Thread by @dominicstucki

Zürich HB, Wednesday evening, at the time when the intresting trains depart. Time for a short trip and to test Zürich's newest night train, the EN Canopus. We're booked in a deluxe sleeper compartment in a CD sleeping car.
#Trambinging

Finally a night train ride, where
- the compartment is not above the bogies
- the window closes completely
- the heating works
- the coach has no flats
In other words: Quite a pleasant but short night.
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At 6:15, the friendly stewart serves our breakfast. You can choose between a sweet and a salty one, tea or coffee and orange or apple juice. Shortly after and perfectly on time, we roll over river Elbe into Dresden Hbf.
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Not much time to admire Dresden's fantastic station. We need to get a ticket and hop on the next RE1. Probably, our ticket is way too expensive but it's a #Trilex and we don't want to be thrown out by the Bundespolizei, so no ticket splitting experiments here. 😅
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Nevertheless, the Zugbegleiterin asks for our return (!) ticket and gets quite sceptical as we explain we're travelling one way only.
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It's not even 9 o'clock when we reach Görlitz. First stop on this #Trambinging tour. The station features a beautiful main hall. But the main sight waits in front of the station: Tatras! 🥰

The Görlitz tram network consists of two lines, running every 20 mins each, operated with Tatra KT4D-C only! Mostly in double traction on Line 1 and solo on line 2.
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It's freezing cold and raining. Not very motivating for photography, so we hop onto a line 2 tram to the south. Outside the city centre, the line is single track and at the end, a triangle is used to turn the single-ended trams.
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I broke the thread, it continues here:

Our animalistic tram brings us across the city to the other end of line 2 at Königshufen Am Wiesengrund, where the small tram turns through a huge turning loop. This is by far not the last oversized infrastructure we'll discover on this trip.
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It's a short walk along Plattenbau apartment buildings and oversized roads to the terminus of line 1 at NeißePark (without hypen or blank!).
The rear unit is the only one out today in the original GVB livery. All the other trams feature ugly commercial liveries.
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The old town of Görlitz is definitely worth a visit, too. Very quiet and with beautiful buildings. But a lot of cars. Poland is just across the river, but we don't have time to have a look today.
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On the trunk line through the old town, lines 1 and 2 add up to a 10 mins takt. There are some quite narrow streets in the centre where the trams curve around sharp corners, especially around Frauenkirche and Postplatz.
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Towards the main station. Compared to swiss networks with single-ended trams, there are a lot of crossovers on double track lines.
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Short ride with line 1 to Weinhübel, where even take-away grills are Tatra fans. Then we're back at the main station, where lines 1 and 2 merge. Network complete. ✅
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A bio grocery store at the station sells warm  soup for take-away, which is a real treat in this cold weather. Back to the platform and off to the next city.
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A Desiro brings us to Cottbus. Again, the DB app probably sold us a way too expensive ticket. But the #ODEG  Zugbegleiterin gives us tips on how to split the tickets to get the cheapest fare next time. Also, you can buy snacks and beverages on this Regionalbahn!
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Compared to Görlitz, Cottbus Hbf is thoroughly modernised. On the way to the city centre, we stumble across the reason for our visit here: Tatras again! As far as I know, there are only these type KTNF6 in revenue service here.
#Trambinging

The Cottbus network with its four lines 1-4 is significantly larger than the one in Görlitz. Thumbs rule here: The higher the line number, the higher the frequency.
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As the several sections are closed due to construction works, we can't ride the whole network. This gives us time to focus on the interesting things. And the part of the line around the Betriebshof does look very promising, doesn't it?
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A few line 4 services continue through the forest to the depot. Our tram passes the Plattenbau at Neu Schmellwitz, continues on a straight line through the forest, drives into the depot and reverses down the other side of the track triangle to the platform.
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There is absolutely nothing here apart from the depot, so I suppose this unsystematic line extension is for the drivers and depot staff.
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On the service track to and from the depot.
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Next to Neu Schmellwitz loop, the usual terminus of line 4.
We didn't spot a single tram with the original Cottbusverkehr livery that day, all trams were covered in mostly ugly ads.
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At the other end of the city, line 3 runs in the wrong direction on a single track section on a main road before terminating at a fairly modern bus/tram hub next to an old depot. Back to the centre with the hourly line 16 bus, taking as many detours as possible.
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Pizza delivery must be a very lucrative business in Cottbus. Or advertising liveries are by far not as expensive as at home in Switzerland.
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Altmarkt seems to be one of the few spots in the city where old houses either survived the terrible WWII bombing or have been reconstructed. It's getting dark and cold, so we opt for dinner instead of more tram lines.
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Friday morning: The hotel room offers a great view, not only on the DDR style city centre ensemble, but also on the main tram node at Stadthalle. The weather is still dismal and cold, but we have a lot of plans for today.
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Familiar colours on the way to the train station. And indeed: This Tatra still wears the livery of the Schöneicher-Rüdersdorfer Strassenbahn near Berlin, which I visited a few years ago.
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History lesson on the way to the station. Not only did the DR apparently have its own baths, but there also was a narrow gauge network called Spreewaldbahn until the 1970s. Then we reach Cottbus Hbf with its rather french platform usage.
[Thread to be continued...]
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