2023 first frame
After leaving the Dholpur line in India on December 31st, my camera has remained in the bag. January is a grim month in northern Germany where the sun rarely shines. However, a few hours south the climate in Switzerland is a bit different. Last week I saw a good weather forecast coming together and quickly booked train tickets and a hotel reservation. On the top of the list was the recently introduced weekend only Ge 4/4 ii turns up to Arosa on the RhB. The Arosa line has been almost exclusively operated by EMUs for the better part of a decade, so I never had a chance to photograph proper trains here, so this was an opportunity I did not want to miss.
Things started very poorly. My normal train from my home in Mainz is the Amsterdam-Zurich nightjet, which arrives Mainz at the ungodly hour of 01:40 with varying levels of delay. So at about 10:00 I set my alarm and went to bed to get a little sleep before the train. I woke up on my own and knew something was wrong...it was 4 AM. I had mistakenly turned on only my weekday alarm thus no wake up call. A quick check of DB navigator showed my train was of course long gone. But, there was an ICE to Zurich at 5 that would get me there in time for the Arosa turn. After debating saying f'it and going back to sleep I decided it was worth the 88 euros to salvage the weekend. The train thankfully ran as planned, and I made it to Chur with time to spare. Unfortunately in Chur it was also very grey and cloudy, by the weather webcam in Arosa showed blue skies. So I decided to ride the preceding EMU until I hit sun. Just before Litziruti the clouds started to break. I disembarked and walked up the road the overlook of the lower part of the horseshoe curves to await the following loco hauled service. The clouds cleared off and soon Large Logo 614 arrived with its short 3 car train. Needless to say, I was quite happy to have spent the extra money to get to Switzerland afterall.
2023 first frame
After leaving the Dholpur line in India on December 31st, my camera has remained in the bag. January is a grim month in northern Germany where the sun rarely shines. However, a few hours south the climate in Switzerland is a bit different. Last week I saw a good weather forecast coming together and quickly booked train tickets and a hotel reservation. On the top of the list was the recently introduced weekend only Ge 4/4 ii turns up to Arosa on the RhB. The Arosa line has been almost exclusively operated by EMUs for the better part of a decade, so I never had a chance to photograph proper trains here, so this was an opportunity I did not want to miss.
Things started very poorly. My normal train from my home in Mainz is the Amsterdam-Zurich nightjet, which arrives Mainz at the ungodly hour of 01:40 with varying levels of delay. So at about 10:00 I set my alarm and went to bed to get a little sleep before the train. I woke up on my own and knew something was wrong...it was 4 AM. I had mistakenly turned on only my weekday alarm thus no wake up call. A quick check of DB navigator showed my train was of course long gone. But, there was an ICE to Zurich at 5 that would get me there in time for the Arosa turn. After debating saying f'it and going back to sleep I decided it was worth the 88 euros to salvage the weekend. The train thankfully ran as planned, and I made it to Chur with time to spare. Unfortunately in Chur it was also very grey and cloudy, by the weather webcam in Arosa showed blue skies. So I decided to ride the preceding EMU until I hit sun. Just before Litziruti the clouds started to break. I disembarked and walked up the road the overlook of the lower part of the horseshoe curves to await the following loco hauled service. The clouds cleared off and soon Large Logo 614 arrived with its short 3 car train. Needless to say, I was quite happy to have spent the extra money to get to Switzerland afterall.