system is a disgrace and one of the areas where it shows that we've been neglecting our basic infrastructure the most. Other parts: 100s of derelict bridges, spotty or non-existent broadband internet, roads that are more pothole than asphalt, and of course the whole of the education system.

[@daveemberton5271]

Re: first impressions of a town: This is an advantage of Stuttgart 21. The first impression visitors will get is of a tunnel.Then they can transfer to the Stadtbahn (not to be confused with the S-Bahn) or the S-Bahn (not to be confused with the Stadtbahn) and stay underground. For a while anyway.

[@lillywho]

Second impression: runaway baggage trolleys, leaky roofs, etc. If that certain episode of Die Anstalt is anything to go by.

[@tzarcoal1018]

3:27 my Hometown is missing, we got an S-Bahn. Only one line is actually like an S-Bahn, the other should be labelled Regional Trains instead, but still that one line is a proper S-Bahn ;-). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostock_S-Bahn

[@DFYX]

Karlsruhe is missing as well although they're a special case. They have implemented a system with special trains that can use both the tram tracks within the city and the regular DB tracks in the surrounding area with several connections between the two networks along the city's borders. The most extreme case is S5 that goes from Bietigheim-Bissingen which is also part of Stuttgart's S-Bahn network through Vaihingen, Mühlacker, Pforzheim, Wilferdingen, Karlsruhe (right through the pedestrian area in the city center) to Wörth where sometimes change labels to S51/S52 and continue all the way to Germersheim which borders the Rhein-Neckar S-Bahn, all in all about a 3 hour journey.

[@Seegalgalguntijak]

If you look at most of the stations of the Berlin S-Bahn you're going to find similar pictures of neglect and disrepair...

[@thekornrole]

This brit has though me more about my home country Germany than most germans

[@holger_p]

You miss the eye on the daily inconveniences, if you pass somewhere every day. Betriebsblindheit.

[@jannecapelle_art]

huh! i always wondered what exactly people meant when they said s-bahn, because here in my city we dont really use that word? we have the trains, so the RBs and REs (and if youre fancy ICEs), buses and just "die Bahn" which is i guess an S-Bahn (we use that word rarely, but if we do we mean a Straßenbahn...) which has above and below ground stations, runs on its own rails shared with no other transportation and runs most of the day 6 times an hour for all 4 lines in all directions. but it doesnt go outside the city, so its really just locally. i guess we differentiate and call them "zug" and "bahn" even though the züge are run by the deutsche bahn...words are hard

[@Jehty_]

If you don't use the word S-Bahn in your city than you don't have an S-Bahn.

[@jannecapelle_art]

@@Jehty_ thats the thing though, some people do 😅 thats why i was always confused, i thought s-bahn just meant Straßenbahn or maybe Stadtbahn (which is what the city website calls the bahn) 😅 but i guess thats just people also not knowing what the difference is and assuming the colloquial name for the stadtbahn is s-bahn... too many words that start with "s" 😬

[@Secretlyalittleworm]

clearly never been to Philadelphia

[@idlebrit]

So true on that line! Ostbahnhof is as you say, no better :)

[@lodevijk]

Almost every single sentence you said in this video is yet another argument against public transit in Germany. I have wasted hundreds of hours due to strikes, delays, canceled trains, missing carriages, etc. Then I got a car and never stepped foot in a train or bus again in my life. I prefer to walk for kilometers from the cheapest parking lot to my destination than to give money to bureaucrats who have nothing forcing them to perform. Let it die already.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

You're aware that the roads you drive your car on are also administered by "bureaucrats who have nothing forcing them to perform", right? The problem is lack of funding -- Germany spends a lot on highways and leaves its rail infrastructure to rot.

[@lodevijk]

@@HeadsFullOfEyeballs it does not matter how good the infrastructure is if the rail workers are striking. The road can be of any quality and still allow travel. The agency lies in the users, not an incompetent public company

[@TheAeroPeek]

I wonder if the planned underground station for long-distance trains at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof with connecting tunnel will further delay the planned S-Bahn via Frankfurt Ost.

[@rewboss]

There's no reason it should. But the plans for the Hbf are at such an early stage, they're not even plans. DB commissioned a study into whether such a project would be possible, that's all.

[@sethanix3969]

No, they are deliberatly not touching the planning for the S-Bahn. And it is not necessary, anyways. The tunnel from central will connect to different tracks than the suburban line.

[@hubertbreidenbach]

Rhein-Main Decline Time :-(

[@nicolasblume1046]

6:23 sadly this will reduce service at Ostendstrasse 😥

[@John_Weiss]

Sounds like the 2nd-Avenue subway line in New York City. Along 2nd Avenue was once an elevated train line. It was the last of the elevated lines to be replaced by a subway line, shut down, and demolished. Well, sort of. Edited: [I went back and looked up the exact dates] The plans for it started in the 1920, which was when the plans to replace _all_ of the old elevated lines were made. The old 2nd Avenue Line was demolished in 1942, loooong before construction would even be thought of starting. This left _the entire Lower East Side of NYC *without any train line whatsoever* serving it. Construction on the 2nd Avenue Subway Line _did_ start in the early 1970s, after all of the other elevated lines had been replaced by subway lines. But The City ran out of funds a few years later, and the completed sections of tunnel languished. For decades. From 1980 onward, there was _constant_ talk and promises and Grand Plans for finishing the 2nd Avenue Subway line. Then in 2007, there was _finally_ some progress. Existing tunnel segments were connected, and _most_ of the northern half of the line was completed. There was now a 2nd Avenue Subway Line … through the narrow north-central part of Manhattan, between Central Park and the East River. Which is already served by the #3 subway line. Meanwhile, the Lower East Side is _still_ without any mass transit. (Busses don't count; you can often _walk_ faster than some of the bus lines in Manhattan.) Funny thing - the Lower East Side, which I keep mentioning, as a large area of Manhattan that has been where immigrants and workers lived. In fact, since the mid-20th Century, when the old line was torn down, the Lower East Side has been home to NYC's Puerto Rican community. Hmmm… hispanic immigrants getting the shaft for 80 years… hmmmm. _Hmmmmmmmmmmm…_ The plans for the phase that would extend the 2nd Avenue Subway Line south [into the Lower East Side], are _still_ in the planning phase. And the person who had been cracking the whip that kept things moving … was disgraced ex-governor Andrew Cuomo. I expect the extension of 2nd Avenue Subway Line southward to start in time for the 100th anniversary of the original start of construction, so sometime in 2070. There can be a celebration of the the start of the final Phase of construction and 100 years of broken promises at the same time.

[@janweber2889]

Lower East Side was mostly Irish before the turn of the 20th century, then predominantly Italian & Jewish, then Chinese, and recently more Latin Americans settled into those neighborhoods, but its still predominantly families that resettled there from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and more recently southeastern PR China. The biggest Puerto Rican neighborhood in Manhattan continues to be East Harlem, also called "Spanish Harlem" or "El Barrio".

[@John_Weiss]

@@janweber2889 Ugh, you're right! I forgot about Spanish Harlem. I was thinking more about the NuYorican area down in or around alphabet-city. [I grew up on LawnGuyland in an Italian-American family in the 1970s, but we moved out of state when I was 13. I live up the Hudson River upstate now, but never really got the full hang of some of the newer neighborhoods. Also? I'm so very, very, very sad that Little Italy has evaporated. Last I was there a decade ago, there was only a block left of it. Chinatown had moved to fill in the void left by Little Italy shrinking away.]

[@Martin-su7nf]

Haha Nice, da war (bin) ich ab und zu wegen VAB-RMV Übergangstarif ist das günstiger.

[@nicolasblume1046]

In the Rhein-Main area this line is one of the last (THE last?) line to get S-Bahn service. Other German metro areas are off far worse: If you want to look at REALLY terrible stations and also just bad service, look at the Rhein-Ruhr-area. There is STILL no S-bahn between Köln and Bonn! One is Germanys forth largest city with over 1 million inhabitants and the other the former capital, with around 350.000 inhabitants. If we're lucky it's going to be finished in 2035... And in the Ruhr area the service frequency is just terrible, and they started replacing the S-bahn trains with regional trains (which have fewer doors and are often shorter), but they still call them S-bahn...

[@niduroki]

> There is STILL no S-bahn between Köln and Bonn! […] I mean, there's the RB26, which basically behaves like a S-Bahn between Cologne Main Station and Bonn Main Station, stopping at every station in between. Even goes every hour! (sarcasm) Yeah, going more south than cologne, by public transport, is a bit of an ordeal in NRW 😅

[@ft4709]

@@niduroki At the very least there‘s an alternative in the form of the Stadtbahn services 16 and 18 on the former KBE railway lines … with slow, insufficient 60 m long light rail vehicles

[@sethanix3969]

@@ft4709 And single track sections only allowing those 60m vehicles to operate every 20 minutes, at least on the Brühl-Bonn section...

[@gregessex1851]

Despite it's history, it's looks glamorous compared to this seemingly derelict station which is in the middle of Brussels on the main north-south line. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels-Chapel_railway_station

[@fredflintstoner596]

Mrs Richards: "I paid for a room with a view!" Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) "That is Torquay, Madam." Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!" Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..." Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!" Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky." Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction." Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment?" kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoCyZZ-oicifhLs

[@transitguy]

Reminds me a little bit of the Bregenz train station at Lake Constance. Although it was rebuilt in the 1980s, around 15 years ago it was decided that it should be replaced. Ever since then ÖBB has given up on properly maintaining the station. It's not as bad as Frankfurt Ost, but still... Paneling missing, graffiti, empty shops, because their lease was terminated in anticipation of the reconstruction etc. Meanwhile the whole project has been delayed and delayed and delayed...

[@marge2548]

I would not hold my breath either... The place I live now is basically cut into half by a rather busy (freight and commuting) railway line with raiway barriers in 5 places, being lowered at train rush hours 30-40 minutes an hour nowadays. An underpass was planned very early on - the excavators and dump trucks, however, which already had been moved on site, had to be retracted on the day the were supposed to start digging, as it was the outbreak of Word War I and they were needed elsewhere... Ever since, there have been plans announced. In 2021, I think, they started to build an underpass for pedestrians and wanted to continue with one for cars. However, dues to the pandemic and such, there were not workers. So the railway line was blocked for weeks several times, with very little work going on, and after that, in 2022, the Deutsche Bahn declared that the next time window in which they could go on would be in 5 years at it's earliest. Up to then, the construction site in the middle of the town would just have to stay as it is... Upon protests of practically everybody, they at least finished the pedestrians underpass. And might even resume construction work next summer, as I recently read. But - I am not holding my breath. Again.

[@musiqtee]

Just a silly cognitive cross coupling…: Yes, decades go by, but DB and successors can’t find the money to make S-Bahn great again… …because Europe’s largest financial hub definitely doesn’t create any cash surplus in said decades, it kindly could donate to the Main metropolitan area…? 😅👍 (Btw, I also never got what “S” actually abbreviates before -Bahn…🤣)

[@richardclarke376]

LOL since the 1980s we have been told that the UK would lose its premier financial centre status and all the bankers would move to Frankfurt. Wonder why that hasn't happened !!

[@EElgar1857]

And we Americans think everything in Germany is well-organized. Well, except for Flughafen Berlin-Brandenburg!

[@rogink]

Here in Britain we envy the German transport systems - go into any medium to large city and you'll find the main station connecting to buses, trams, underground and metro lines. Even major cities like Birmingham have only just got a (single line) metro. We have to pay way more even for local train trips, but I don't think I've seen a badly managed - even rundown - BR station , at least since the 80s. A benefit of privatisation?!

[@fipsvonfipsenstein6704]

Well ... at least BER doesn't seem to be the record holder for delays. We wouldn't have had to rush around like that.

[@gregor-samsa]

...and this is Frankfurt. Imagine area outside of city. Lets make an election of the most ugly train station, any proposals? BTW Frankfurt has not even a closed Autobahn ring around the city. The Hesse government managed to get rid ot death penalty just few years ago.

[@Sam_Green____4114]

You ought see some stations in the UK then !! This looks good compared to them !! ( Haven't lived in the UK since 2014 though so l don't know if anything has improved since !)

[@necrionos]

if you replace a well functioning train station by a most likely less efficient one which will cost at the end 10+billion €, of course you cant afford to maintain less important stations

[@SylviaRustyFae]

Im curious if the plannin ever went thru or not heh; like, have they started any of the steps to actually do smth, or still delayed by the panini?

[@Reemus4]

We Germans discourage vandalism by making the vandals depressed with our ugly infrastructure.

[@BernardLS]

With plans like that you probably had the same 'consultants' as Crossrail & HS2.

[@ronsmith4927]

Two trains an hour in both direction? Lucky to get any train during the work day between Richmond and Washington DC........

[@simonkemfors]

I know some people find those kinds of stations charming, but I really dislike when a railway doesn't care for its stations, I just find it immensely sad that these places that are so important to people's day to day life are allowed to rot, and that it gives the impression that trains are rough, old fashioned and dangerous

[@asymmetree2748]

I lived at Frankfurt Ost in the building next to the one at 1:31 for 2 years - in the south of the railway line. Over the last decade they really built lots of housing like in 1:31 on that side of the tracks; a completly new suburban area around Ferdinand-Happ-Str developed. Right next to the station. BUT… the Station only has an exit to the north side of the tracks. You have to walk through a seperate tunnel created for the U-Bahn to reach the other side of the tracks. I barely used the trains there - if you wanna get into the City, you take the U-Bahn 6 or tram 11.

[@charlotteice5704]

It's also that the Deutsche Bahn is financially responsible for maintaining infrastructure whereas the state is financially responsible for building new infrastructure. You can see where that leads.

[@Mishima505]

Reminds me of the suburban stations in Mannheim, Rheinau and Neckarau. They are just places for graffitists to practise on now.

[@northstar2839]

Come and look at Antwerp South station in Belgium ... (“Antwerpen Zuid”) ...

[@igorsmihailovs52]

I have seen much worse railway stations in Germany (Nordrhein-Westfalen). On the other hand, it was ca. 10 years ago.

[@SleepTrain456]

I am interested in both trains and Germany, and I did not know about this! I hope those S-Bahn changes are actually implemented! After all, I don't think a station like Mainkur or Frankfurt Ost is the sort of thing I would like to arrive at!

[@Jehty_]

Does it really matter how the station looks? The only thing that annoys me in stations like these is when the tunnel smells like pee. But other than that, why would it matter to me?

[@tompickel]

A very smart observation at the beginning of the video! I never thought about it. I really like your channel, thank you.

[@RM-el3gw]

Cool vid. Awesome to see your videography/camera word and post-production so refined.

[@johannessamuelsson6578]

I love how the new station building at Frankfurt Ost litteraly looks like a freight container :D

[@beerenmusli8220]

That is so interesting! I was there and wondered why the fuck a Frankfurt City Station is in such desperate disrepair!

[@qjtvaddict]

Actually this is indeed rapid rail but in cities it is outside not so much

[@gustavmeyrink_2.0]

The name of the Berlin S-Bahn goes back to 1930, the S-Bahn itself goes back to 1870 with the Ringbahn connecting various other light raailway lines. Which btw is where the London tube got the idea for the Circle Line from. Basically the Brits stole the layout of the actual rail system and the Germans stole the design of the map.

[@Anson_AKB]

the berlin U-Bahn station Wittenbergplatz even got an original london station sign with its name (as a gift, not stolen :-)

[@stadtbekanntertunichtgut]

Hi rewboss, This is your best video by far! It feels kind of artsy or is it just me??? =)

[@nlk294]

The awnser: because privatizing the Bundesbahn was a mistake.

[@yanibarca]

I recommend you stations like Montcada Bifurcació and Barcelona - El Clot

[@GreenBoxMedia]

Me watching this video and be like: "so you tell me Germany also has nice stations?"

[@Pongant]

I have seen worse. Ever been to Varel (Friesland)?

[@ospero7681]

No, but I once made the mistake of changing at Leer. *shudder*

[@NicolaW72]

But Varel is in work - or at least was in 2018 when I went through this station for a couple of times.

[@ccityplanner1217]

I always take it to stand for Stadtbahn, because in Berlin that means something different to what it means in other cities.

[@NicolaW72]

Yes, indeed.