Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: deutsche bahn

I was very much struck by how retro this train looked, and I do in fact wonder about its age. I don't know very much about Swedish equipment.

This night train from Stockholm (I think) was sitting in Berlin Hbf when I arrived early in the morning, having just arrived after rolling all night.

This is part of the trail through the Bruckenmeisterei/Rangierbahnhof Tempelhof park, made out of one of the old tracks, as like I said almost nothing was scrapped.

I'm not actually posting Picture 2, as it was a bracket and I don't think it was very good. :-) This is another, clearer shot of the abandoned turnout in the last shot.

Here's the turnout that the abandoned switchstand was connected to. If I'm not mistake this was on or near the hump.

This was a switchstand that I found near the hump in the Rangierbahnhof Tempelhof park, by all appearances a powered one, again somewhat unusual for a steam-era yard, illustrating how sophisticated this yard once was.

This tunnel, not original, but made out of a pipe found somewhere, is part of a park that used to be a railway freight yard. The tour guide said the yard was originally called Rangierbahnhof Tempelhof, although all the signs I saw said Bruckenmeisterei, so whichever one it is. Much of the infrastructure, all of it steam-era, is still intact, as the yard was in control of the Soviets (as was all of the rail infrastructure in Berlin) after World War II, and lacking adequate international traffic to keep it going, it was eventually abandoned, with almost everything sitting abandoned until 1989, when it became the park that it is now.

I took this on Lotte-Lenge-Bogenstrasse, and until I looked at the full size version of the scan, I couldn't remember why I had taken it. Up on the railway bridge is the answer, however, as this is one of my only photos (and maybe the only one) of a Berlin S-Bahn Zug, or train.

I almost forgot this yesterday, but this was where my Berlin tour started, as the tour guide wanted to go here first. As in most major mainland European cities, Berlin's mainline, commuter, and urban transit railways are integrated (and were even under Communism, when the Communists were given charge of the railways in both the East and the West of Berlin). In general, the transport network is well unified and functional, unlike in London, where it's been partly privatized and fragmented beyond belief, or in L.A., where it transport means either a 10 m.p.h. traffic jam, or an 80 m.p.h. demolition derby. Here you can see Berlin Zoologicher Garten Bahnhof, which has both mainline and subway trains, in the foreground in a bus stop, and of course there are quite a few bicycles as well.

I first rode behind a DB 101 Class electric in 1998, on an Intercity service from Emmerich to Koln. That was a very memorable trip, and since then I've ridden behind a 101 on other occasions as well. They're very fast (for a locomotive as opposed to a trainset) being able to hit 220Km/h with little effort, although officially they only do 200Km/h in service with their 10-12 car Intercities, very powerful (the Class 103 is the only large German electric class to ever beat it), and just...well...good looking. The bright cherry red that DB uses for its Intercity equipment nowadays suits them especially well. Therefore, I figure I should use any excuse to put a picture of a 101 on my website, so here it is. I took this is Dresden Hauptbahnhof in 2005, where I was catching a Eurocity service to Prague. They cut the 101 off in Bad Schandau or Decin, if I'm not mistaken, replacing it with a CD Class 363.

This was a very lucky shot, although not perfect. I had gotten on the train, and was regretting the fact that I didn't have the chance to catch this earlier, when it went by on the mainline when I was in the wrong part of Dresden to get a good angle on it (I only saw and heard the exhaust through the trees). Much to my amazement, my camera was already in my hands, and there it was, moving slowly enough for me to get this shot!!! It's an old DRG Class 50 2-10-0, repainted for DB, as after World War II DB didn't get rid of steam until 1978, and even after that the DR kept it, so today a lot of it has been preserved.

I saw this coming from a long way off, but didn't get the classic angle of it bearing down on me, although I regretted it somewhat later, as I never got the number. This Ceske Drahy Class 371 electric was pulling a MAV (Hungarian State Railways) Eurocity from somewhere in Germany to Budapest, via Prague, so it obviously wasn't going to stop in Roztoky, and I wanted to be sure that I got this pan shot. I set my camera up, passed up the offset head-on view, and swung my body around for the pan. It worked perfectly, and now I have this, which may be my best pan shot ever. I hope you like it.

After I arrived in Berlin, there wasn't much to do for a few hours, so I walked around taking photos before getting the next train #NZ242 for Bruxelles-Midi, at 2146. Berlin Hbf was recently restored and rebuilt massively, and bears little resemblence at this point to the steam-era station. It's as much mall as station, like Washington Union, Cleveland Union Terminal (but with more trains), London Liverpool Street, or London Waterloo in this respect. The food isn't too bad, and the shopping is so-so. I didn't find anything worth buying.

This was my train, a Nacht Zug, or Couchette, which had just got me into Berlin in the extreme early morning hours, hence the darkness. These Class 120 electrics aren't monstrously fast, but they're powerful, versatile, and enough.

Wagons-Lits are better known for providing sleepers and other luxury passenger equipment for the Orient Express, but indeed they do provide a full sleeper service to many carriers. RZD, the Russian Railway, is a major customer, and their sleeper trains, equipped with Wagons-Lits stock, connect Moscow and St. Petersburg to many Eastern and Central European cities such as Prague, Budapest, Karlovy Vary, and of course Berlin, seen here. This is a fuller, but less sharp, alternate of Picture 1.

Wagons-Lits are better known for providing sleepers and other luxury passenger equipment for the Orient Express, but indeed they do provide a full sleeper service to many carriers. RZD, the Russian Railway, is a major customer, and their sleeper trains, equipped with Wagons-Lits stock, connect Moscow and St. Petersburg to many Eastern and Central European cities such as Prague, Budapest, Karlovy Vary, and of course Berlin, seen here.

I attempted a number of shots from the Berlin Television Tower, but regrettably this was one of the only ones that came out because the windows were very dirty that day. I can't tell if this train was an Intercity or a Eurocity, but it would be one or the other, as that's DB Intercity equipment, which is also used on the Eurocities.