Vias GmbH is a train operator company which is today owned 50% by the Danish state railways DSB and 50% by Rurtalbahn GmbH. Vias operates seven
Regionalbahn or Regionalexpress lines especially in the Frankfurt-Darmstadt direction. Vias operates with Stadler FLIRT, Bombardier Itino and
Alstom LINT trains.
This one is a Bombardier Itino. The type Itino comes originally from the company ADtranz, which already in the 1990s designed a family of one,
two and three cars long diesel railbuses. But then ADtranz went belly up and was dissolved. The one coach version is now called RegioShuttle RS1
and it is produced and has been further devloped by Stadler Rail of Switzerland. The two coach version became this what today is the Bombardier
Itino. There are two and three cars long Itino trains. Itinos just like the RS1 have MAN diesel engines, similar than the ones used in buses.
Whereas the RS1 was a true success, Itino was not. Several Swedish private rail companies bought Itinos, but there were really a lot of technical
problems with them, which meant that the whole type became commercially a flop. In Germany only a handful of Itinos are used, only 27 trains
in total. The key users in Germany are Erfurter Bahn in eastern Gerany and Vias.
Vias uses these Itino trains of its Odenwaldbahn service between Hanau, Darmstadt and Eberbach. The trains are owned by the local authroities
through their company Fahrzeugmanagement Region Frankfurt RheinMain GmbH and Vias is just the operator.
Picture from Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof 3.6.2022 by Ilkka Siissalo.
Vias' Stadler FLIRT train at Frankfurt am Main. Vias uses FLIRT trains in the direction of Frankfurt to Mainz-Wiesbaden-Rüdesheim-Koblenz,
south along the river Rhein.
Picture from Frankfurt am Main Hauptbahnhof 3.6.2022 by Ilkka Siissalo.
A FLIRT train of Vias on its way from Frankfurt to Koblenz is stopping at the station of Hattenheim.
Picture 16.12.2016 by Ilkka Siissalo.
The famous wine producing village of Rüdesheim with a Vias FLIRT stopping at its station by the shoreline of river Rhein.
Picture 16.12.2016 by Ilkka Siissalo.
