Taken during an afternoon spent in Brussels-South at the beginning of my photography journey. The afternoon may not have delivered the same kind of pictures I would make today, but is sure was a lot of fun. It is cool now to see which trains I saw back then. A lot of them have disappeared now. On this picture, the locomotive has been melted in … Continue reading Coal under Brussels
This photo was a lot of fun to make. I went to this location with my all terrain bicycle, using mostly paths through the forests. The paths consisted of sand, which made me think that I underestimated the time to get here – only making me work harder to get there on time. I had also underestimated the time it would take the train to … Continue reading Direct train to holiday
A holiday bicycle ride brought me to Biganos, between Bordeaux and Arcachon. The rail line here is straight, for kilometers long. South of Biganos, on the section to Dax, the straight stretch is even more than 30 km long. Must be quite boring as a train driver, but the “Midi” catenary system makes it intersting for railfans. It are still the original constructions, although between … Continue reading Midi
What more to expect on the last day of this successful trip? Not expecting much more, we wanted to check out what the Sidi Kacem region had to offer, before heading to the airport. This time, it was Eurorailer and his sharp eye announcing “something green” when passing the station of Sidi Mbarek Rdom. Turns out nez cassé 1302 had broken down and needed to … Continue reading Morocco day 7: tastes like more
The regular freight train connecting Bully-Grenay in France and Tessenderlo in Belgium has been riding 1 hour later than usual, permanently it seems. Only a few days a year can it be photographed in what you could call daylight. Also so in my hometown De Pinte beginning of July. While going for a stroll I accidently crossed paths with this train. The construction site of … Continue reading Burning into the night
The last full day in Morocco! We started in Nador, where we ended up last night in our search for a hotel. The hotel was good so we started the day all refreshed. This line was our last hope to see a DF 100 locomotive in action. Somewhere we had read that these locomotives run freight trains here. Well, all we got to see was … Continue reading Morocco day 6: on the lookout for DF100’s
After a refreshing night in Fès – I love riads – we left for a full ay along the diesel line bewteen Fès and Taourirt. Weather was looking great and we headed straight to the region where we left the day before: the barrage Idriss 1ier. The chosen photo location was top class. Blue lake, hills, and underneath the recent bridge you can see the … Continue reading Morocco day 5: sunny day on the diesel line
Another jump into the archives. In November 1999, TUC RAIL finished work on re-building the Hammerbrücke, located on the classic railway line connecting Liège and Aachen. On November 5th, stabilizing runs were organised on the second track, right before entry into service. For these runs, a certain amount of tonnage had to pass over the newly laid tracks. This can be done with loaded ballast … Continue reading New Hammerbrücke
On with the vintage. On the way back to Ghent, we found 5111 waiting with a coal train at what is today the Ghent Coal Terminal. The light is november-ish, perfect for this beautiful locomotive. Continue reading Ghent coal
We took our time to enjoy breakfast, and the stunning view over Meknes from the rooftop terrace of our riad. Today we would move east, following the electrified line to Fès, to continue on the diesel line to Oujda and Taourirt. On this diesel line, we would have most chance to maybe still catch a DF diesel loco. Judging the satellite images, the section between … Continue reading Morocco day 4: from electric to diesel trains
Railscapes 