Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: railway

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.

Kladno is a junction for local and commuter services in and out of Prague from the Northwest, and this Class 854 DMU had just brought me from Prague. There is also a small airport here, which I visited on my trip.

Hostivice is a suburb of Prague, and is one of the stations on the way to Kladno, where there is a small airport. The line is unelectrified, so most of the services are either Class 854 DMU's, like the one I rode, or Class 810 railbuses, seen here.

This is Trutnov Hlavni Nadrazi in Trutnov, where I had gone in an attempt to attend the Trutnov Open Air Music Festival. The Trutnov festival is an annual mainstream rock festival with hippie roots that was one of the first to start up after the Velvet Revolution. I ended up skipping it in the end in spite of having bought the train ticket, as it was overcrowded, secured like a prison (meaning that if there wasn't any place to camp, I would be stuck there with no place to sleep), and the security looked intrusive and hostile. By managing it like Woodstock '99, they lost the large ticket price that I could have paid them, and I ended up spending the day photographing the city of Trutnov. Trutnov isn't a bad place to sightsee, after all, as it dates to the 12th Century, and features many preserved buildings from the Baroque period and earlier.

This was my first rail photo with the new cameraphone. #7210 is a Tatra T3SU, built sometime in the 1970's.

This was my train back to Prague. If I'm remembering correctly, the only reason I made it was that it was late.

Here's a night shot of Hradec Kralove Hlavni Nadrazi after the long walk back from the airport, which I shortened towards the end with a night bus.

This was my train back to Prague at Rokycany. This 363 Class electric has the new CD blue and grey livery.

This is the station in Rokycany, near Plzen. Rokycany is also the location of a small airport for microlight and ultralight aircraft.

This was a lucky shot that I got coming back to Prague through Plzen.

This was my train back to Prague, with #362085-2 on the point.