The days when steam locomotives were easy to find are long gone and the best locations are often far from each other. On this trip we set out to visit two of the furthest apart, the opencast coal mine at Sandaoling in the north-western province of Xinjiang and the narrow gauge coal railway at Huanan in eastern Heilongjiang. These are two very different operations yet they share some common features beyond the fact that they both haul coal, most notably the use of banking engines.

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An autumn trip to the Rhätischebahn, in south-eastern Switzerland. The trip turned out a little differently to what was expected due to bad weather. Despite the problems, there was still plenty to photograph in the beautiful Graubünden landscape, including the Berninabahn in its last autumn before the arrival of new EMUs and the veteran class Ge4/4i electrics, some of which are over 60 years old.

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This trip was designed to fill in a few gaps in my coverage of Czech diesel lines around Praha and from Nymburk to Mlada Boleslav with the emphasis on freights. There was also the compulsory visit to the fabulous Jesenik line, Olomouc - Unicov, Brno - Veseli, Zdar - Tisnov and even the electrified main line near Pardudice.

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I spent a couple of days in Germany on my way to and from the Czech Republic, visiting the Gemünden - Würzburg line on my way out and the Bebra - Fulda line on the way back. Both routes carry very heavy freight traffic hauled by a variety of electric classes.

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Three lines converge on Volary, a small town in the heart of the Sumava, the mountainous region in the south-west of the Czech Republic that borders Germany and Austria. There are a couple of freights that run all year round and, in summer, when tourists flock to the area, there are a few loco hauled passengers as well. Volary had been on my list of places to visit for a long time and I finally got round to going there from 5 to 9 August 2009.

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It had been almost two years since I’d photographed at Praha hl.n. and in the meantime, the new northern approaches have been completed and the platforms under the overall roof have been rebuilt. The station is at its best in the morning and evening light so the long days of early July seemed a good time for a return visit. I had also hoped to photograph some diesel hauled freights in the Kladno and Kralupy areas, north of Praha, and on the Nymburk – Mlada Boleslav line but that didn’t work out.

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The Mühldorf Star isn’t somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy, it’s actually a radial network of diesel worked lines in the south-eastern corner of Germany. As well as having a number of loco hauled passenger trains, several different classes of diesel can be seen on freight and many stations still have semaphore signals. This report covers a three-day photographic trip to the Mühldorf area in late May followed by a couple of days on Germany's most photogenic main line, the Allgäubahn, photographing diverted diesel hauled EuroCity trains.

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It had been a whole year since my last visit to CDland and, as usual, quite a few operations had changed in the meantime, not all for the worse either. This trip combined some of the new opportunities, both diesel and electric, with return visits to a few old favourites and filling in some gaps in my photographic coverage.

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The closure of Austria’s Arlberg line for a week in April meant that several freights and a couple of overnight passengers were diverted via the Allgäubahn in southern Bayern, one of Germany's most scenic main lines. This was an opportunity too good to miss and I spent five days there photographing the diversions as well as the regular traffic.

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The opencast coal mine at Zhalainuoer is probably the greatest steam spectacle left in the world today but it won’t be for much longer. Railway operations within the big pit are expected to cease later this year and diesels are currently being acquired for the surface lines as well. The opportunity to visit Zhalainuoer for one last time was just too good to miss. We also visited Baiyin, a much smaller operation but with a reasonably long main line featuring semi-desert scenery and steep gradients.

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This was my third trip to the Rhätischebahn, Switzerland's most extensive metre gauge railway. The RhB operates a fleet of around 50 locomotives on passenger and freight trains in an area noted for its magnificent Alpine scenery and is a photographer's delight.

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