Johann Marsbar

Lettering on the side says "MacPHERSON", so a quick online search came up with these.... https://digital.hagley.org/islandora/object/islandora:2364362 https://digital.hagley.org/islandora/object/islandora:2365376 One of which is the image you posted.

That one of the Coal Depot has answered a lot of questions for me. Ipswich Co-Op had a wagon tipper like that at Derby Road station and whilst I have a couple of Co-Op official photos of it when it was "launched" in the 1950's, you can't see much of the layout other than the hydraulic tipping platform itself . I now have more of an idea of how the rest of it fed the tipped coal into ther storage bins!!

The sunshine of the previous days had vanished by the time we headed to Köln (again via an indirect route) the following morning ready for our early evening flight back to Stansted. With the indifferent weather, we decided on a longish freight watching session at Köln West - which actually provided even more variety than usual plus a rather big surprise. Wiener Lokalbahn......... HGK......... RLG......... DB....... ...and no sooner had the coal train shown above cleared the station area, this was revealed.......... One of the ill-fated Fyra trains, built in Italy and on its delivery run - which turned out to be the only one of the things I ever saw! Then it was back to normal...... All in all, one of the best photo sessions I've had there for variety, but it was soon time to seek out the Päffgen Brauhaus before heading out to CGN for the flight home.

The following morning started off a bit damp......... ........with this H F Webe loco seen at Düsseldorf Hbf....... We headed first to Essen and took a DMU to Borken to cover the branch line that terminates there, though in the past it continued through to Winterswijk in the Netherlands. Retracing our steps back to Gladbeck West, we alighted there for some freight photography........ From Gladbeck West we carried on back into Essen and then took a train to Münster where we changed for a Prignitzer Eisenbahn service to Enschede, the NRW Lander ticket being valid on this service over the Dutch border. Enschede produced a small selection of different NS multiple units (and the chance to buy some Dutch rail magazines in the station shop)..... After a break there, our unit for the return journey duly appeared....... ...which we took to Coesfeld and then travelled via Dorsten and Essen back to Düsseldorf

The best time to go is when the Heritage Transit Festival is on - Normally in September - as they run vehicles that aren't normally in use, which includes buses & trolleybuses as well as the trams & cable cars. I went there for that in 2019.....

The following day, a Sunday, was a bit more leisurely, starting off with catching the train to Wuppertal, where we had a short train watching session in the bright sunlight.... From there, we caught the first bus of the day to Kohlfurth so we could visit the Bergische Tram Museum. A couple of cars were in operation that day so we had two rides on their operating line as well as visiting the museum depot itself...... After catching the bus back into Wuppertal, we caught the Schwebebahn to Vohwinkel for a photo session there....... I'd certainly never seen an NSU Prinz like this before...... One of the preserved O-bus museum Solingen vehicles was out on a special working that day as well..... From there we caught a selection of trains to reach Bielefeld where some riding was done on the tram system..... ...bsfore finishing up in the Johann Albrecht pub for sustenance at the end of the afternoon. There was a small gathering of preserved vehicles on display on the way to the pub and they inclided this rather nice Mercedes .....

I see Engine 28 put in an appearance on your visit. Been to SF 3 times in the last 9 years and seen that numbered vehicle at least one time on each trip, though the actual vehicle has changed in that time. This was the 2016 version.....

That's actually nothing to do with the Southwold Railway "Steamworks" site in Southwold - it's the Halesworth & Southwold Narrow Gauge Railway Group site at Blythburgh Station, where they have achieved rather a lot over the past couple of years.......

Armed with a Schönes Wochenende ticket, the three of us set out for the Hbf on the Saturday morning to head off to Hannover, via Hamm, Paderborn, Altenbeken and Hameln. One of the trains we travelled on - A Eurobahn Flirt - is seen at Paderborn...... One of the WAB ex DR electrics passed through on a freight whilst we were there as well....... Starting off with a photographic session outside Hannover Hbf, the number of tram services on the surface tracks was much reduced from my last visit there...... Some of their recent bus purchases were in an almost "Halifax" inspired livery....... ...and some had interesting D-shaped side windows......... A few runs were taken on the tramway, with the old, late 1970's Stadtbahn cars still in evidence...... .....though the new Ansaldo-Breda cars were something of an acquired taste...... There was a decent variety to be seen back at the Hbf as well...... From Hannover we headed further east to Braunschweig for a look at the trams there, plus a visit to Schadts Braueri Gasthaus in the old part of town........ ...before making out way back to Düsseldorf via Minden and Dortmund.

The Flickr page says its a Dodge with Rootes bodywork and presumably a urility vehicle designed for staff transport rather than public transport. It looks like the sort of thing you would find in South Africa about 30 years ago!

Admittedly in the later livery this ex Eastern Counties one was posted on a FB page recently..... If you go to the Photostream that came from, there is also a tin front Titan on there in the Matchbox fleet......

Unfortunately that got the axe a good few years ago despite it being a popular service on the journey. I believe there was something similar on the Duisburg route at one point, though that had long gone by the time I ever went there. They did snacks (wurst etc..) as well and the passengers seemed suitably disciplined to only use the tabled area adjacent to the "kitchen/bar" if they actually wanted to make use of the Bistro facilities. Gleumes is still open in Krefeld though and that is an excellent place to visit and doesn't get full of Tourists either!

After a couple of hours at Entenfang we caught the EMU back to Duisburg Hbf and then took another unit out to Hochfeld Sud station for a couple of hours on the platform there for the freight traffic using the line over the Rhine bridge. Another multicoloured variety of trains duly appeared in that time........ It's a very good location there as there are signals clearly visible in both directions to give advance warning of approaching traffic. It's served by one of the S-Bahn lines on something like a 30 min frequency, though there is also a tram route into central Duisburg down at street level. From there we headed back into Duisburg Hbf and took a train to Düsseldorf, alighting at Hamborner Strasse station and walking to the nearby Unterrath tram terminus.... A contrast between the old and the new. - No prizes for guessing which one I prefer...... After a visit to Menzels model shop in Düsseldorf we returned to the Hbf to meet up with the third member of our group who had flown out to Germany that morning, before boarding the Bistro equipped Rheinbahn tram service to Krefeld. A couple of bottles of Diebels Alt later we had arrived in Krefeld.......("Krefeld is just a two-beer tram ride from Düsseldorf" being a memorable quote from that trip!) ...where some tram photography was undertaken....... ....along with a run out on the line to Hüls and back....... .......before adjourning to the excellent Gleumes Brauhaus for a few hours before heading back to the hotel in Düsseldorf on the Rheinbahn tram again - though by that time of the evening the bistro service had finished, unfortunately!

Apart from the very well kept "heritage" ones on the E & F lines in San Francisco, the ones in Boston, used on the Ashmont-Mattapan "High Speed Line" are still running, though some of them were looking a bit tatty last July..... They too have been rebuilt several times in recent years and, like the SEPTA ones, are supposed to be replaced in the next few years by a new generation of low-floor articulated cars.

I think they got a new number series when they were completely rebuilt with things added like air-conditioning for the relaunch of the 15 in 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEPTA_PCC_III