Last week we paid a visit to the famous Semmeringbahn. A trans-Alpine route which has been designated as a World Heritage Site. It is only a 3 hour drive from here, so it was high time for a visit! http://www.flickr.com/photos/andersley_images/sets/72157636577039534/
Great photos, thanks, Alan. You certainly saw a huge amount of traffic, assuming all photos were taken in the same day. Also a pleasure to see such lush and clean countryside.
Yes Ken, it is one of the railcars which used to be used on the line. Now displayed at Semmering station, but could use some tlc. See pics of it on the Flicker link above. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
Yes, Hank, it is an extremely busy route. Trains are almost continuous day and night. Lots of freight during the day but even more at night after the passenger trains have stopped. The foggy pics were on the day we arrived, but all the rest were same day and those were only a selection! We also rode over to Murzzuschlag in the afternoon. Pics later. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
As their are many tight curves along the whole route a lot of super-elevation (canted track) is evident. Can be seen by the angles of the containers in the first picture on an S curve, also of the loco in the tunnel mouth at Wolfsbergkogel.
Hee, Hee...the last time I saw something like this there was a sign nearby reading "Please Do NOT Feed Wildlife". :cute:
Alan, your wife has an amazing talent. Her video is well formatted, interesting, and informative . It's apparent why the curves are super-elevated. Their radii appear very tight and the trains are traveling quite fast for such tight curves, at least from my perspective.
In the afternoon of the day in the previous photos/video, we drove about 10 miles to Murzzuschlag, which is the start of the Semmeringbahn proper. Next day on the way home we called in at Ehrenhausen and Spieldfeld Strass, which is the border station with Slovenia. [video=youtube_share;alJ_ofoCYhM]http://youtu.be/alJ_ofoCYhM[/video]
Thanks for the pictures. Really enjoyed them. I did a fair amount of traveling by rail through Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy during the 60's, and enjoyed it a lot. Do you still have to switch railroads numerous times trying to get to different locations ??