A marathon three-week trip to northern China in Winter 2010, visiting the best of the remaining steam operations at Sandaoling, Jixi, Huanan, Tiefa, Fuxin, Beipiao, Pingzhuang, Yuanbaoshan and Hongmiao. Despite the decline in steam working over the past year, we still saw almost 60 locos in steam.

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A three week photographic trip to Germany, concentrating mainly on diesel worked lines and with the emphasis on freight. Lines visited included the busy electrified routes along the Mosel, south of Koblenz and the Elbe, east of Dresden, the diesel worked Hoyerswerda - Horka and Reichenbach - Hof lines in the former DDR, the Wismut industrial operation and the Mühldorf area and the Allgäubahn in Bayern.

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This report covers a ten day photographic trip to the Czech Republic in September 2010. Much of the trip was spent on the Hanusovice - Jesenik line where class 754s were taking over but class 749s were still in evidence. The 754 worked Brno - Jihlava, Brno - Veseli, Stare Mesto - Luhacovice and Jaromer - Trutnov lines were also visited.

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A short trip to the Rhätischebahn in late summer to fill in some gaps in my photographic coverage of the line. The trip was made more interesting by an unexpected line closure and the resulting freight diversions. There was still plenty of work for the veteran class Ge4/4i electrics despite the arrival of more new units.

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This report covers a short trip to the Dresden area in the south-eastern corner of what used to be East Germany. The city of Dresden is an attraction in itself but it was the line along the scenic Elbe Valley that prompted my visit. This route is busy with loco hauled passenger and heavy freight traffic and the home to a type of electric loco that is difficult to find elsewhere, DB Class 180, also known as CD Class 372.

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After ten years a return to the Gotthard Pass was long overdue. The Gotthard is one of Europe’s busiest freight routes, carrying heavy traffic between Germany and Italy through the heart of the Swiss Alps. While in Switzerland, I also followed a tip off that there were some worthwhile photo positions around Frick on the Basel - Zürich line and had a look at the MGB’s metre gauge line around Andermatt and the Oberalp Pass.

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It was time to try to fill some of the gaps in my electric coverage. Usti nad Labem is a busy centre for freight and passenger traffic, with a good variety of loco classes and types of traffic and some excellent photo locations nearby. I spent four days there but my plans were scuppered by the weather and I spent most of the time exploring. As a result, this report is more of a description of the lines ridden than of the photographic locations visited.

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My last visit to the Westbahn, the main line east of Salzburg, was almost 10 years ago, when class 1142s and 1144s predominated and class 1010s and 1110s were still fairly common on freights. Things are very different today, in the era of Taurii and Railjets, but there are still plenty of loco hauled passengers and quite a few freights, even on a Sunday. This report details a day trip to the line during my April 2010 visit to southern Germany.

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Although I’d done a few trips to Germany in recent years, there were many lines and locations I hadn’t visited. This trip was designed to fill in some of the gaps and covered mainly new territory with visits to see electrics on the Gäubahn (Stuttgart - Singen) and Altmühltal (Ingolstadt - Treuchtlingen) and diesel freights around Mühldorf. I also managed a day on the electrified München - Salzburg line.

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This report describes a couple of short visits to the Strasbourg - Sarrebourg line, a busy and scenic, double-track, electrified route through the Vosges in eastern France. The line forms part of the Luxembourg - Strasbourg - Basel and Paris - Strasbourg - Stuttgart axes and carries a wide variety of traffic including TGVs, loco hauled passengers, EMUs and heavy freights.

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A visit to two of the best remaining steam-worked industrial systems in China. The coal mines around Jixi in the north-east still employ around 20 SY class 2-8-2s on an extensive network of railways running through a mixture of impressive industrial architecture and pleasant countryside. Much further west, at Baiyin, another fleet of SYs serves a complex of ore smelters in the desert. Both operations are threatened with modernisation in the near future and the first diesels had already arrived at Baiyin by the time of our visit.

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This report covers two trips to the Rhätischebahn in January 2010. The first of a large fleet of new EMUs has just entered traffic and the next couple of years will see big changes to the current fleet of locos and motor-coaches. This was probably the last chance to photograph a full winter service with the 60 year old class Ge4/4i locos playing a full part. The weather had other ideas though.

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