First off, thanks again for the comments and faves on the "My Way" series.

It was a nice little experiment, and I thought it was time to end it with the final pic. I did consider continuing with a shot of the train standing in Leverkusen, people getting off, or of my bike at the bike stands, but there doesn't seem to be as much interest in this as I thought. However, would anyone else be willing to do something similar? Or maybe just a shot of some form of transportation you use every day? I'd be delighted to see something like that, if you've got some time to shoot what usually ride.

On another note, I still lug my DSLR around with me each day, also having the tele in my backpack. This of course means that whenever I'm standing around in Duisburg, waiting for my train, I shoot everything that comes by. As usual, I want to avoid spamming your inbox (like I did in the last few days), and give you links to DSO instead, for a nice scroll-through view. The first one shows a couple of "standard" trains, with a little b+w experimentation and a driving school train; the second one shows two class 218 diesels standing at a platform. That was kind of a special occasion, as those weren't regular 218s, but belonged to the subclass 218.8. They use special adapters on their coupling to tow EMUs and DMUs with automatic Scharfenberg couplers. Most of them are used to tow defective ICE trains, which looks a little bit like this. Of course, I drooled all over them, considering that one rarely sees class 218 engines around here, and standing next to one with a fresh and immaculate paint job was something quite special. The driver was apparently having some technical problems, emerging from the engine room with a flashlight and disappearing again. However, he also reved them up while standing a few times, which melted my face and made me need fresh underwear. Such an awesome sound... The shutters on the side were wide open, so you could see every detail of the engine room. Just imagine what these must've sounded like before mufflers were installed... I bet it would have made my head explode! As it was dark, and as I had no tripod, I waited until no passengers were near me and lit up the locomotive's front with my camera's internal flash. I didn't think anyone would object, as the driver was not in the cab, and I didn't even remotely bother anyone.

The rules of the DB explicitly allow photography on its property for private enjoyment, but prohibit the use of floodlights or "Blitzanlagen". I haven't found a translation for "Blitzanlage", but it's defined as a professional version of a flash unit. So the rules don't forbid flash as such, but apparently those flash units that are a bit more capable than my camera's internal one. However, that pic immediately kicked off a childish argument, which not only lead to my thread being the most clicked and discussed one (like my Bender threads), but it also got locked, meaning that it's still there, but users can't comment on it. Not wanting any trouble, I removed the offending image even before the thread got locked. Immediately afterwards, a user started a new thread in a different section of the forum, wanting do discuss what "Blitzanlage" exactly means, with a childish discussion being the result (again). I didn't even bother to say much. Next time, I will not post such images, problem solved. I don't feel like I did any harm, as there was nobody around who could have been distracted or even blinded by it.

Anyways, without further ado, I give you my latest two "tours", or rather "shooting stuff on my way home as I don't have time for real railfanning tours at the moment" collection.

Collection 1

Collection 2

And here's the offending photo I took with my internal flash.


Please tell me what you think about them, as I plan to post some of these or similar shots on DA.

Thanks for your attention!