The Vulkan Express (Brohl Lutzing) and Andernach - Tuesday 13th October 2009

I was very excited today about this little trip out. I can’t help it, it must be a boy thing. The Vulkan Express is a private railway that runs from the Rhine at Brohl Lutzing to Engeln, a small town in the volcanic national park. Chuffachuffa chuffachuffa poooop pooop!

Three trains run on the line, now, I’m not going to be able to list what they are, I’m nowhere near to that level, but one is a small steam tank engine, another is a small diesel and the last one is a diesel which has a carriage incorporated into the actual train.

We got to the station a little early for our train, it seems that for most of the summer they run trains on Tuesdays, Thursdays and at the weekend, twice daily. We were a good couple of hours early so we had a little wander round Brohl Lutzing. It was a quick wander. There were a couple of coffee shops and a large (very nice) church, which was about it. For its size it was odd as it had a huge station on a main line and motorway access. Leaving Brohl Lutzing we decided to head down the Rhine a little to Andernach.

Andernach is an old walled city that has just been modernised over time and before anyone realised what had happened, they had made a couple of architectural mistakes, the new town hall (Rathaus) for example. It looks a little bit inside out. It is a steel and glass building which, in the 70s and 80s was probably very modern, now it just looks dated and very ugly. Other than that the town is quite pretty. It’s a nice place to wander round and shop. Don’t miss the town square and the old town hall as they are very pretty.

We stopped for a little while to get some lunchables in the form of currywurst before heading back to Brohl Lutzing to the train.

On our return we found that the small diesel tank engine would be pulling us up the mountain. Attached were a small freight car, the passenger carriage and a dining car.

The passenger carriage was split into two halves. Both halves were the same and were wood panelled with wooden seats with overhead luggage racks.

The trip was about 1 hour, twenty minutes each way. The train took us up the hills through loads of little towns and stops and through the countryside, fields and meadows. I think that in May, if you get good weather, it would be even more pretty. All the alpine flowers would be out and the fields would all be green rather than ploughed. Never mind, the views were still outstanding. There was a man turkey-herding!

On reaching the top there was a small exhibit about fossils found in the area and a tea shop. Coffee and cake for us! Today’s cake was a cherry cheese cake, baked with icing on the top. As we found from our Black Forest trip, we only ordered once slice, which was more than enough for the both of us!

The fossil thing was rubbish. They’d carved some shapes into some rocks and then had a very badly designed “giant frog” and “iguanodon” made out of concrete.

After playing peek-a-boo with a small German child we got back on the train for the return journey. The sun was shining, and it was warm inside the carriage so the return journey was nice and relaxing.

It costs €12 per adult for the return ticket and I think it would be an ace way to spend an afternoon with kids. The company run a Christmas Service to meet Santa and they also do party nights where there is live music and dinner at the end of the train ride and endless amounts of booze. These are quite expensive but undoubtedly very fun!

The drive home was clear and we made it in about 45 minutes. Realising we actually had no food we decided to go over to the complex to the pizzeria, expensive but nice food the menu was not very exciting and the drinks were over priced but not a bad meal to be honest.