After almost 29 years, the Belgian EuroCity trains will ride a last time on April 4th 2016. On May 31st 1987, the EuroCity network was established as a successor for the TEE network. The EC-trains also contained 2nd class coaches – compared to their first class only predecessors. In order to be labeled EuroCity, the trains need to respond to a certain number of quality … Continue reading Very soon: end of the EuroCity trains
It has been a while since the last post.I haven’t forgotten about the website though. A few minutes ago I published 2 new pages. The first one is a portfolio. Here I will show a few of my best photos. The ones that make me proud to be a photographer. The ones that may even please the eyes of people that don’t share my interest in … Continue reading Portfolio online
Located in the industrial Ruhr area, a lot of rail-related activity goes on in the Duisburg region. The railway network looks like a giant spread-out spaghetti dish – all over the place and seemingly disorganized. Totally unexperienced in this area, I decided to finally start exploring. It was a rainy Saturday. Thus my main expectations were moody shots in abandoned as well as non-abandoned industrial … Continue reading One day around Duisburg
Nighttime is usually not the moment to shoot moving objects. Darkness makes the use of long exposure a necessity. Unless you use flashes. Today I found an interesting article about the technique of flash shooting moving trains. It gives a lot of useful information: kimandrenaud.com. I have also been experimenting with this technique, inspired by Gary Knapp‘s photos. In january 2015, the port of Antwerp was the … Continue reading Night shooting
Last week I spent a week out of the country. Main destination were the ever magnificent Swiss Alps, hoping to find some snow. Following the sun led us to a lot of different places: the Gotthard line, first time in winter the Rhätische Bahn, meter gauge trains in magnificent landscapes the region between Strasbourg and Saverne, chasing the last months of the Eurocity’s to and … Continue reading 1 week holiday
T also stands for travel. Between the train-related posts, I will also publish some travel-related stuff. Today, episode 1. In May 2015 I travelled to South-East Asia. For less than 500€ and 16 hours of time, Qatar Airways was the obvious choice to get from Brussels to Bangkok. This included a change-over at Hamad International Airport, Doha, Qatar. This giant airport, and Qatar Airways hub, was opened in … Continue reading Switch-over at Qatar
In 2015, the new bicycle parking at Antwerp’s Berchem station opened to the public. Apart from providing a short run to the tracks during the morning commute (less sweat – woohoow), it also allows a new viewpoint on the tracks coming from Antwerp’s Central station. You can see the trains creep out of the tunnel from the lower levels of the Central station. I had a … Continue reading How hard can it be?
How much luck do you need to see the only weekly freight train, if you don’t even know when it is scheduled? A lot… and the resulting photo is usually a panic shot, while out of breath trying to frame decently ánd get the settings right. No different on April 11th of this year when after shooting an intercités from Paris to Belfort, one member … Continue reading Steel train, with a bit of luck
A nightly photoshoot in the port of Antwerp brought us to the Lillo section of the port. B-Logistics was pushing a train in place at Euroports, while this Europorte locomotive was waiting for its next service. It has arrived here a few hours ago with a sugar train from France. Shutterspeed was not too long, considering the massive amount of available artificial light. Continue reading Europorte @ Euroports
Being out with friends for making photos is so much more fun than being out on your own. And it produces different results. My friend eurorailer likes making videos every once and a while. While a photo is a frozen moment in time, a video shows more of what’s happening around the train. Even though some noises are not always appreciated by the videomaker… those … Continue reading Shooting video
Railscapes 