This summer”s train watching tour takes me to England. Having visited the island last time in 2004, a trip to the homeland of railroading was overdue indeed. For the seven days I will travel to mostly train related places near London as well as check out a museum further up north. London Like most capitals, London is a major hub for railways and a good place for rail enthusiast to be. My favorite spot is Clapham Junction– the busiest station in Britain…
The joy and fun of train buffs is to hunt down the last survivors of a locomotive class. I got lucky with one of those still operating in the Austrian Railway (ÖBB) roster this weekend. 1142.682 is the last one in it’s class operating in the blood-orange paint scheme with three ivory-white trim lines, four doors as well as big head lights. I recently saw this machine with rapid trains between Linz and Graz, especially on Intercity 600 reaching Linz Hbf at 6:48pm. So…
Many people have visiting man made marvels on their bucket list. Walking the Great Wall in China, check Paris form the observation deck of the Eifel tower or climb the presidential trail towards the sculptures of Mount Rushmore. For me, seeing the the Franklin & South Manchester Railway, created by George Sellios was ranked high on my must-see list for years. Finally on a nice Saturday in June 2106 the dream became true and I visited the F&SM! A Landmark Layout George…
I remember, a while ago contemprary rail fans complained about the dullness of nowadays rolling stock. Boxy, fridge like locomotives pull consists in boring paint schemes. The variety in types faded into a few form factors based on standardized platforms. Therefore it’s not worth hanging out at the tracks anymore- let’s stay home and celebrate the good old days on our model pikes. Well, I am sure future generations of train buffs will sing the same song and feel sorry for being born too…
This is a story about hunting down a train for weeks and the final success! The Moscow – Nice Express which operates once a week comes through Upper Austria Friday afternoon on its westward trip and briefly calls at Linz main station on the run back home late Sunday afternoon. I first encountered the unique consist with modern Siemens built cars in a slick grey and red livery during my commute on a Friday afternoon in Linz. Curious about the unusual train I quickly…
This is an addendum to the previous post about the Terminal of the Westbahn in Vienna, Austria. Sometimes when watching trains the avid rail-fan runs into unusual compositions like the one pictured. I do not know the exact background for this train but it might be a transfer run. Anyways, it looks like ÖBB unwrapped a starter train set and put it on the rails along platform 2 just in front of the iconic hall of Wien Westbahnhof. So what do…
The line heading westward from Vienna all the way across Austria is called “Westbahn” and so to say my “home road”. Living in Linz, some 120 miles from the capital, I traveled that route numerous times and, until recently, Vienna Western Station or “Wien Westbahnhof” was the terminal of the trip. This changed in December 2015 when all long distance trains got rerouted towards the brand new Vienna Main Station (Wien Hbf.). Beside of being a hub for ÖBB commuter…
Being back in the Bay Area for business briefly, I took the chance to visit old friends as well as one of my favorite live steam operations. The Redwood Valley Railway is a miniature park railway running on 15 in. (381mm) track. The scale of the rolling stock is approximately 1:2.4 or 5″ (to the foot). The railway was started in the early 1950s by a fellow called Erich Thomson and reached a total length of track of about 1…
I headed for the small town of Leonding near Linz in order to capture the Nizza – Moscow Express. Although it was a cloudy day and almost freezing the chance of getting a nice shot of a train that comes through only once a week I was in a good mood. Well, the composition never showed up. Instead a very common and boring “West Bahn” bi-level MU passed by at the scheduled time- “what the heck….?!?” Anyways, even on a…
Since moving back to Europe I did not occupy some space for a model train set yet. What to do for the avid model railroader lacking a layout? Well armchair-modelrailroadign os one option but I look forward to some “Teppichbahning” (“Carpet Train-ing” – German model railroader slang for “running trains on the floor) as well as toying around with electronics. After years of neglecting programming and HW design I went back and looked at the options available today. I…