Hafen- und Bahnbetriebe der Stadt Krefeld

Updated: August 2026 – A small diesel locomotive pushes three wagons at walking pace over a set of points, someone gives a hand signal, then everything stands still again. What looks unspectacular from outside is a highly regulated process. Hafen- und Bahnbetriebe der Stadt Krefeld stands for a type of operation where exactly these movements shape everyday life. This page explains what the company name reveals and how shunting signals work.

What is Hafen- und Bahnbetriebe der Stadt Krefeld?

Going by its name, Hafen- und Bahnbetriebe der Stadt Krefeld is a municipally owned operation with rail-related tasks on the Lower Rhine. For a railway, the name is unusually open: it names its areas of activity in the plural and names its owner explicitly.

What it doesn’t name is anything that changes – vehicles, track lengths, customers, traffic volumes. That’s not a gap in this page but a deliberate choice: such figures change, and invented numbers would be worse than none at all.

Shunting is a movement type of its own

The biggest difference between a train movement and a shunting movement isn’t speed – it’s the rule basis. A train movement runs signal-controlled over a prepared path. A shunting movement moves vehicles within a facility – shorter, slower, often on sight, and with direct communication between the people involved.

The distinction matters: a signal aspect that authorises a shunting movement explicitly does not permit a train movement. Anyone who confuses the two regularly misreads movements at a station.

How to recognise shunting movements

Feature	Shunting movement	Train movement
Speed	Walking pace to slow	Set by the timetable and the line
Signal basis	Shunting signals, hand signals, radio	Main and distant signals, timetable
Rear-end marker	Not required	Required
Direction of travel	Changes frequently, forward and reverse	Usually continuous
Staff	Often at or walking alongside the vehicle	In the cab
Formation	Few wagons, changing	Fully formed train

Anyone who knows these differences also understands why some movements seem aimless. They aren’t – they simply follow a different set of rules. At municipal and works sidings, this area is often looked after by service providers such as AnschlussBahnProfis, who supply staff and the rulebook without running trains on the public network themselves. The guide to spotting at marshalling yards covers the same territory for larger facilities.

Typical vehicles in shunting and handover service

Short distances, tight curves and frequent starting call for different machines than line service. Compact diesel locomotives with high starting tractive effort are the norm here – top speed barely matters.

Common designs in this field are four-axle machines like the Vossloh G 1000 BB or the MaK G 1204 BB, plus the Class 294, widely used in handover service. Add to that older small locomotives built by Gmeinder Lokomotiven, which remain in service at industrial and port facilities to this day. Such used machines are overhauled and leased out by independent workshops like Railtec Eisenbahntechnik. This describes the vehicle type that suits this kind of operation – not the fleet of any particular company.

Hand signals and radio: the second layer of communication

Signals on a post are only part of the communication involved in shunting. Because shunting movements often run in reverse and the driver can’t see the whole path, a second person is needed to see what the driver can’t. This communication runs via hand signals or shunting radio – in practice, often both.

The signals are deliberately broad and visible from a distance: movements of the whole arm rather than small gestures, with a handheld lamp in the dark. Anyone watching a shunting movement from outside quickly recognises the pattern: a person clearly positioning themselves to be seen, a vehicle moving in short stages, and regular stops whenever visual contact is lost.

The practical benefit for you: once you can recognise the type of movement, you can judge better whether a vehicle is about to disappear again or will stay in the station area for a while. That decides whether waiting is worthwhile – and whether you’ll still have time to read the vehicle number calmly.

Documenting sightings at small operations

Documentation is particularly thin for shunting and works vehicles: they run little, they run briefly, and they often run where nobody’s watching. All the more reason for a clean note.

The article Who’s actually driving? Identifying the EVU describes how to get from an observation to the company. For comparison, it’s worth looking at other operations of the same kind, such as the Städtische Eisenbahn Krefeld, the Neusser Eisenbahn, or Häfen und Güterverkehr Köln.

Common mix-ups

• Slow movement doesn’t mean a fault. Shunting movements have to run on sight – the pace is prescribed.
• A shunting signal isn’t a train signal. It permits a shunting movement, not a train movement.
• Municipal ownership doesn’t mean city transport. A municipal rail operation has nothing to do with buses or trams.
• Similar names aren’t a sign of kinship. Several companies at the same location can be entirely independent of each other.
• Livery is no proof. Leased vehicles, too, often carry someone else’s colours and markings.

Conclusion

Municipal rail operations are an underrated part of the network: small vehicles, short distances, little documentation. Anyone who can read shunting signals and hand signals understands such movements far better from a safe distance – and produces sightings that otherwise barely exist.