Rail Photos, Part 2

I had forgotten all about this shot until I went through the roll of Kodacolor Gold 200 that I shot in Munich. So....this is jumping from the morning of the 18th back to the evening of the 17th. If you look carefully in the middle of the street, you can see some old tram tracks still in place. To the best of my knowledge, they're out of service due to there being no cantenary on this street. If you follow the tracks back, you eventually get to the park where they hold the Oktoberfest celebrations, arguably the most famous in Germany. Does anybody know the history of these tracks? I'm curious.

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.

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.

I have a few ICE photos scattered throughout my photo collection, but only a few on Flickr. I took this one in Munchen Hbf as I was about to get on my train (which wasn't an ICE). #401509-5 is one of the original 401 Class ICE sets from the early 1990's, meaning it can cruise as fast as 280 Km/h (173 m.p.h.) given a dedicated high-speed line rated for 280. That's impressive enough to American ears, but the newer 403 Class can reach 330 Km/h (205 m.p.h.), so it isn't like progress stopped with the first sets, either.

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.

Germany is almost as much of a beer-oriented country as the Czech Republic, but nevertheless my first Czech beer on the way back was before we crossed the border.

Here's Schwandorf Bahnhof, or station, with some other privately-operated trains visible. I don't know too much about them yet.

I'm unaware of whether this is still an interlocking signalbox, or something else (probably something else given that DB is one of the most modern railways in the world), but it's definitely occupied.

Domazlice was the first Czech rail station that I photographed, albeit with my cameraphone, just after crossing the border.

This taken at a new trainspotting position I discovered a few weeks ago while waiting at Nadrazi Hostivar (in the distance on the right). It's a pedestrian bridge over the north throat of the yard, which I had noticed before but never taken seriously as a spotting position. Now I know it's actually a nice spot. This Class 150 electric was running light, although where it was headed I don't know.

Here's another one of several shots (not all uploaded to Flickr or iPernity, since these were cameraphone shots and not so impressive), that I took on my first day spotting from the pedestrian bridge. This Class 451 "Pantograph" is working a service to Hlavni Nadrazi, departing Hostivar. I'm unaware of whether this train originated in Benesov or Strancice, but it would be one or the other.

This is the first serious photo of my walking tour of the old mainline "Linka 011," or the Prague connection to it via the East throat of Hlavni Nadrazi, which was recently, and very quickly, converted to a bike and hiking trail. Actually, the trail is so new that Google Earth still shows this line as it was before conversion. I formerly listed this as Linka 171 by mistake. 171 is actually for westbound traffic, whereas this line is for eastbound traffic towards Kolin, Poricany, Pardubice, and so on. I'm fairly certain also, given my travels, that I was over this line many times in its last years of operation, which might make it the first rail line that I rode prior to abandonment, unless the abandonment of the old DL&W Utica-Chenango Forks pre-dates it. They were both abandoned around the same time, although the DL&W was only abandoned Norwich-Chenango Forks (unless I'm mistaken). I've also done a video version of this, shot several weeks later, but I haven't released it either online or on DVD, as it's sort of unpolished. I haven't decided whether I ever will release it, so this photo series will be all for now.

For some reason, this hi-rail ditch digger has been parked here on the old line for some time, in spite of the fact that a regular ditch digger will now do. I don't know how long it's been here, but it's clearly not abandoned.

This is the new Linka 011, which is much straighter than the original line, and is double-track all the way, in contrast to the old line, which was oddly single-track over much of its length, maybe a legacy of lower-traffic times. This new line, in order to achieve its more favourable grade, is constructed over a series of viaducts over Karlin, and through tunnels, until finally levelling out on the ground slightly out of town. On the old line, there is one tunnel that's being converted to be part of the bike trail, but the use of tunnels isn't as extensive on the old grade.