Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: 301

During my 2015 visit to Central New York, I saw this Ford Model T woodie wagon numerous times, but I have very little idea of its history. This website seems to be about it: www.modeltcentral.com/1920s-ford-model-t-depot-hack.html However, I can't be sure, as the Model T on that website lacks a lot of this one's distinct custom features, like the cowbells hanging from the suspension. The spare tire also doesn't match the photo on the website. It occurs to me that they may have been part of the same fleet of taxis serving the Poughkeepsie railroad station. This was, in fact, the original purpose of all station wagons, hence the name. They became popular family transportation much later. The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan maintains a small fleet of these woodies so that visitors can ride in Ford's most famous and revolutionary product (the Mustang, after all, did not originate personal motoring).

This is way back in the woods in the Root Glen. It isn't clear what it is, but the seat seems to indicate a piece of farming equipment of some kind. I'm fairly sure it isn't a tractor, but beyond that, any further information would be interesting.

The Root Glen, on the grounds of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, is named not for having a lot of roots (although it does due to the trees), but for Oren Root, a professor of Mathematics at Hamilton College who was the father of Elihu Root, who is usually the person more associated with the Glen. Elihu Root, was a Senator for New York (1909-1915), United States Secretary of War (1899-1904), and United States Secretary of State (1905-1909). Eventually he also studied at Hamilton College, as did his son, also named Elihu Root. According to this website: www.hamilton.edu/arboretum/root-glen/root-glen-history ...the Glen is officially named after the Root family, who maintained it until 1971, when it was fully transferred to Hamilton College

When CNL457 was cancelled, along with most other trains out of Koln Hbf on the evening of the 20th of May, the hotels were immediately filled in Koln, meaning that to get my hotel room, I had to go to Dortmund, again using a special ticket for a Regional Express there (if memory and subsequent research serves, it was RE10143 or RE10145). I didn't get any photos that night, but I did shoot this extremely early in the morning the next day. DB's solution to my problem was to put me on ICE513 first thing the next morning, at 0636, to be precise. Since this happened, my understanding is that this was not the most direct way to get me to Nurnberg (Nuremberg) Hbf, where I had to get the DB bus to Prague. The reason is that ICE513 skips Nurnberg, instead operating to Munchen (Munich) Hbf via Mannheim, rather than Hanau and Nurnberg. Therefore, I had to change in Mannheim for the bus, which actually originates in Strasbourg, and calls at Mannheim before Nurnberg, continuing direct to Prague from there. I presume this weird routing had something to do with the rail strike.

This sign is actually only the platform destination board showing what train is at the platform, so this wasn't taken in Munich at all. Instead, this was Mannheim, where I got my bus to Prague. This put my arrival time at 1618, hours behind the scheduled time of 0927. Controversially, however, CNL457 has since been withdrawn, as DB have decided to replace all their sleepers with ICE high speed trains. However, a number of sleeper trains operated by foreign companies will remain.

This is the third stop on the ICE513 schedule, and hardcore rail simulation fans will now recognize this route from Jens Schubert's Railsim, arguably the best route that comes with it.

This was the sixth stop on the route, and the last before Frankfurt. Bonn is more interesting in historic terms generally, rather than having much to do with railways. During the Cold War, Bonn was the capital of West Germany.

By this time of the morning, the DB stations were starting to fill up with commuters and other passengers. This stop is scheduled for a 0724 arrival and 0727 departure. Getting back to Railsim, this is where the Dortmund-Dusseldorf route terminates, although in real life, of course, it continues east.

Essen Hbf is the second scheduled stop for ICE513. I can't recall if I ever had been here before, which is weird because I must have been. I've been over this route many, many times, so the question is whether I have any photos buried away.

This was one of those lucky shots, like most rainbow photographs. I was particularly lucky that my cameraphone could expose properly in this situation. It has almost no ability, for example, to capture sunsets. That big truss(?) in the background on the left is part of the Millennium Stadium.

I was in Koln to catch the CityNightLine train 457 for Prague. However, this was my first ever rail trip across Europe when there was ever a problem. My trip back coincided with a national rail strike in Germany, which meant that they had to put us up in hotels after CNL457 was cancelled without warning late at night, as seen by the departure time on this platform board, but not by any notice of cancellation, as there was none.

Most cathedrals in Europe, to the best of my knowledge (I'm not an expert on architecture) date to the middle ages, and as such most are gothic, and perpetually under reconstruction. This is in line with their situation historically, as many took hundreds of years to build. In the case of Koln Cathedral, original construction lasted from 1248 to 1880, although construction was halted between 1473 and the 19th Century (I haven't been able to find an exact date). I don't know much about this restoration, but as I said, it is rare to find a European cathedral without any scaffolding on it.

I saw these containers a number of places in Britain, and they struck me as an often unexplored area of rail marketing, namely the lower CO2 emissions possible with rail transport. This has always been the main marketing point of rail transport, at least as a government policy, in the modern era, although obviously to work, such a policy has to be implemented reasonably efficiently. For example, a one-car freight train will not have the advantage of a 100-car freight train. Britain generally is somewhere in the middle, running 20 to 40 cars typically, as in the rest of Europe.

This is the old Cardiff bus station, in front of the Cardiff Central train station. The location was ideal, so naturally the auto lobby had to pressure the city to move it far out in the suburbs, where no one could access it. However, this turns out to have not happened, and may have been an urban legend (although usually such things are not) as the new station will be on the same location as the old one. I took this photo from a building that used to be a terminal building of sorts, although at the time it was serving as a temporary location for the city library, which was also under reconstruction. The (real) new bus terminal will be located on the same block, but to my left in this picture, on the corner where Burger King is now. www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/first-images-cardiffs-new-bus-9532831

St. Fagans was originally a castle, with the gardens seen here, but today it is the national museum of Wales. It isn't particularly photogenic unless you're talking about the gardens, but they do try to give you a good presentation of Welsh rural life over the past 175 years or so, with the predicable farming equipment, buildings, and so on. However, the National Museum in Cardiff has better mining displays.

Although the foundations date to 1305, the present Zamek Decin dates to 1788. It overlooks the city of Decin, and is easily visible from the mainline into Germany, where I shot this from. Decin in the last stop before entering Germany, although before the Schengen agreement both Decin and Bad Schandau had border controls, although there were stations closer to the border on either side.

Whenever I visit Wales, the final leg is on the old Great Western Mainline from London Paddington. This was my train, and I noted the number of one of the power units, 43134, something I hadn't done in a number of years (I'm usually too exhausted for railfanning by the time I get to London). #43134 is actually unnamed, although presently and historically, many Class 43 (formerly Class 253) power units have been, both recently and historically.

I don't remember how many times I've shot cameraphone, or other, photos of Aachen station, but I have also been through the station more times than I can count. In addition to hosting DB Intercity services, seen in the background, the station also hosts Eurocity trains like the one I was on, and Thalys high-speed trains like the one in the foreground. The Thalys looks a lot like a third-generation French TGV, and in fact it is, with the caveat that it is a multi-voltage variant that was never used by regular SNCF services. The Thalys service is actually shared between SNCF (in France), SNCB (in Belgium), NS (in the Netherlands), and DB (in Germany, as seen here). The maximum service speed for the Thalys trains is 300Km/h, or 186 m.p.h., but the trains operate on both high-speed lines and conventional mainlines.