merpmonde - the finer details

Landscapes, travel, memories... with extra info. Nerdier than the Instagram with the same username. 80x Pedantle Gold medallist English / Français / 下手の日本語

[merpmonde]

The Lindau-Insel rail embankment

Lindau's historical centre is on an island, which requires some kind of structure if trains are going to reach it - which they do. Given the relatively placid nature of the Bodensee, an embankment would suffice, so, since the opening of the Bavarian line from Munich in the 1854, that's what's been in place.

The Austrian Vorarlberg line was extended to Lindau in 1872, and the two lines meet at a junction at the North end of the embankment. Being the shore of the lake, a road naturally runs across, and this means we have a four-track-wide level crossing. But it's more complex than that: the crossing is also a crossroads, with a street arriving smack in the middle of the railway junction (on the left in the picture below). For this reason, the crossing requires human supervision, from the hut in the picture above, and is the first example of a manually operated crossing that I can remember seeing.

When the signal is given to the attendants, they start by ringing the warning bells slowly, before picking up speed and the barriers coming down once the crossing is clear. Another clue for a lack of automation is simply how far ahead the barriers come down. While it's no Higashi-Yodogawa (link to a video showing the crossing closed for up to 40 minutes at a time, though this crossing was re-designed in 2019 and is no longer the bottleneck it once was), it's still signposted that you might be better off using an alternate route!

Shorter barrier closing times to Lindau-Insel left. Waiting times of up to 15 minutes here!

The Insel embankment junction is one corner of the Lindau triangle, linking Insel, Reutin and Aeschach stations. Express trains like the EuroCity Express between Munich and Zürich skip Insel, while other regional trains start and Reutin, turn around and Insel and continue through Aeschach towards Kempten. Trains from Friedrichshafen in Germany, Bludenz in Austria or Romanshorn in Switzerland, will typically terminate at Insel, meaning that one can spot trains from three countries on the embankment!

[merpmonde]

Fénétrange

We were at Fénétrange yesterday with the Association Amitié Strasbourg-Japon, for a guided tour of the local history house, Maison du Patrimoine, and parts of the castle. The guides were very knowledgeable about this rather remote and somewhat unassuming village, but which was the seat of a largely independent fiefdom under the Holy Roman Empire.

Medieval remnants still stand, though much of the castle has been rebuilt over the centuries, morphing from a fortified dungeon to a stately residence. When the Protestants took over the village church, the lords had a chapel built in the castle, featuring the above stained glass displaying the coat of arms of the Empire and the blue, white and blue of Fénétrange.

The castle also features an unusual, for the time, pillar-less and anti-clockwise spiral staircase. The lack of a pillar thus gave right-handed soldiers a huge advantage in defence, as they could swing right with no obstruction.

The guides also made us some oublies. These were traditionally made with leftover dough for eucharistic bread, with some added sweetener (honey in this case), and pressed into decorated wafers.

[merpmonde]

Local train cruise around the Bodensee part 4: Friedrichshafen to Lindau

Continued from part 3.

Back on the train at Friedrichshafen (78 km from Konstanz), the city of Zeppelin, the airship maker. The aviation museums (two!) are stories for another time, but just outside the station is a lakeside park featuring a couple of Zeppelin memorials, and that mug you use when you pinky-promise you're going to have only one beer - the bronze stein celebrates the twinning with the US city of Peoria, Illinois.

From here, the Alps come firmly into view on the Swiss side of the lake, and the views become spectacular with the contrast. After Kressbronn (92 km), we also change Land, moving out of Baden-Württemberg. Nonnenhorn (94 km) is the first stop in Bavaria, and a good place to get off to walk along the lake to Wasserburg (96 km) and its picturesque peninsula, like a mini-Reichenau.

The end of this line is on the island of Lindau, Lindau-Insel (102 km), which I showed views of in the post immediately after my trip. The town deserves several posts to be honest, but as part of this series, you can expect a very geeky one on the Aeschach-Insel-Reutin rail triangle soon.

[merpmonde]

A pause at Yuzawa

My trip to Tanigawa-dake and Doai was a day-trip from Tôkyô: Shinkansen to Echigo-Yuzawa, and a local train from there. On the return, I had some time in Yuzawa: time for some food, time for a bath in a public onsen, time for a walk around. It wasn't a long walk, but the highlight was this Kumano shrine surrounded by very red pines.

Inside the station we have more tall stuff: the world's longest skis from 1982 (beaten since). They're 3.63 metres long and each weighs 7.4 kg.

[merpmonde]

I've had a daft thought about the phrase "a fraction of", such as in "this species was only a fraction of the size of this other species".

Well 3/2 is a fraction, so something three-halfs the size, and therefore bigger, is a fraction of the size. Not in the common sense of the term, but in the mathematical sense...

By that measure, what isn't "a fraction of the size" of something else? Consider this: the radius of a circle is not a fraction of the circumference.

( @bibliophilea might like this )

[bibliophilea]

You are so right - the radius of a circle is 1/(2pi) the circumference of that same circle, and that's irrational! However, the pi times the radius is 1/2 the circumference, so the circumference is within a fraction of pi times the radius with this definition!

We can even show that "is a fraction of" is an equivalence relation, right? It's reflexive (x is a fraction of x), it's symmetric (if x is a fraction of y, then y is a fraction of x), and it's transitive (if x is a fraction of y and y is a fraction of z, then x is a fraction of z). This means we can break down all real numbers (excluding 0, as we're doing things multiplicatively) into equivalence classes: 1Q (the embedding of the rationals) would be the coset for any rational number, and in general bQ would be the coset containing b - that is all real numbers that are a non-zero rational multiple of b. And there would have to be uncountably many b that generate a unique coset, else the reals wouldn't be uncountable. So, a set of representatives for each of these cosets would itself be uncountable!

All this to say, you are so right, I absolutely love this! XXD

[finwe77]

By this logic would we say that translational motion is fractional while rotational and reflective motion aren’t? Since I can multiply something by i to rotate it and complex conjugates inherently can’t be fractional while translation can be accomplished by integer multiplication even if the numbers are complex

[merpmonde]

If you're increasing dimension, you'd typically be interested in transformations that preserve rational coordinates. In the complex plane, that would be considering multiplication by elements of Q+iQ. With that logic, some reflections (conjugation) and rotations (angle pi/2, which is multiplication by i=0+1i) would be rational, while others (such as rotation with angle pi/4 -> multiplication by sqrt(2)/2*(1+i)) wouldn't be.

@bibliophilea, it just boils down to (Q*,x) being a subgroup of (R*,x), really. With the above remarks, I feel like we're kind of bashing in the door to the study of subgroups of the set of invertible matrices GLn. I don't know how interesting Q is in this context, but climb down to Z and there's a whole field (or should I say "a whole ring"?) of applications in geometry.

[merpmonde]

I've had a daft thought about the phrase "a fraction of", such as in "this species was only a fraction of the size of this other species".

Well 3/2 is a fraction, so something three-halfs the size, and therefore bigger, is a fraction of the size. Not in the common sense of the term, but in the mathematical sense...

By that measure, what isn't "a fraction of the size" of something else? Consider this: the radius of a circle is not a fraction of the circumference.

( @bibliophilea might like this )

[merpmonde]

Local train* cruise around the Bodensee part 3: Überlingen to Friedrichshafen

*Bus for this leg. Continued from part 2.

After passing Birnau-Maurach (51 km from Konstanz, station closed) at the foot of the Birnau basilica shown above, the railway line heads as far as 8 km inland between Überlingen and Friedrichshafen, serving Salem (59 km, not the one of witch trial fame) and Markdorf (68 km), which got a mention in the previous part for its carnival character. So for this leg, we hop on the number 7395 bus, Seelinie for short, which stops at the basilica before continuing to Uhldingen.

Unteruhldingen (9 km from Überlingen) has a closed station, which had me thinking that maybe there used to be a shore line. But that's not the case: this was just a short 2.5 km branch line that ended here, and closed in 1950.

Unteruhldingen's star attraction is the Pfahlbautenmuseum, a reconstruction of prehistoric stilt houses. An actual archaeological site is located a few hundred metres further along, but first, it's obviously protected and a UNESCO-listed site, and second, you won't see anything from above the surface. All that's actually left of the houses are the bases of some stilts, with some artefacts being found every now and then during dives.

The next stop is Meersburg (13 km), which has a lot to offer. Two castles no less, one Medieval, one Baroque opened in 1750, a cracking view from the Mariä-Heimsuchung church, a bustling waterfront and charming historical streets, in both the upper and lower towns.

Meersburg probably deserves a full post to itself. I'm not promising it just yet, I should probably mix up the posts a bit, the idea was to spread the Bodensee tour so it wouldn't monopolise the blog for a month... Meanwhile, for people travelling on the Bodensee Ticket, Meersburg provides one of the two ferry routes included on the pass, back to Konstanz.

But we continue South, passing Hagnau (17 km), another lovely-looking place, but at this point, it's getting dark. Friedrichshafen (30 km) is the end of the Seelinie, and where we will return to a local train cruise.

[merpmonde]

Some details of Überlingen

The city of Überlingen has quite a lot to offer, from the obvious waterfront and historical centre, with the Münster and its interesting lighthouse-like tower seen above, to some more subtle nods.

There are a lot of decorated buildings in the town centre. This one makes a note of the times it burned down or was bombed (13 May 1634 and 25 April 1945), with the prayer

Vor Krankheit Feuer und Beschuss bewahr mein Haus, Sankt Luzius Protect my house, Saint Lucius, against disease, fire and shelling

The outdoor season on the lake starts late April, so in mid-April, preparations were in full swing. The pedalos are coming out, including... some with slides on them?!

I thought I recognised this Fasnacht carnival character from Oberkirch, as we had seen some whip-wielding Narren there this year. But they were not Überlinger Hänsele, seen on this statue; they were from Markdorf, which isn't far away, but I'm sure they'd insist, it's not Überlingen.

Finally, there are plenty of medieval wall remains, with some towers and city gates, but this thin tower is very different. It was built during the 19th century, when it was decided that the railway line would use a tunnel into the central station, so it's a rather classy vent and chimney, given that it was steam trains running at the time!

[merpmonde]

Hello Kitty Shinkansen. Yes it's real, and it's a lot of fun.

A year ago, I planned a trip between Hiroshima and Kokura on what I feel is the wackiest train concept imaginable. Take the 500 Series Shinkansen, an absolute rocketship (and IMO the best train ever) and wrap it in pink. That didn't sound too appealing to me when I first heard of the project, but I've got to say, the livery is a banger, and turned a lot of heads at every station we stopped at!

The train remains on a regularly-scheduled service, a return trip between Hakata, Fukuoka on Kyûshû, and Shin-Ôsaka as an all-stop Kodama, so it's a normal train... save for two cars. Car 1 is basically a shop, while car 2 is the Kawaii! Room, a seating car in full Kitty mode!

The front of car 2 also has a space to pose with Kitty-chan. As a collab, the Hello Kitty Shinkansen takes the opportunity to showcase the prefectures JR West serves, with Kitties on the map promoting each area's special feature, such as "the great lake" in Shimane (Shinji-ko), "we love this pear!" for Tottori (though Kitty seems to be holding an apple?), takoyaki for Ôsaka, and Hyôgo is "proud of Bread" (any thoughts on that @todayintokyo?). These 8 local characters are repeated on each of the 8 cars outside.

While I'm not a fan or particularly knowledgeable about Hello Kitty, I thoroughly enjoyed riding this train. It's over the top with Easter eggs everywhere, down to the jingles! (not my recording)

All that's left to say is...

[merpmonde]

Today was the last run of the Hello Kitty Shinkansen. After 8 years of running back and forth between Shin-Ôsaka and Hakata, the fastest Kitty-chan in Japan is retiring. As always, it was announced some time in advance and a crowd had gathered on the departure platform to say goodbye. I wasn't there, but I'm glad to have had a go on it in 2023.

So さようなら Train Attendant Kitty-chan!

More widely, this retirement means that the end is well and truly near for the distinctive 500 series Shinkansen. Scrapping has begun, and I expect that the Kitty set, V2, will follow soon. By the sometime next year, all 500s will be gone. Two lead cars are already being preserved, so it's unlikely there will be more...

[merpmonde]

Local train cruise around the Bodensee part 2: Radolfzell to Überlingen

Continued from part 1

We leave Radolfzell towards the North on a single-tracked, non-electrified railway. Our branch line turns eastward at Stahringen (27 km from Konstanz), continuing to the Northern tip of the Obersee at Ludwigshafen (36 km, not to be confused with the larger Ludwigshafen opposite Mannheim). This village forms a municipality with Bodman, which we can see from the East side of the lake.

The following stop is Sipplingen (40 km), where I felt a similar atmosphere to Allensbach in my previous post: a more easy-going place than the busier, more touristy towns nearby, a place to relax and just take in the views of the lake. The train gets spectacularly close to the water on this stretch, possibly the closest of the entire circuit.

We continue into Überlingen (46 km), a place I had only previously heard of as the skies above were the site of a tragic mid-air collision between a passenger jet and a freight plane in 2002. While I considered walking out to the memorial, I found the town had plenty to offer, so the next post will go into some details.

[merpmonde]

Historische Fähre Konstanz

Missing from my recent visit to Konstanz was the old ferry MV Konstanz. Built in 1928, it was the first car ferry on the lake, with a capacity of 15 (small) vehicles and up to 200 people. It was in use until 1963 as a ferry, and then until 1984 as a work boat. In 1993, an association formed to restore the Konstanz.

According to the association's website, the boat is still functional, and did a couple of tourist outings in 2025. However, it spent most of the summer moored near the Imperia statue serving as a floating café - not cheap, but certainly a unique setting. So while the ferry wasn't in port in April, I expect it'll be back for the high season. I don't know where it is in the mean time...

[merpmonde]

Local train cruise around the Bodensee part 1: Konstanz to Radolfzell

As promised, here comes the detailed tour of the Bodensee, also known as Lake Constance, and we start at Konstanz (0 km). The station is smack in between the historic centre and lake shore and harbour, featuring the Imperia statue by Peter Lenk, installed clandestinely in 1993. A local sculptor, Lenk has since received orders from many towns at the Northern end of the Bodensee who each want their own landmark, but Imperia is the most famous as it is in the most populous and visited town, and... let's say it's his least weird work.

Before continuing, let's have a quick look at the map for the trip we're embarking on. Starting in Konstanz, we head North along the shore of the Untersee, the western smaller half of the Bodensee. At Radolfzell, we'll branch off to start the tour of the eastern larger Obersee, back round to Konstanz through Austria's far West and Switzerland. After that, we'll tour the Untersee.

A first stop on the route would be Reichenau (6 km), the station that sits on the road to Reichenau island and its famous church, via a bus connection. However, I stopped at Allensbach (11 km), which is a village with a view of Reichenau, and, I found, a really nice atmosphere. Much calmer than the bustling Konstanz and not touristy like Reichenau, the lake shore seemed to be occupied by locals: children enjoying the play area, friends playing boccia (similar to bowls or pétanque), a couple sitting on the jetty...

Continuing along the lake, we reach Radolfzell (20 km), which was my first base on the tour. When coming in on the Schwarzwaldbahn from Karlsruhe, this is the first station directly by the lake. It has a charming historic centre, a peninsula apparently worth walking around (maybe next time), and is a prime location for sunsets on the Untersee.

[merpmonde]

Ciao Alex Zanardi

Hyperbole and superlatives are often overused, but Alex Zanardi deserved them all. Hero, legend, inspiration, iconic... the lot.

After a strong showing in junior formulae, Zanardi was in and out of Formula 1 during the 1990s, but was most successful in American open-wheel racing. Arriving in CART in 1996 at Chip Ganassi Racing, while his team-mate Jimmy Vasser won the championship (his car pictured above, unfortunately I haven't seen one of Zanardi's cars), he got Rookie of the Year and placed 3rd overall, cemented by a win at the last round at Laguna Seca following a daring last-lap off-track pass on Bryan Herta. Check out "The Pass" - back then, going off track was seriously risky, not a case of "can't be bothered" like it is today. Zanardi would win the next two CART championships back to back.

But everything changed in 2001. A horrific accident at the Lausitzring took both his legs, and almost took his life. But Zanardi was not going to be held back. He was back in a CART car in 2003 to "finish" the race in Germany, using a specially adapted car with predominantly hand controls. BMW would work with him for touring car and GT races after that, and in 2005, Zanardi won again, in the World Touring Car Championship. I remember watching that race and the podium that ensued on TV, one of the greatest moments to witness.

Oh and that's not all. For the 2010s, Alex Zanardi turned Paralympian, winning gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Games in hand-cycling. Sadly, a road accident while preparing for 2020 dealt a final blow. We knew he'd been in a coma, and hadn't been seen since then.

It's not every day someone gets front-page homages on RaceFans.net, David Land's YouTube channel, TouringCarTimes and Sportscar365, but Zanardi did, showing what a career he had in motor racing. Add a tribute on the official Paralympics page, and... what can you say? What a guy.

Ciao Alex.

[merpmonde]

The Gunma Ridge

In my previous post, I talked about a quirky station that probably wouldn't warrant a visit just for that. Luckily, Doai is at the foot of the Gunma Ridge Trail, a 100 km ridge along the border with Niigata - hence the Japanese name, Gunma Kenkyô Ryôsen Trail 群馬県境稜線トレイル. And that is spectacular, and throw in Doai for good measure.

This is a prime hiking area, and, in any other month than August and with less time constraints (I was on a day trip from Tokyo, escaping the sweltering city one last time on my long Japan exploration last summer), I might have attempted a climb or ventured further along. As it was, there's a ropeway under 2 km from Doai, an easy enough walk to get there, and rode up to Tenjin-tôge, which offers amazing views of the nearest peaks, Asahi-dake 朝日岳 and the notorious Tanigawa-dake.

This mountain apparently has quite a reputation, and hundreds of people have died on its slopes, more than Mount Everest (wiki). On the day of my visit, the upper ridge was shrouded in an unwelcoming layer of cloud that seemed to be rolling down the mountain, though it never did actually descend. The strange non-moving movement had me mesmerised for a time, when I wasn't taking in the rest of the panorama.

At the top of the ropeway is a leisure area, used for skiing in winter and various activities in summer. A few badminton nets were set up when I was there. That and it's just a gorgeous place to walk around.

As mentioned above, Tenjin Ridge is accessible on a day trip from Tokyo: Jôetsu Shinkansen to Echigo-Yuzawa (itself worth a stop), then a local train to Doai. Be aware the local trains are few and far between, so the journey requires some careful time planning.

[merpmonde]

Doai, "Japan's number one mole station"!

Located in the rather remote mountainous area on the border between Gunma and Niigata prefectures, Doai has been gaining cult status among rail fans for its uniquely split configuration.

On the surface is the Southbound platform, with a single line. Perhaps today this single line would be enough, as the traffic is limited to just over a dozen local trains (E129 series) per day between Nagaoka and Minakami. But before the Jôetsu Shinkansen, the Jôetsu line was an important express route to Niigata, so the line was built double-tracked. It's just that the other track is... erm... over there, through that corridor...

... hmmm, yes, this is already quite the experience ...

... and now just down these stairs ...

Holy cow. 486 steps down.

The Northbound platform is in the Shin-Shimizu tunnel, opened in 1967. It is 400 metres away from the Southbound platform, and 70 metres below it. It takes 10 minutes to go up - that's what the signs say, anyway, I was fortunate in my outing to only go down.

It's definitely got atmosphere, and of course, being a very rural station, it's unmanned, you're on your own! I wouldn't go there just to visit the station as it's a long wait between trains, but luckily, there is something very nice nearby, so it's worth coming out to this area (next post), and experiencing the "mole station" if you get the chance!

[merpmonde]

Coming soon: local train cruise around the Bodensee

As you've guessed from the latest posts, I'm back from a fabulous week travelling around the Bodensee, or Lake Constance - answers to where I've been in the replies of those posts. I plan a detailed write-up in the style of my other "local train cruises" soon, but it could be a rather long series, so I'm thinking of posting an episode per week.

Meanwhile, have a few views of Lindau, at the South-East end of the lake, the last German town on that side before heading into Austria.

[merpmonde]

Bodensee tour complete! And below, three more locations to guess, in Austria and Switzerland, two of which are on the map from the last post.