Mon 12 Sep 2011

The weather took some time to clear, which was fortunate as I also took a long time to get going after yesterday evening’s nightmare drive. First stop was Neuhaus(Pegnitz), on the line from Nürnberg to Marktredwitz, where the plan was to catch a local train to Hersbruck and back to look for photospots.

Unfortunately there were no local trains running due to bridge work, only REs and buses. I decided to give the bus a miss and waited for almost an hour for the next RE, which was a pair of class 610 units, a new class for me, whoopee! The RE was running late and only just gave me enough time at Hersbruck to buy a ticket back to Neuhaus before the return train arrived. It was another pair of 610s but I was getting thoroughly fed up with them by now. There used to be quite a number of good locations on this section but that was 25 years ago, before the jungle took over. I did note a few places worthy of further investigation but not many.

The next challenge was to find a train worth photting. Loco hauled passengers are virtually non-existent these days and being a Monday there wasn’t much freight booked to run. The delay caused by the locals being bustituted meant that by the time I reached the lineside, just east of Hersbruck, I had probably missed one of the few freights that should have run according to the Guterzugkursbuch. The remaining freight on the Marktredwitz line appeared very close to right time and both the freights expected on the Nürnberg - Amberg line also appeared, although the train from Plzen was around an hour late. There were also two additional freights, both formed of hopper wagons and heading west, one from the Marktredwitz line at lunchtime and the other on the Amberg line in the late afternoon. All the freights were hauled by class 232s except one and that was a 233.

The only loco hauled passengers in the area are on the Nürnberg - Praha route, worked by ALEX class 223s between Nürnberg and Plzen via Amberg, Schwandorf, Furth i Wald and Domazlice. Both afternoon trains were seen but the train from Praha was almost an hour late. All the other passenger sevices are DMUs with class 610 predominating. There were also a number of class 612s on various services including anything to/from Dresden. A single class 628 was also seen on the Amberg line.

Neuhaus (Pegnitz)

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
232.570   SB Breakdown Van 09:50

E of Hersbruck (rechts Pegnitz)

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
232.262   WB Hoppers 12:16
232.589 45365 12:35 Nürnberg Rbf - Cheb Freight 13:21

Obermainshof, E of Neukirch bei Sulzbach-Rosenberg

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
223.062 (VBG) ALX353 14:05 Nürnberg Hbf - Praha hl.n. 14:40
232.131 56908 14:49 Amberg - Nürnberg Rbf Freight 15:08

Lehendorf, W of Etzelwang

Loco Train
No.
Train Details Notes
232.618
232.330
45330 Plzen - Nürnberg Rbf Freight 17:15
233.511   WB Stone Hoppers 17:23
223.070 (VBG) ALX352 13:10 Praha hl.n. - Nürnberg Hbf 18:12