ÖBB

Österreichische Bundesbahnen ""ÖBB" not to be confused with Bayerische Oberlandbahn or "BOB" or Schweizerische Bundesbahnen. or "SBB".

Germans/German-speaking countries love shortening to 3 or 4 letters. The German federal railway shortens itself to simply Deutsche Bahn "DB" and although called the Deutsche Bundesbahn after WWII until 1994 when it was merged with the former East German Deutsche Reichsbahn "DR", it was never called DBB.

Oh how confusing, just as I was this evening to see this Austrian regional train sitting still at our station at Sontheim. Recently the Austrian Federal Railway has indeed been operating an Inter-City service from Munich to Zürich in Switzerland in addition to the Swiss Federal Railway service but using the sleeker high speed trains I think identical to the French TGV.

I'm no train spotter and since Angie no longer takes the train to Munich I don't get to hear all the news. I have looked around on the web and this train seems to be a spanking new Bombardier Talent 3 which came into passenger service in November 2020 and indeed Wikipedia says the Austrians were to base them in the very west of Austria which is where the German/Austrian/Swiss lines meet at Lake Constance.

Doesn't explain why it was here for the whole time I was in the supermarket. I guess there could have been trouble on the line, but it felt as though it was simply parked up for the night.

The two photos should be stitched together as the top one is the back half, I just happened to take the photos that makes it look like the top one is the front. I couldn't even see the rear wagon as the train was so long.

Who cares anyway?....just me because it was the only photo I took today and so you have to live with it!.

We had snow this morning, but I forgot to take a photo, just a bit of video. It was gone by afternoon, and we are expecting stormy weather the next few days, luckily somewhat warmer.

NB On Thursday morning I posted the video of this train on Twitter and promptly from an English 'acquaintance' of the same age and many similar life experiences, got the answer. The train has been on test since November and this phase has now ended without it passing approval, and it looks like the manufacturer Bombardier has a problem! It was originally promised for 2019 and part of the contract makes Bombardier responsible to ensure the passenger capacity is fulfilled. I wonder if our station is to become a train graveyard.