7th & 8th February 2013 - Hannover to HarzThursday 7th February 2013 and Friday 8th February 2013 Following one week back at work for a rest; we were off on our travels again, this time to our old favourite of Germany for a couple of photo charters on the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen via a British Airways flight to Hannover after finishing work for the weekend. There was plenty of time to get to Heathrow and, despite being called quite late, our flight pushed off only five minutes adrift with an on-time arrival at Hannover. We only needed a ticket to get us the short distance to the city which was part of the local transport tariff and cost us €3.10 each from the ticket machine on the platform. The tickets were so small that we initially thought that they hadn’t been printed; both of them put together were slightly smaller than a credit card. Our late arrival meant that a lie-in was in order on Friday morning so it was just as well that our ticket for the day was a Quer-durchs-Land-ticket, only valid after 09:00 and costing €52 Euros for the two of us. It can be bought from a ticket machine for €50 but we considered the extra €2 for buying it in a ticket office worth it to save any possible problems with notes getting stuck in the machine (been there, done that, only got back about half the value of the 10 Euro note we lost after bank charges) The 09:48 class 218 hauled train to Bad Harzburg was as good a train as any to catch, we didn’t need any of the locos based in this area for haulage but they will be replaced in the next couple of years so it was a good chance to have a spin behind a couple of them before the “plastic rot” (new units) sets in. We were not the only people with these thought as we were joined by fellow crank Andy Pratt who was making his way to Eisenach via some interesting trains to cover the “Rodelblitz” steam trip which we had done last year. Bidding farewell to Andy, we bailed off at the junction station of Salzgitter-Ringelheim and noticed that a signal had been cleared on the other line - a quick dash to the other side of the station was rewarded by a picture of a short trip freight. 294 956 at Salzgitter-Ringelheim Back in Hannover, we managed to get a couple of “Metronom” 146s for our “book” before getting fed up of dodging the Friday crowds on Hannover Hbf so we caught a third 218 all the way to Bad Harzburg where we would have an hour to wait for the nasty class 612 unit to catch up and take us to Wernigerode. The ticket office at Bad Harzburg is also a shop and café (all owned by DB) so a nice warming cup of tea was hade before we had a wander round on this very cold afternoon to brace ourselves for the “entertaining” ride on the 612 unit – partly our fault as perhaps we could have found somewhere else to sit other than right on top of one of the bogies knowing that these units don't ride very well. 612 011 at Wernigerode We checked into the Hotel Altora where we had booked a room overlooking the Harzer Schmalspurbahnen shed and braved the biting cold to attempt some night shots with mixed results; although the lighting was good it was not always illuminating the locos to the best advantage and there were plenty of other photographers around who would be participating in the weekends trips to contend with. 199 874 at Wernigerode
Keywords:
Germany,
Harzer Schmalspurbahnen
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