Munchen (Munich)

I think I had read somewhere that DB rented out bikes, but I had never actually found one and photographed one before. This one wasn't too far from the Karlsplatz.

The Oberlandesgericht looks like a vintage 19th-Century factory, but in reality it's a court of appeal, which makes sense since it's right next door to the Justice Palace. I haven't been able to find out if its still in operation, though, as it appears to be under reconstruction.

This is one of the trams operated by MVG, which is the Munich transit authority. I don't know a lot about the system, but this appears to be an R3_3 Class. This was taken on Prielmayerstrasse.

Here's another tram on Prielmayerstrasse.

Constructed in 1890-1897 in Neo-Baroque style, the Justice Palace in Munich houses several different courts, including District Court I, and also houses the Bavarian Department of Justice. One of the most famous cases to be tried here was that of the White Rose activists Hans Scholl, Sophie School, and Christoph Probst, who were subsequently guillotined for distributing anti-war pamphlets.

Like most railway stations constructed between the 1940's and the 1980's, many people would consider Munchen Hbf to be ugly. I would argue, however, that since it has been fairly well-maintained, and has fairly clean lines, it isn't as ugly as some stations of its era and style.

This was the only tram in Munich that I was able to get the number of, confirming it as an R3_3 class. The numbers on the Munich trams are quite small, so that's why I've had trouble capturing them properly in a photo.

This bird doesn't look big enough to be a raven, but I'm leaning in the direction of saying that it is because of the beak, which is actually hard to see in this photo. The photo also creates the illusion, for whatever reason, that this bird was short and chubby, which wasn't actually the case. Can anybody identify the species for certain?

I know very little about the Old Botanical Gardens, and in fact I only identified them later, after I looked them up on a map.

This fountain is maybe halfway along the path on the right which I was following.

The Sendlinger Tor, constructed in about 1318, was surprisingly to guard the main trade route to Italy, which by medieval standards was quite far away from Munich. The current gate isn't really authentic, though, as there was a central tower until 1808, and the arch replacing it dates to 1906. The two pedestrian arches are of similar vintage.

Named for the architect Cosmas Damian Asam, and having actually little connection to anything Arabic, the Asamkirche was built in 1733-1746. It is also known as the Church of St. Johann (John) of Nepomuk. The priest's house next door (on the left in this photo), was constructed in 1771, and came to be known as the Asamhaus.

Here's a lower shot of the Asamkirche, showing the front door.

The Munchner Stadtmuseum, as the name suggests, is the city museum of Munich, with exhibits concentrating on art and history, but more history. Categories of exhibit include musical instruments and carnival games and puppetry, as well as a general collection of artifacts from each era of Munich's history.

Here's another Class 111 that I found in Munchen Hbf as I prepared to head back to Prague.

DB's Class 115 electric locomotives, of which 115154-7 on the left is one, are actually Class 110 and 113 units which have been redesignated for local and autotrain services. Classes 110 and 113 are in turn variants of the original DB E10 Class electrics introduced in 1956, being produced until 1969, with all units being redesignated Classes 110 and 112 in 1968, with an additional Class 114 being created through reclassification of the last 112 Class units in 1988. In addition, in 1991 the older Class 112's were reclassified 113, eliminating Class 112 as a Class designation. These locomotives, while they obviously vary in specifications, hence the different classifications, put out 5,000 horsepower (impressive for 1956), and can run between 120 and 160 Km/h, depending on how they're equipped. Originally, they were only rated for 130 Km/h, but the higher-speed variants were introduced both from new production and requalification of older units. The prototypes had only been rated for 125, but this was raised so that they could be reclassified as express locomotives. The Class 440 EMU on the right is of an entirely different era, however. Marketed by Alstom as the Coradia Continental, and DB have operated these since 2008. However, they have a longer history in Britain, where they were used on First Great Western starting in the early 2000's, with later production units being classified as Class 180 Adelantes (The earlier Class 175 Units were just called Coradias or Coradia 1000's.). These are actually very fast trains by diesel standards, being capable of operating at 125 m.p.h. The 440's are EMU's, however, as Alsthom market the same carbody series as either. The diesel version is classified as Class 640 or 648 on DB.

MRCE, or Mitsui Rail Capital Europe, is the European division of Mitsui Rail Capital (MRC), one of the many companies in the past 15 years specialising in the leasing of rail equipment on an as-needed basis to railway companies. This was the first time that I had seen any leased locomotive in Germany, though, as rolling stock leasing companies more often lease out freight cars, with GATX being one of the oldest and most famous such companies (they also lease locomotives now, even if their freight car leasing business dates back to 1898). GATX got their start in the United States, where rolling stock leasing has generally been ahead of the rest of the world, and MRC, while Japanese-owned, was actually started officially in Illinois (in the U.S.A.) in 1996, riding the wave of locomotive leasing that changed the face of American railroading towards the end of that decade. In Germany, locomotive leasing is relatively new, with leased locomotives being called "dispoloks" following Swiss terminology (if I have my history right). In any case, getting to this locomotive, this is an older variant of the Seimens Eurosprinter, the ES 64 F4, intended mainly for freight service, with 8,583 horsepower and a 140 Km/h maximum operating speed. Nevertheless, as you can see, it can also be used in passenger services, as no freight trains use Munchen Hbf, and I have found many other photos of these units being used here.