I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about Germany and it's railways that really sings to me. Cracking photos as ever Dominik, I'm quite envious of you being in every day contact with this kind of thing!

Pix - Who has just booked his next trip to Germany!

Photographing everyday stuff is the sort of thing that we need more of I think, there's plenty of photos of wierd and wonderful workings but not enough porridge about. I'm guilty of it too though - the only photo I took while I was at university in Cardiff was of a 153 going up to the Valleys as it was the only time I'd seen one in the three years I was there. I kind of regret not taking any other photos of the other units that did the route everyday.

A group of four of us are heading to the Faszination Modellbau, which will no doubt result in me spending lots of money that I don't have of very nice German models! We're going to make a long weekend of it, basing ourselves in Karlsruhe and probably go and have a look at the museums at Speyer and Sinsheim... the TU-144 there is calling to me already! I do love visiting Germany and it's rapidly becoming an annual event, this year we came over for the Dampfspektakel (sitting in the TEE set with a 103 up front and sipping Dunkel was a real highlight!) and the year before we went out to Berlin to see Muse on my 21st birthday. Happy days!

Thanks for the offer of help, I'll no doubt be calling on it at somepoint! The only thing that's causing some headaches at the moment is that although the Karlsruhe Ibis hotel lists twin rooms on their website but they don't seem to be available to book... ho hum!

Frohe Weihnachten,

Pix