A few days attempting to photograph big diesels in France on the way to and from Germany in September 2013. The Paris - Belfort line runs through an attractive landscape peppered with good photographic locations but train services are sparse. There was also a short visit to the Saverne Gap, on the electrified main line west of Strasbourg.

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The Cote Vermielle is a spectacular section of the French Mediterranean coast, just north of the Spanish border, where the eastern Pyrenees tumble into the sea. The main line from Montpellier to Barcelona threads its way through a series of inland valleys, between vine clad slopes, before running along the clifftops for the last few km to the border station at Cerbere. I’d been here before in May 2008 but poor weather stopped me getting some of the best shots along the coast. I took the opportunity to do a short midweek trip from 23 to 26 May 2011 in the hope of filling some of the gaps in my collection.

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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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The Perpignan to Cerbere line runs along the Cote Vermielle or Vermillion Coast, an area of superb scenery where the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean sea. This is one of the two main lines linking France with Spain and sees a variety of passenger and freight trains worked by a number of different classes of locomotive. I visited the area for a few days in early May 2008.

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