Summer Trainscape

Train + Landscape = Trainscape

Took this an hour ago, from an overpass that crosses the Cologne-Duisburg line. Normally, I take photos from an overpass that's still in Leverkusen, and you may know some of those shots:



This overpass however is further down the line towards Duisburg, between Leverkusen and Langenfeld to be precise. Before I go the car, my daily commute would lead through here, in a crowded double decker. Note how this section has only three tracks, rather than four, which proves to be a regular bottleneck for S-Bahn trains. One of those can be seen here, still hauled by the ever so boxy class 143 electrics.

In the past few weeks, I felt a growing interest in landscape and wildlife photography, which lead to a few photo-tours throughout the more rural-ish parts of town. Now I must admit, the wildlife here isn't really interesting. The largest animals one might find are does and stags, with the largest predator being the red fox, a rather elusive fellow. Though there have been reports of wolves returning to these parts of Germany, as several packs have entered the country from Poland. Unfortunately, they seem to have the cunning talent of getting run over all the time. The only beings even more untalented are probably hunters, who mistake them for stray dogs all the time (probably on purpose, as they want all the prey for themselves).

So if wildlife photography is more or less a fruitless search, I settled for landscapes, as let's face it, the landscape does hold still while you line up your shot. I did get some (to my mind) neat and tranquil photos of stuff that I knew since my childhood, but never took the time to conserve in pictures. Knowing that my audience here consists mostly of railfans though, those photos would probably not receive much attention. Therefore, my awesome plan of combining trains and landscapes seemed like a perfect fit!

Interesting fact:



If it were dark, the famous Bayerkreuz would be visible from here. See those two thin poles, between the two left-hand high voltage pylons? Yep, those are the ones that support the world's largest lit advertisement.