the morning after

The weather on the Semmering line for the coming days would be rain, rain, and more rain. The north of Italy, however, looked promising, and by this time I was longing for a good dose of vitamin D. I decided to head to the border station of Tarvisio, that I had never visited before. These 3 hours on the road became some of the hardest I can remember. Due to an accident, I lost about an hour between Judenburg and Klagenfurt. And then the storm still had to come… I had to seriously reduce speed due to the heavy wind and rain, and at some point I couldn’t avoid a traffic sign anymore that had given up resistance. Later than expected I arrived in Tarvisio at my hotel, where I could fortunately still enjoy a delicious pizza.
The morning after looked as if nothing ever happened… as morning afters can sometimes be like. During sunrise I drove to the entrance of the tunnel east of Tarvisio Boscoverde. I was lucky enough to catch the morning regional express train from Udine to Villach. Società Ferrovie Udine-Cividale owns 2 Taurus locomotives and a set of ex-ÖBB coaches for this service. This image at sunrise was well worth the ride for me.

One stubborn cloud

I had found a nice location near Pöckau and I decided to wait there if a train would be coming. This was the case shortly after arriving already. We see CT-Train’s 6193 433, sub-hired to CD Cargo, with an empty car train from Italy to somewhere in Slovakia.
The clouds that were moving fast in the distance, didn’t right here. I stuck with my 1 picture and left to the next location for some Italy bound traffic.

Zwölfernock

West of Arnoldstein, towards the Italian border, I could warm up in a nice autumn sun. The clouds were being burned away, revealing the splendid mountains in the background. The view of the Zwölfernock immediately brought me back in a vacation mood.
DB Cargo 193 369 and rented 193 611 pull a Stante Logistics intermodal train towards Pescara, and are seen here less than 5 kilometers from the Italian border. Time was ripe to follow them into Italy.

Grazie, Duolingo!

The valley west of Tarvisio towards Gemona Del Friuli is very beautiful. The rail line mainly runs through tunnels though, so my visit was rather short as rail happened to be the purpose of my visit.
In Pontebba however the line surfaces, and I found a nice location south of the station. In my best Italian I asked a railway employee if I could stand on the railway property – which he promptly allowed! Grazie, Duolingo!
Then the waiting for a freight train begun. I stood here long time until I eventually found out that there were works going on. The end of the work window was near so I waited just a little bit longer to get a photo of 2 passenger trains, one of them being the FUC train towards Udine.

Rush after the break

During the wait at Pontebba, the rail line was cleared again after the infrastructure works. It didn’t make sense to stay there, though, as the line in tunnels offers only little possibilities. I decided to head to the flats south of the Alps, hoping for freights against the mountain backdrop.
Spot-on when I arrived at Tricesimo. Not only was there the mountain backdrop, it was also very sunny, warm, and I got one freight after the other. 8 in 1,5 hours, to be more precise. The nicest ones below.

Rush hour, part II

After 8 freights in Tricesimo time was ripe to move to a new location. I accepted that I could potentially miss some trains when moving. So be it, enough is enough. I ended up in a field near Cavalicco where I spent the remaining 2 hours of the afternoon shooting one train after the other. A selection below.