A miscellany of 1980's pictures

[jjb1970]

I have finally decided to scan old pictures from my youth. These pictures of German trains in the 1980's may be of interest, I think it will take months to work through my old albums. The quality isn't great as I scanned the prints, and I'm no photographer, but they may show something of interest.

[jjb1970]

[31A]

What a variety of liveries, and indeed rolling stock there was to be seen in Germany at that time!  I always thought the 120s were a sadly missed opportunity.  Thanks for posting these, the quality is better than my pictures from the '80s.

[Gordonwis]

Proper trains!

 

I find scans of colour prints give a better result than scans of colour negs.

 

It really irritates me personally that I stuck with black and white for too long - if only we'd known what technical changes were soon to happen I'd have gone with simple colour prints. I did take colour slides too but I've still got too many superb subjects in monochrome only.

[Gordonwis]

Here's a couple of mine...

Edited October 1, 2022 by Gordonwis

[Gordonwis]

and this...

[jjb1970]

Thanks for that, and more lovely old pictures! 

 

Something I've been thinking as I slowly scan old pictures is how I miss the rail scene of that era. If looking at Europe every railway had it's own unique identity with its own rolling stock designs. I don't want to try and deny that the modern Traxx, Eurosprinter, Desiro etc families are better trains or that a small number of standard designs makes more sense than lots of designs built in smaller numbers but I can't help feeling that it makes for a much less interesting railway world.

 

I know this is the German board, but it really brought it home when remembering my youth in Carlisle. At that time Carlisle was alive with classes 08, 25, 26, 27, 31, 37, 40, 47, 81, 85, 86, 87 and DMU classes 108 and 101. We regularly had visits by class 45, cery occasional classes 20, 56 and 58 and 120 DMUs and sometimes HSTs on ECML diversions. And the locomotives were from all over the country, locomotives allocated to places like Inverness, Bristol, Cardiff, Immingham were common. It was so much more varied and interesting.

[Allegheny1600]

While I wholeheartedly agree that the rail scene across Europe (including the UK!) in this era was brilliant and I consider myself very lucky to have experienced a fair bit of it (sadly, not enough in Germany!) - I still say that the current scene in Germany at least and certainly in Eastern Europe, is still well worth watching!

Yes, many iconic classes are gone from the big railways but for example, 120s are still working in private hands albeit in reduced numbers, 151s and 140s, even 143s the same. I’ve also seen plenty of classic DB diesels still working privately as well.

Units abound on the big railway but there’s still an enormous amount of freight and very mixed freight at that!

I know, it pales if one compares seeing a wonderful 118 electric on a passenger train but it’s still good.

Whereas in the UK it’s almost nothing but units or 66s, very sad!

[Johann Marsbar]

I had a weeks West German rail ticket in 1980 so was at least able to see things like this still about.....

 

[doctor quinn]

Here are a few of mine from a German exchange visit in 1979 ( I think)

 

The locations are;

1 Stuttgart Hbf

2&3 Bad Freidrichshall - Kochendorf

4-7 Neuenstadt (Kocher) on the WEG

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by doctor quinn
Add locations

[Ian Morgan]

Some more photos from the 'Anna' Coke Works, near Aachen, Germany, mid 1980's.

 

 

... and some video, made with a 'portable' VHS recorder in a shoulder bag with separate camera:

 

 

 

[Gordonwis]

Returning to my comment about 'disappointment' at using black and white for too long, at least the visit to Saalfeld / Leipzig etc in November 1980 was in 'monochrome' weather!

[jjb1970]

I must admit I still have a soft spot for b&w pictures, I guess one of the big bonuses of digital imaging is it opens up options to switch between colour and b&w. I have a mirrorless Fujifilm camera which includes Fujifilm simulations and even allows the user to 'cook' their own film simulations. It's one of those functions which sounds very gimmicky but it is actually very good. 

Here's a few more.

 

[jjb1970]

More

 

[jjb1970]

[jjb1970]

[jjb1970]

[Johann Marsbar]

One of the more interesting minor classes I found on the 1980 trip was this Class 160 electric shunter at Heidelburg, which I believe was built in 1934.

 

 

That particular loco is now preserved in the Sinsheim Museum (photo from my 2007 visit there)

 

 

 

[jjb1970]

I love those older electric locomotives, so characterful. 

 

This is another quirky locomotive, these were still common in the 80's.

 

 

[Allegheny1600]

5 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I love those older electric locomotives, so characterful

Me too!

I only had a very brief visit to Bavaria in 1977 (which I remember little about really) but subsequent reading and videos have taught me that this was a last bastion of the early electric locomotives. This has led me to build a collection of models from ancient 191s to modern 120s, all era IV for my “one day” layout.

Thanks to all for the great pictures,

John

[Johann Marsbar]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

I love those older electric locomotives, so characterful. 

 

 

Considering it was more of a  "Tourism" type holiday with my Father and we hadn't got much idea in those pre-internet days of exactly what to find, rail wise, in West Germany, we did see a reasonable amount of interesting rail activity whilst there. Nuremburg and Munich (+ Salzburg) were on the itinerary, so we did see several of the older electric types....

 

Mannheim....

 

 

Munich - This had just hauled our train there from Nuremburg.....

 

 

Salzburg.....

 

 

Not Germany, but the trip provided me with the only photo I got of one of these in service (Venlo).....

 

 

Our train to Hoek van Holland from Venlo was hauled by NS 1501 - one of the ex BR EM2's.

[31A]

A few pictures from Alsdorf, from me.  I wasn't good at recording dates of photos in those days, but from the other pictures on the reel I think these would have been from 1989 or so.  My sister lived in Aachen at the time and I frequently visited her, but in those pre-internet days I didn't become aware of the nearby industrial steam until nearly too late!  We managed one trip by bus from Aachen, and were lucky enough to find the mine just as this loco was rounding up some coal wagons.  After a little shunting, it headed off.  We did go to the coke works as well and could see steam in the distance, but couldn't work out how to get to it.  At the time I thought it would be the last time I would see revenue earning steam locos, not anticipating the fall of the Iron Curtain soon afterwards!

 

[Erichill16]

1 hour ago, Johann Marsbar said:

Our train to Hoek van Holland from Venlo was hauled by NS 1501 - one of the ex BR EM2's.

1501 last weekend in the museum in Utrecht.

 

[Ian Morgan]

A few phots I took in Berlin (or possibly en-route there), 1986ish, mostly at Charlottenburg:

 

[Gordonwis]

Rhein Express in the early morning mist  at Hoek van Holland. 1977

Edited October 5, 2022 by Gordonwis