S-Bahn Hamburg

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I have a vacation home just outside Hamburg in Norderstedt. Use the S1 all the time from Ohlsdorf to Hbf or other locations,
Great ride, clean, on-time performance, as are the U bahns in Hamburg. Don't have, or need an auto there, the metro transportation system in and around Hamburg is superb.

Are the semaphores still in service in Blankenese? Also, the last time I was in Hamburg the S-Bahn still had two classes, with 6-car trains arranged
2-1-2-2-1-2, which seemed like a lot of first class; do they still have two classes, and has the ratio changed?

Haven't been to Blankenese for a while but :
>https://farm9.static.flickr.com/8705/16 ... 1b69_b.jpg
S Bahns gave up first class several years ago.

CarterB wrote: Great ride, clean, on-time performance, as are the U bahns in Hamburg. Don't have, or need an auto there, the metro transportations system in and around Hamburg is superb.

It sounds like heaven to me. The railroad I work for in New Jersey has delays and cancellations every day. When people buy tickets from me to use in the future, I try to impress on them the need to allow extra time in case their train has bad luck.

philipmartin wrote: It sounds like heaven to me. The railroad I work for in New Jersey has delays and cancellations every day. When people buy tickets from me to use in the future, I try to impress on them the need to allow extra time in case their train has bad luck.

Philip, I've been going to Germany every year for over 25 years. Ridden most of the DB rail system, on ICE, CityNightLine, DB, EC and RB trains all over all parts of Germany. S bahns, U bahns and trams in the cities. Never ONCE had a connection delay. Including LD trips.
In Hamburg, I never need an auto.
Regional/local rail goes everywhere, with good or new equipment, quite, smooth and on time. Ticketing is easy on machines everywhere, zone fares which are transferable to bus where needed or appropriate.

Too bad we can't do it. Every now and then I see someone who is really distressed by a service disruption.
Just to give my employer credit in the ticketing field, besides ticket agents, (like me) and ticket vending machines everywhere, you can also buy and display tickets on your smart phone for transportation. This feature is extremely pulsar.

CarterB wrote:Haven't been to Blankenese for a while but :
>https://farm9.static.flickr.com/8705/16 ... 1b69_b.jpg
S Bahns gave up first class several years ago.

Great photo--just as I remembered it. Maintenance nuisance but railfan delight. Thanks for digging it up.
And the fare arrangement is one of the best features over there from a user standpoint--buy a single ticket or weekly or monthly for the territory you need and ride anything that's convenient, and the respective operators have periodic meetings to decide how to divide up the revenue based on overall ridership. Too bad we can't seem to get that together in this country.

Which reminds me, regarding service reliability: a number of years ago I read an article about how one of the operators (I think the S-Bahn, but maybe the U-Bahn) worked out a deal with the unions that a shop employee would be assigned a specific quantity of work, and when that work was completed he could leave for the day. The other side of the coin was that if any equipment he released for service failed within a stated period (6 months?) he had to come in and fix it without being paid for his time. Have you seen or heard anything about how that worked out?