Afternoon all!

I didn't have too much time for trainspotting in recent months due to my exam preparations, but having successfully completed these with an A grade, I was delighted that in spite of a somewhat ambivalent weather report, this Whitsun has turned out fairly sunny thus far. I therefore paid a visit to the Whitsun railway festival taking place at Königstein – a town in the northwestern suburbs of Frankfurt, set on the eastern flank of the Taunus Mountains. This town also has its own railway line to Frankfurt, meandering through the Taunus foothills through Kelkheim and Liederbach and crossing into Frankfurt's city limits thereafter.

In regular service, this non-electrified line is served by stopping services provided by Hessische Landesbahn, commonly using Alstom Coradia LINT DMUs on a 30- to 60-minute interval.

On Whitsun (and Whit Monday, to be precise), this line is the arena for a railway festival which has been held for the past 33 years. Regular guests during this event are the two preserved steam locos 01 118 and 52 4867, owned by the Frankfurt Historic Railway association, which take turns on (roughly) hourly special services from Königstein to Frankfurt-Höchst.

And now, follow me on a nice Sunday morning walk through the woods and meadows around Königstein with a railway twist!

Upon arriving at Königstein Station, I found the two big steam engines standing by for a day of special workings outside the works shed at Königstein. As there is no turntable anywhere around here, the locos will have to run tender first on their down services to Frankfurt. However, given the line's topography, this does not make for much of a problem as to running speeds.

52 4867 turned out to be destined for running the first down working to Frankfurt, and see-sawed in front of the rake of three coaches forming the special. These trains would also comprise a former beer van which is now used for multiple purposes. It does carry provisions for the trains' passengers, is used as a baggage van and also equipped with a generator.

In the bright morning sunlight, 52 4867 – built in 1943 at the Orenstein & Koppel Locomotive Works at Potsdam and later relocated to Austria where it was operated by the Austrian Federal Railways and later by Graz-Köflacher Bahn – is rolling downhill through the woods west of Königstein. It had left at 9.42, scheduled to arrive at Höchst at 10.12 and then depart for its return trip to Königstein at 10.26.

This was the HLB 24731 stopping service, having departed Königstein at 10.01. If I'm not mistaken, this set was 648 408, or VT 206 as per HLB's internal running numbers.

From the middle of a meadow, I then captured the next scheduled up working, HLB 24728, with a broadside shot.

Having relocated to a track leading to some allotments, I next captured 52 4867 working uphill on the last leg of its trip from Höchst.

HLB and Frankfurt Historic Railway staff needed to keep an eye on Königstein's station approach, as the HLB 24732 service was completing its trip.

While 01 118 was shunting into position for taking over the next down special, I was wondering if this little guy here might be standing here in my place, perhaps fifteen years or so from now...

Meanwhile, 52 4867 was taking a break in the stub to the side of the station approach.

The Eistalbahn Heritage Association from Baden-Württemberg also contributed to this year's railway festival with a formation of a class 798 railbus and one class 998.0 intermediate trailer and 998.6 driving trailer each. Here, the set was running with the driving trailer set uphill, while the motor car was in the downhill position.

And as a growing cloud cover was heralding the major rain front which is expected to come across the land during the afternoon, I finished my photo round with this shot of 01 118 working uphill, having departed Höchst at 12.26 and being expected to arrive at Königstein at 12.57.

Thank you for looking and I certainly hope you enjoyed reading!