Afternoon all!

Having run my errands for today, I was meaning to show you these images I snapped yesterday while patrolling Frankfurt Central Station for anything out of the ordinary...

And there was something out of the ordinary indeed, waiting at Platform 19. Unfortunately, it was much too long to be photographed in its entirety... This was the combined IC 1990/1959 service to Berlin Südkreuz and Leipzig Central, whose formations were joined up till Fulda. This resulted in the following setup: Class 120 loco – six coaches – class 101 loco running dead in the middle of the set – eight coaches – second class 120 loco. Sure was an impressively long formation! For obvious reasons, the only part of this train I could reasonably capture was the loco in the middle.

With evening peak traffic getting into gear at this time of day, there then was the combined RE 15556/15446 service to Glauburg-Stockheim and Nidda, whose formations were again joined for part of the trip. They are working together up till Bad Vilbel, where the forward section to Stockheim is split off, and the rear section to Nidda continues north up till Friedberg and on to Nidda. This kind of procedure is implemented only during peak traffic, as the Friedberg-Nidda line is normally worked by Hessische Landesbahn with class 646 DMUs. As both the Stockheim and Nidda lines are not electrified, each set is powered by one class 218 diesel – resulting in the joint formation working in a temporary top-and-tail setup. Here, 218 477 is in the lead, in front of the driving trailer for its rake of coaches. Up at Stockheim, it will then run around and couple up to the other end.

Consequently, the driving trailer for RE 15446 was facing the gangway of the rearmost coach on the RE 15556 formation. There already was a driver in the cab, in order to speed up the splitting sequence at Bad Vilbel.

And this would be a look at the first part of the inscriptions on the frame of 218 477...comprising the running number in UIC-TSI format, revision dates (last revision completed at the Bremen workshops on 9 September 2004 and a one-year term extension being provided at the Frankfurt depot, which will be valid till 3 September this year.), braking gear type (Knorr-Einheitsbremse with settings G, P, P₂ and R, hydrodynamic brake and direct brake valve), plus the service and braking weights.

Meanwhile, the certification grid describes the loco as being cleared for service in Germany, Austria, Denmark (including permission for shipping by train ferry, as indicated by the anchor symbol), Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and Czech Republic.