Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Seimens

This may be out of chronological order with the Hbf shot, as it doesn't really make sense where this is on my list. In any case, this is the tram stop for the largest Synagogue in Dresden, seen on the right. It's actually a very well-equipped Synagogue, with sports facilities and so on, as well as this dedicated tram stop. The building isn't what it seems the first few times you look at it, as it has many interesting features hiding in plain view. For example, one portion of it (not visible here) is "twisted," in a not-so-obvious way, and it renaissance-style brickwork that you see here looks different depending on how close you are or what angle you're looking at it from. Needless to say, it doesn't look so Renaissance from every angle, as this is a thoroughly modern building. I didn't take this photo for the Synagogue, though. I just saw a tram coming, and took a couple of shots of the tram.

Well...here it is....my first public video on iPernity. Had Flickr's policies not driven me over here with so many other people, this would also go on Flickr, but instead this is an iPernity exclusive for now. I shot this video seconds before the photo I uploaded right before this.

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.

This is the I.P. Pavlova Metro station, one of the oldest on the system, built around 1970, if I'm not mistaken. Construction of the Metro lasted from about 1967-1974, with service starting between what is now Florenc (then called Sokolovska) and Kacerov in 1974.

Here's a shot right down the middle of the aisle. The M1's come in two seating configurations that I know of, one without any seats facing inward, and one with them, like this one. To the best of my knowledge, nearly everyone prefers this configuration, as the former obstructs seating, standing, and movement through the coach. Generally speaking, I can't think of what moron would think that using seats not facing inward on a Metro train would be a good idea, as I've nearly had my knees taken out, or been shoved into the seats by rude people, on multiple occassions. For that matter, I think that ALL of the seats should face in, as on the old Russian Metro trains that were still in use when I moved to Prague. This is the system used on the New York City subway, the Tokyo subway, the Budapest Metro, and most of the London Underground (with the exception of the Metropolitan and East London Lines), so it's a no-brainer that it's quite standard throughout the world for a reason.

The light traffic at the hour I did my shoot allowed me to get some decent interior shots of the M1.

DPP started to take delivery of their Seimens M1 Metro trains in 1998, but it took until 2003 for them to fully replace the Communist-era trains on the C-Line, or red line. By the time I arrived a few years later, they were already badly vandalised, but since that time they've been cleaned up. Really, Prague needs more of them, on the C-Line and elsewhere, but DPP are stalling on buying new rolling stock. The trains have become quite overloaded in the past two years, and still the problem continues. On this night, however, the trains were pretty empty because it was too early for the clubbers to be coming home, yet too late for most of them to be heading out, even though it was Saturday.