DB Regio Oberfranken is a business area with the German national railway company,
Deutsche Bahn
The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder.
describes itself as the se ...
, with its headquarters in
Hof (Saale). It is responsible for the majority of regional and local railway services in the Bavarian province of
Upper Franconia (''Oberfranken'').
Trains
Because there are no electrified railways from Hof, the city can only be reached by diesel-engined rail vehicles. After heavy investment by Deutsche Bahn around the turn of the century, trains have changed in just a few years from
diesel-hauled coaches to modern
diesel multiple units
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...
. Today in Hof there are 45
VT 612 tilting train
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide abo ...
s and 27 conventional
VT 628 units stationed there. The VT 612 are mainly employed on ''
Regional-Express'' routes. One exception is the through connexion of RE trains from Würzburg/Lichtenfels via Hof as ''
Regionalbahn'' trains to
Bad Steben
Bad Steben is a market town in the district of Hof in Bavaria in Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the mo ...
. This enables passengers to travel the whole route without changing.
Locomotive depot
DB Regio Oberfranken owns the locomotive depot at Hof,
Betriebswerk Hof, a 68,000 m
2, modern
workshop
Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the only ...
, which specialises in tilting train technology. Here the Class 612 and 628 are inspected, maintained and repaired. The workshop was modernised in 2000 and 2001 for about 4 million
euro
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
s.
Routes
This transport region covers most of the routes in Upper Franconia. The following are some of the routes for which
DB Regio Oberfranken supplies railway vehicles:
* ''RE'' Hof / Bayreuth–Lichtenfels–Würzburg
* ''RE'' Hof / Bayreuth–Lichtenfels–Saalfeld (Saale)
* ''RE'' Hof / Bayreuth–Nürnberg Hbf
* ''RE'' Hof–Marktredwitz–Weiden (Oberpf)–Regensburg
* ''RE'' Hof–Marktredwitz–Nürnberg
* ''RE'' Marktredwitz–Eger/Cheb
* ''RB'' Marktredwitz– Kirchenlaibach–Bayreuth Hbf
* ''RB'' Hof–Bad Steben
* ''RB'' Hof–Selb
* ''RB'' Bayreuth–Weiden (Oberpf)
* RB Coburg-Bad Rodach
The RE services are mainly operated with VT 612 units. On the
Hof /
Bayreuth
Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...
–
Marktredwitz
Marktredwitz () is a town in the Wunsiedel (district), district of Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, Germany, close to the Czech Republic, Czech border. It is situated 22 km west of Cheb, 50 km east of Bayreuth and 50 km south of Hof/Saale. Ma ...
–
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
line they alternated with
VT 610 trains from Nuremberg depot until the timetable change in December 2007. The RB services are - with the aforementioned exception – worked by
VT 628 units.
See also
*
List of German railway companies
This list contains railway companies currently operating in Germany. It includes railway units that are not independent legal entities.
Federal railways and private railway companies with their headquarters abroad are given their authority to oper ...
*
List of scheduled railway routes in Germany
*
List of railway stations in Bavaria
Sources
:de:DB Regio Oberfranken
Deutsche Bahn
Railway companies of Germany