Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: hauptbahnhof

As usual, I took some train pictures in Dresden Hbf. This was one of my best, I think, composed with the bikes and all.

Here's a shot that I like better than Picture 5, although I chose to upload both anyway.

Here's a lucky shot that I got of my ICE (the one my friend was impressed by) pulling in.

Here's yet another tram shot. Notice Frankfurt Hbf in the background behind the trees.

Here's the exterior of Frankfurt Hbf, as monumental as the interior.

This was the tram in the background in Picture 1. This appears to be a TUI advertising livery, as most of the trams I saw had one advertising livery or another.

I took this just outside of Franfkurt Hbf. I don't know much about the Frankfurt tram system, but because I had a layover I chose to shoot some photos anyway.

The steam-era beauty of Frankfurt Hbf is to be seen everywhere, even in little details like this clock. More impressive is that this station survived World War II, although I'm sure it had to have been rebuilt (I don't know all the history of that).

Introduced in 1952, and originally designated the E10 Class, these electrics represent one of the oldest surviving locomotive classes in Germany, and for that matter the world. Equally impressive is that these units have managed to stay in passenger service in the country of the ICE. Power output is 3,700Kw, or 5,000 horsepower, which is also impressive for its era, tractive effort is 62,000 lbs., which is also good, and this is distributed through a Bo-Bo (or B-B) wheel configuration, with 85 metric tonnes overall weight (so figure 21.25 tonnes per axle, a heavy axle loading for Europe). The cruising speed for the best-maintained units is 140Km/h, although the maximum design speed is 150Km/h.

Here's one of the newer Classes of ICE introduced around the time of my first visit to Germany in 1998. At the time, the Class were still in testing, but now they have been in service for many years. Although there isn't a high-speed line in Germany yet that can accommodate their full 330Km/h (205 m.p.h.) cruising speed, they still get to run quite fast, up to at least 250Km/h on most high-speed lines.

Incredible as it may seem now, the original Class 401 are already over 20 years old and counting, and showing little of their age. I got to meet up with some old American friends on this trip, including one old hot rodder who was suitably impressed, not to mention surprised at our train's age. "It works," he said.

I first got to see Frankfurt's impressive Hauptbahnhof in 1998, and it still looks more or less the same. It naturally hosts a lot of ICE's and other express trains, so it's fun to watch trains here. The trainshed is also spectacular.

Although DB are famous for their ICE high-speed trains and respectable Intercities and Eurocities, local services worked by EMU's are still more in abundance. Here a Class 440 EMU, #440812-6, arrives in Nurnberg Hbf. In recent years, local-specific paint schemes have been given up in favor of all-red schemes not dissimilar to those used on Intercities (although the coaching stock on elite locomotive hauled trains and ICE's remains white with a red stripe).

Also called the ICT for its tilting mechanism, this class of ICE can be spotted by its stubbier nose than the similar (and contemporary) Class 403.

Believe it or not, the old DB Class 111 electrics from the 1970's, immortalized in Railroad Tycoon 2 and many other things, are still in service. This one was at Nurnberg (Nuremberg) Hauptbahnhof.

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.

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.

I decided to have a Weissbier in one of the pubs in Berlin Hbf while I waited for train #NZ242. From Berlin, it would be on to Brussels, then to London St. Pancras on the Eurostar, the London Underground to Paddington, and finally the Intercity 125 for Cardiff.