HOME | DD

Description

I'm still busy with my thesis, but this week, visited Europe for the first time, joining a friend of his for a business trip to Belgium with a few days of free time. They really wanted to ride the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, and since that's quite close to where I live, I took a day off and met up with them so we could make use of some known photo spots along the line.

While it was a terrific day with constant sunshine and many photos, it didn't end quite as planned. To get back to Belgium, they had to take a regional express train from Wuppertal to Aachen and then change to the next train to cross the border. So, after taking some train shots at Wuppertal Vohwinkel, I watched them board their train before running to another platform to catch my own S-Bahn train home. Weirdly, I could see their train stopping just behind the station platform, but then moving off again just as my train was arriving. Even more weirdly, my train, even though it stops at every station, ended up overtaking theirs. In the end, I arrived at my station, Hochdahl-Millrath, and for shits and giggles, waited for their train to pass through so I could snap some last shots.

This is it then, their 111-hauled regional express, crawling through at low speed. It managed to limp into Düsseldorf Central Station, where it was declared broken, with everyone being kicked off, and the guys not being able to make their connection back to Belgium. As the next possible train was at 6 in the morning, they spent the night at my place and successfully returned to Belgium this morning. An unexpected extra adventure, but nothing we couldn't handle.

Description

I'm still busy with my thesis, but this week, visited Europe for the first time, joining a friend of his for a business trip to Belgium with a few days of free time. They really wanted to ride the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, and since that's quite close to where I live, I took a day off and met up with them so we could make use of some known photo spots along the line.

While it was a terrific day with constant sunshine and many photos, it didn't end quite as planned. To get back to Belgium, they had to take a regional express train from Wuppertal to Aachen and then change to the next train to cross the border. So, after taking some train shots at Wuppertal Vohwinkel, I watched them board their train before running to another platform to catch my own S-Bahn train home. Weirdly, I could see their train stopping just behind the station platform, but then moving off again just as my train was arriving. Even more weirdly, my train, even though it stops at every station, ended up overtaking theirs. In the end, I arrived at my station, Hochdahl-Millrath, and for shits and giggles, waited for their train to pass through so I could snap some last shots.

This is it then, their 111-hauled regional express, crawling through at low speed. It managed to limp into Düsseldorf Central Station, where it was declared broken, with everyone being kicked off, and the guys not being able to make their connection back to Belgium. As the next possible train was at 6 in the morning, they spent the night at my place and successfully returned to Belgium this morning. An unexpected extra adventure, but nothing we couldn't handle.