Afternoon all!

Well, I did head out for one last photo tour for this vacation - tomorrow will see us back home then. The weather did look a bit dubious, but stayed dry until I had concluded the important part of my excursion . As I had remembered one, shall we say, special operational situation which exists in the town of Markkleeberg - just outside Leipzig to the south - that was where I headed. Markkleeberg is actually served by two of Leipzig's tram lines - the 9 line going to the western part of the town and the 11 line to the eastern part. These are two of the four tram routes which actually extend beyond the city limits of Leipzig - the others being the northwestern branch of the 11 line to Schkeuditz and the northeastern branch of the 13 line to Taucha.

So, I eventually boarded a car on the 9 line and rode down to the Forsthaus Raschwitz stop, just at the edge of the Leipzig fare zone, then to walk to Markkleeberg Station parallel to the tram tracks - which was about one kilometre, I guess. Markkleeberg itself already was very sleepy this afternoon, and nothing much was going on on the streets.

Just outside the station, Rathausstraße and Friedrich-Ebert-Straße intersect, with the tram going off to the right for the last few hundred metres to its terminus at Markkleeberg. And here's where things get interesting: The Leipzig-Plagwitz - Gaschwitz Railway - which mainly serves as a bypass for the Leipzig-Hof Railway these days - actually intersects the tram tracks on this level crossing which you can see in the above photo. The railway goes left to right (as evidenced by one of the four crossing gates which you can see near the left edge) while the tram follows the road - and as you can see, the two overhead lines intersect as well. This, of course, means that the intersecting bit must be insulated at four points, so that trams do not come in contact with the 15 kV AC of the railway, which would be very bad! However, I wonder what the proper procedure would be in a case where either a tram or an electric loco get stuck just inside this section.

Far as I am aware, the intersecting piece is fed with 600 V DC for the tram by default while the crossing gates are open, and de-energized when a train approaches on the railway line. Nevertheless, trams pass this section without drawing power, which of course may also have to do with how the track is laid out here. Specifically, the grooves of the tram rails raise up to the heads of the railway rails (still with me? ), meaning the tram wheels "hop" across the rail heads on their flanges, then to drop back onto the grooved rails immediately, which can be a noisy procedure.

This is how the entire arrangement looks from the railway line - you can see how the railway rails are not interrupted by the tram rails when looking closely. Also note the blue rhomboid signal plate just beyond the level crossing, which is an El 2 signal telling the driver he may close the circuit breaker and reapply power again. This, of course, is preceded by an El 1 and associated El 1v signal before the crossing, which mandate the circuit breaker to be opened.

And this is NGT8 car 1149 "Friederike Caroline Neuber" with full body advertisement for a washing agent called "Spee" on the level crossing, on its way to Mockau. Normally, the 9 line terminates at Thekla, but is currently shortened to Mockau due to permanent way work.

Markkleeberg Station is about in the same poor shape as Connewitz and Leutzsch, I must say...

This was VT 005 (650 537) operated by Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn working the MRB88535 service to Borna.

After that I walked back to the Forsthaus Raschwitz stop and headed home, as it started to rain - of course .

And that's it for this vacation! Hope you enjoyed my photo strips .