Tag Archives: Double track

photography

Exceptionally Busy Double Track—September 12, 2015—Dozens of photos!

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Die Bahn/Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) operates an intensive nation-wide railway network. The traffic on many lines is impressive.

Conveying volume in photographs is perhaps best done with image sequences.

On the morning of September 12, 2015, Stephen Hirsch, Denis McCabe, Gerry Conmy and I arrived at the Bonn-Beuel station (located on the Right Bank line between Koln and Koblenz) to make a few photographs.

Our choice of locations was fortuitous. As it turned out, planned line works at the Bonn Hauptbahnhof on the Left Bank line had resulted in diversions, and this normally busy line was pushed to its potential capacity.

In addition to the normal half-hourly passenger service and parade of freights, the line was also handling InterCity and EuroCity long distance express trains, plus a mix of freights that might ordinarily use the Left Bank route.

In addition to the two main tracks, Bonn-Beuel has passing loops (passing sidings), which were well used this day. In several instances, a train was held on the main track, while higher priority traffic was routed via the loops around it.

This selection of images is intended to demonstrate how DB handled a mix of traffic on a double track mainline; keep in mind that stopping passenger trains and freights coexisted on the same route.

I’ve included the time that each photograph was exposed, and organized them in chronological order.

10:35 am. Looking south at Bonn-Beuel. A freight is in the loop, a diverted IC train is northbound, while an diverted IC is accelerating away from the station in the distance.
10:35 am. Looking south at Bonn-Beuel. A freight is in the loop, a diverted IC train is northbound, while another diverted IC, southbound,  is seen accelerating away from the station in the distance.
10:36 am.
10:36 am.
10:36 am.
10:36 am.
10:38 am.
10:38 am.
10:39 am.
10:39 am.
10:42 am. Notice the freight rolling away on the near line in the distance. I 'm sorry to say I missed the coming on shot, as I was distracted by the other two freights coming toward me.
10:42 am. Notice the southbound freight rolling away on the near line in the distance. I ‘m sorry to say I missed the coming on shot, as I was distracted by the other two freights coming toward me. (One is hidden by the southbound)
10:42 am.
10:42 am.
10:47 am.
10:47 am.
10:53 am.
10:53 am.
10:56 am.
10:56 am.
10:59 am.
10:59 am.
11:02 am.
11:02 am.
11:06 am.
11:06 am.
11:06 am.
11:06 am.

I decided to relocate to the island platform, as this offered a better angle for the sun.

11:10 am. Looking north at a southward EC train bound for Switzerland.
11:10 am. Looking north at a southward EC train bound for Switzerland.
11:11 am.
11:11 am.
11:13 am.
11:13 am.
11:14 am.
11:14 am.
11:17 am.
11:17 am.
11:18 am.
11:18 am.
11:18 am.
11:18 am.
11:21 am.
11:21 am.
11:24 am.
11:24 am.
11:24 am.
11:24 am.
11:27 am.
11:27 am.
11:27 am.
11:27 am.
11:29 am.
11:29 am.
11:32 am.
11:32 am. Regional express arrives.
11:33 am. Regional Express departs.
11:33 am. Regional Express departs.
11:35 am.
11:35 am. Southward IC arrives at Bonn-Beuel.
11:36 am. Panoramic composite of a DB class 101 with southward IC train.
11:36 am. Panoramic composite of a DB class 101 with southward IC train.
11:38 am.
11:38 am.
11;40 am. Notice the southward freight passing in the distance. Obviously my view of this was blocked by the passenger train.
11;40 am. Notice the southward freight passing in the distance. Obviously my view of this was blocked by the passenger train.

To avoid getting blocked again, I walked further south along the platform.

11:47.
11:47.
11:48 am.
11:48 am.
1150am_Green_class_140_Bonn-Beuel_DSCF2851
11:50 am. An old DB Class 140 in heritage olive green paint.
11:53 am.
11:53 am.
11:59 am.
11:59 am.

Tracking the Light posts daily!

photography

Midwestern Sunset on Chicago & North Western

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Iconic image of tracks to the horizon.

railroad tracks.
Chicago & North Western’s Chicago-Omaha mainline at sunset.

In the mid-1990s, I’ve made a variety of similar images along the Chicago & North Western’s Chicago-Council Bluffs mainline that offers a literal depiction of the classic textbook illustration showing railroad tracks to demonstrate perspective.

Why C&NW? The angle of tracks and arrangement offers classic simplicity. This is a largely tangent east-west double-track line that crosses comparatively open landscapes in western Illinois and central Iowa, where installation of advanced signaling combined with burying of code lines and other communications minimized line-side poles and wires.

I’ve exposed for the sky that produces a silhouette of tracks and equipment. C&NW’s highly polished mainline rails nicely reflect the evening sky. For added interest I’ve included a set of interlocking signals in the distance. If I placed them too close,  the signals will have become the subject, and that was not the intent of this image.

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