Far-West Germany

The town of Eschweiler used to be a hotbed of coal mining and other industrial activity in times gone by, but almost nothing remains. What does remain, though, is the last set of manned crossing gates on this line, the operation of which is controlled by the operator in Ehf tower. Here Crossrail 185 578 is seen with the Ewals intermodal train DGS 40162 (Novara/I - Genk/B) passing the tower and swinging around the curve leading up to Eschweiler Hbf train station.

The Thalys high speed train is a variant of the French TGV, running between Cologne and Paris-Nord by way of Brussels. Here one rushes through the large curve at Eschweiler at a pretty good clip. The dome on the second car conceals the satellite uplink for in-train Internet access.

I'm not a big fan of platform photography, but this location at Eilendorf is quite nice in that it provides an interesting backdrop with the dual tunnels. Railion (or DB Schenker as they are now called after the umpteenth name change) 145 074 is seen with the FE 44532 (Gremberg - Antwerpen-Noord/B) junk freight westbound in glorious late afternoon sunshine.