Winter and Deutsche Bahn Museum

So, after a rather long break I have now made time to write down my next article. Firstly, I wish all the readers a warm and prosperous new year 2010, though ‘warm’ is a word that is currently least applicable in Germany. Yesterday the mercury sunk to -10 degrees, which is something everyone has got used to here but what made things worse was a terrible wind that blows the snow and sends it crashing onto your face.. It makes you feel that there is nothing so beautiful or pleasant about the snow. Yes, its beautiful to look at and enjoy when it just starts to fall, but from the last week of December, snow is something you wouldn’t want to see in the morning when you try to get ready and go to work.

The Winterdienst is constantly at work with their special type of vehicles that clears the snow from the front while spilling grit (a mixture of sand and rock salt, granular in nature, used to improve friction) from behind. The trees look ghostly with their withered branches and snow covered trunks. Life is nowhere to be seen outside, everyone is safely tucked in the comfort of the room heaters, as early as 6 p.m. I can remember, in the summer there used to be daylight till around 9 pm and cafes do good business with their beautiful chairs and tables put outside and people enjoying a relaxing drink, or cakes and coffee and a chat with friends till as late as 10 pm. What an extreme contrast one can find here!

I would like to add to this post an interesting bit of info. Anyone going to Nuremberg, should not forget to check out the Deutsche Bahn museum there. I had come here with my friend Harish (from Heidelberg).

It’s a commendable effort to have put together the real train carriages, engines, machinery and interesting models that depict the history of the railways that span more 150 years. Almost everything is covered here, and one can learn a lot – the founding of the German railway system with help from the British inventor George Stephenson, how it was developed during the time of the kings, the Eisenbahn before the war, the crucial role played by the railways during the war, the crash of the economy and the railways after the war , the separate entities Bundesbahn of west and Reichsbahn of the east were united and later its rebuilding, modernization into the DB AG of today – everything. From the humble carriage to the Inter City Express the german railways have come a long way. One can also learn about signals and communication systems, engines and their functioning, how the King’s royal carriage looked like, the important people involved in the development of the railways and so on.

The first steam hauled Bavarian Ludwig Railway was run from this very same city on a distance of 6 km from Nuremberg to Fuerth. Stephenson had sent his assistant to help the businessmen George Platner and Johannes Scharrer in the initiation and construction of the railway line. The Englishman was too amazed to see that the concept of railways was still in its infancy in Germany while Britain was already many years forward and he felt he was back by almost half a century. He expressed these feelings to his German associates, in whatever little German he could talk. It was mostly a mix of English, German and Germanized English words and at the end he closed by asking something about the Bahnhof (railway station). Scharrer remarked (obviously astounded at that confusing mix of languages) , “Ich habe nur ‘Bahnhof ‘ verstanden!” . (“ I just understood ‘railway station’”.)

This funny incident was played in a short movie clip detailing the founding of the german railway. I am describing this here because, it reminded me about my german classes and I think I have now found the origin of the german phrase “Ich habe nur Bahnhof verstanden”. We came across this phrase during our classes and our teacher said that it’s a phrase mostly used by students when they don’t understand anything in a lecture and find everything vague and unclear, they remark that all I could understand was railway station! Meaning he couldn’t understand a word. We didn’t know the origin of this phrase then, but I think it should be from here in this incident in 1835.

Ok, till next time and be careful while walking in the snow, I just had my first slip yesterday!