Leaving Leverkusen

Now that we all had our fill of steam, let's not forget about the electrics!

Here we see an S-Bahn train leaving Leverkusen Mitte (Centre), pushed by a class 143 locomotive from the former GDR. It will take almost one and a half hours for it to reach the terminus, Essen Central Station.

I really wanted to take this shot for quite some time, to have a train framed by the station sign. Of course, an arriving train would have been better, but I don't have that much time on my hands. Most of these shots were taken on my way home from the station.

Nobody really knows how much longer this line will be serviced by loco hauled trains, nobody knows when the last of these boxy workers will leave Leverkusen for good. Interestingly, the only reason preventing EMUs from taking over is a dispute between two transport associations. The line here runs across two districts, the Rhine-Ruhr and the Rhine-Sieg one, and latter hasn't chipped in when the former acquired the brand new EMUs we've been getting here. They're basically saying "You didn't pay your part, so we won't let our new trains run on your territory!". There are no signs of this being settled anytime soon...

This is also the station from which I depart towards Duisburg every morning, and I arrive at the platform to our right in the evenings, on my way home.