2009-07-11 49 8

Location

Today's coordinates are located near a playing field and some tennis courts north of Kirrweiler and east of Diedesfeld, south of Neustadt an der Weinstraße. Closest train station is Maikammer-Kirrweiler, which conveniently is the last station I can reach with my KVV-ticket.

Planning

My train leaves Karlsruhe Main Station at 14:34 on platform 1, arrives in Maikammer-Kirrweiler at 15:38. From there, it's about 3 kilometers, which I'll go by bike, reaching the Hashpoint, hopefully at 16:00.

Expedition by Koepfel

Live from the Expedition

reporting live from karlsruhe main station. Train is 30 min delayed due to an accident at a level crossing. 12:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
i am now in a delayed express train to neustadt. Doesn't stop in kirrweiler though. 12:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
the express train terminated in landau, where i had a connection to a local train to neustadt via kirrweiler. I might make the 16:00 meetup after all 13:34, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
hashpoint was reached at 16:00, on public accessible land \o/ 14:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Report

During the morning before the expedition, I checked out my train's departure times online several times. Trains on the same line before mine were delayed up to 30 minutes, some were even cancelled. I was hoping, that due to the cancelled trains, the schedule would be back to normel when I was going. So I started at Karlsruhe Kronenplatz at 14:15 and biked to the main station.

At the station, I checked out the table of departures. My train (#5 on the list, scheduled to leave at 14:37) had no delay announced at this moment, however #1 on the list is an express train on the same line, currently 30 minutes delayed. At platform 1, where my local train was supposed to leave, the delayed express train was now announced. Also, an audio announcement said, that my 14:37 local train was delayed as well, so I unchecked the 16:00 saturday meetup in my head and even thought about giving up, when at 14:40 the delayed express train entered the station. This train would only stop at Wörth, Winden, Landau and Neustadt, but not at Kirrweiler, I got on anyway, with the intention of going to Landau and hoping to catch the local train from Wissembourg to Neustadt there. The train was incredibly crowded, including 6 bikes and one baby pushchair (official bike capacity of the compartment I was in is 4) and some very drunk people playing crappy music on their stereo.

Shortly before Landau, the train driver announced, that due to the extreme delay, this train would terminate in Landau and go back to Karlsruhe. Passengers to Neustadt should change to the local train from Wissembourg, which sould be arriving in a couple of minutes, which it actually did. This being a local train stopping at all stations, I was getting more optimistic about the 16:00 geohash.

At 15:43, I arrived in Maikammer-Kirrweiler. 15 minutes and about 3 kilometers to go. Sounds possible.

So i raced through the wine fields, passing the tennis courts at 15:53 and reaching the coordiantes at 16:00.

I parked my bike at a path, seperating a wine field on the left and the football field (this kind of football) on the right. Also on the right was a small creek. The playing field was surrounded by a fence, which had several locked exit doors in it. Next to these doors were small bridges over the creek. The GPS actually zeroed outside the fence, so I didn't have to enter the playing field. I rested on the bridge for a couple of minutes and then went on to check out the rest of the area. The field is owned by the TuS Diedesfeld, who were acutally training while I was there.

Then, I went back trhough the wine fields to Kirrweiler, where, after waiting about 29 minutes, I got on the 17:21 train back to Karlsruhe. Apparently, operation on the line was back to normal by now.