I flew from Heathrow to Dresden Airport on British Midland flight LH4767, a quixotic affair that didn't seem to know whether it was a British Midland or a Lufthansa flight. The Lufthansa website said it was operated by British Midland and vice versa. The aircraft looked like a BMI A319 on the outside but the inside was in Lufthansa colours right down to the logos on every seat and sick bag. Even the German cabin crew wore BMI uniforms to maintain the confusion.

Dresden Airport was also a bit wierd. Ultra-modern yet strangely reminiscent of the former East Germany. It was probably the way that everyone’s bags were x-rayed as they left the baggage hall. Presumably a traditional practice to ensure that visitors from the capitalist west weren’t smuggling subversive material into the DDR.

Once through the formalities, I shook off my Stasi tail and proceeded to the city centre on S-Bahn line 2, direct from the airport. Last time I was in Dresden, the railway was the Deutsche Reichsbahn and there really were Russian troops around. East and West had reunified a few months earlier and the hated Stasi had only been disbanded for around a year. It was interesting to see what had changed over the intervening 20 years. Most places either seemed to have been thoroughly modernised or just left to rot. If you like derelict industrial sites, this is the place for you.

Despite almost unbroken sunshine, it wasn’t easy to find good spots to photograph trains around Dresden Hbf or Dresden-Neustadt and after a couple of hours I gave up and took another S-Bahn train to Heidenau to find my hotel.

Dresden Flughafen

Loco	Train No.	Train Details	Notes
143.933	S2 7249	16:16 Dresden-Flughafen - Pirna	16:16

Dresden-Industriegelände

Loco	Train No.	Train Details	Notes
143.973 propelling	S2 7250	15:54 Pirna - Dresden-Flughafen	16:29

Dresden-Neustadt

Loco	Train No.	Train Details	Notes
143.087 propelling	RE17464	16:23 Dresden Hbf - Leipzig Hbf	16:32

Dresden Mitte

Loco	Train No.	Train Details	Notes
143.562 propelling	S1 7060	15:41 Bad Schandau - Meißen-Triebischtal	16:36

Dresden Hbf

Loco	Train No.	Train Details	Notes
143.210	RE38514	16:45 Dresden Hbf - Cottbus	17:04
143.112	S1 7069	16:35 Meißen-Triebischtal - Bad Schandau	17:30
143.xxx propelling	S1 7070	16:41 Bad Schandau - Meißen-Triebischtal	17:30
143.585	S1 7071	17:05 Meißen-Triebischtal - Schöna	18:00
143.967	S2 7255	17:46 Dresden-Flughafen - Pirna	18:09