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Picture of the Month November 2008 - Variotram in the Helsinki Market Street November Darkness |
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Variotram in the Helsinki Market Street November Darkness It's always quite challenging to take pictures in the semidarkness, twice as tough when it's raining icy water and the temperature is around freezing point! Here the Helsinki Finland HKL operated narrow gauge Variotram number 231 from Adtranz (currently part of the Bombardier) stops to allow incoming passenger shelter from the rought weather. The location is the busy market and banking street Aleksi in the Helsinki city center. One of the next updates for the 4rail.net will be the Finnish section upgrading, exotic place for the railroading for the most readers! While the sun is on the southern side of the Globe at this time of the year, the Northern Europe is a place of semi- and total darkness and cold weather, while the global warming has caused several winters with practically no snow! Picture by Stanislav Voronin 2007. 
Finland Main Page... |
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Picture of the Month October 2008 - The Famous Tehachapi Loop |
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Tehachapi Loop on the hot summers day The Tehachapi area illustrates the rugged nature of the Western USA. When the west was conquered, the Tehachapi pass was one of the routes where the mountains could be crossed. The track was built in the 1870's for the Southern Pacific Railroad. To accommodate the grade the track in the loop area goes around the valley floor and finally ascends on top of itself creating the famous Tehachapi loop! Here a BNSF Railway manifest crosses itself on the Tehachapi loop. Notice the 5 huge diesels providing enough pulling power to help the train slowly across the terrain. 4rail.net has a lot of pictures of this train and around the loop area including Barstow and Bakersfield. More media will follow. We hope to have even some videos on the area added in the near future! Picture by John McKey 2008.
North American Reference...
BNSF Stack Train in California Valley...
BNSF Roster Page... |
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Picture of the Month September 2008 - Era of the Modern Stack Trains |
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Stack Trains are the phenomenon of the railroads for today. Here a CSX stack train of two Dash8 locomotives on the point and maybe 50 cars behind zooms by the Berea station in Ohio. The author of the picture is just having a breakfast outside. A perfect atart of a day for a railfan! While the containers and trailers are todays answers for the transportation of goods, the railroads have made a come back with efficient container and trailer transportation systems. The volumes are so high that in the Westerns U.S. many railcorridors have been double or even triple tracked. The containerization is a worlwide boom, and the U.S.A. number one country developing ever more efficient solutions for logistics. We will publish several railfan stories on the stack trains etc. in the near future, starting with the ones stretching from one horizon to another on the trip to U.S. on the summer vacation... Picture by Hannu Luukannel 2008.
North American Reference...
BNSF Stack Train in California Valley... |
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Picture of the Month August 2008 - Rare Latvian railways EMU's in Riga |
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The rare Latvian built EMU's make a stop at their homegrounds in Riga. If you take a closer look at the EMU's, you will notice that they are of the same type! The one one the right was rebuilt and drivers accommodations replaced with a new module (the drivers quarters from the Soviet period are in general of poor quality). Latvia seems to somehow managed to preserve much of it's Soviet style culture, even within EU! This is in strong contrast to it's northern neighbor Estonia, which is a very dynamic and modern country. Below the Estonian color scemes of the ER2 EMU.  Pictures by Hannu Peltola 2008.
Latvian Reference...
Estonian Main Page... |
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Picture of the Month July 2008 - Cable cars of san Francisco |
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The Cable Car Turntable in Pier 39 San Francisco. The cable operated railcars of San Francisco center take tourists on a scenic ride from the city center to two destinations, here the one next to Pier 39. The 1,25" cable is hidden under the streets between the rails and has power to pull cars full of people realiably even the steepest climbs up and down. To switch between the cables there are level spots at the street crossings. Here the cable car number one is turned around by Pier 39 and pushed back to line towards the city center by manpower. 4rail will have in the near future an article on the cable cars and San Francisco Bay area local transportation. Both will feature numerous pictures. Picture: John McKey 2008. |
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Picture of the Month June 2008 - The exotic Russian EP1 electric Bo´Bo´Bo -locomotive in Petroskoi station |
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The Russian EP1 in Petroskoi. Take a close look at the bogies the rare EP1: Bo´Bo´Bo! The Swiss SBB has similar wheel arrangement on some of their older locomotives. As the Russian north has incredible harsh winters (you must know the saying "cold like in Siberia") this triple B wheel arrangement might help achieving better traction with the more or less traditional technology. Interestingly, although the locomotive was built in 1999, the design dates back to early 1970's; the shell is quite similar to the 1973 Finnish SR1's! Russia is modernizing rapidly it's fleet on the rails targetting probably ultimately to around 2000 new locomotives a year. Currently the deliveries are reaching around 1000 new units. Progress on the super fast segment has recently been rapid as well so we will see another strong Eyropean railway nation emerging in the next 10-15 years. Picture: Ilkka Siissalo 2008.
More on Russian railroad later... |
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Picture of the Month May 2008 - Maglev Mockup in Munich Germany |
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A city of Munich is dreaming of the Maglev between it's airport and the city center. There is a built a mockup to remind it of the future super high speed alternative. Maglev (magnetically levitating train) is capable of higher speeds than the traditional train, however the cost of the infrasturucture has been inhibiting it's success. So far the maglev technology has been implemented in Shanghai connecting the city to it's airport. Chinese seeing the bigger picture in the longer run saw the advantages of this technology and at the same time enabled high speed low noise mass transportation within the city. We hope to see more magnetic levitation technology implementations in the near future again, maybe even the city of Munich will restart it's project if the costs can be halved from the current estimate. Given some time (and recession coming) this might be possible Picture: Ilkka Siissalo.
More on maglev on the super high speed page... |
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Picture(s) of the Month April 2008 - Switching in Panevezys Lithuania / Online in Salaspils |
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Latvian Railways 2M62Y number 0093 online and Lietuvos Gelezinkelia M62K number 1229 switching at Panevezys in Lithuania You can almost see the movement and hear the thrundle of the huge diesel engine in the Ilkka Siissalos shot of the 2M62 approching the crossing near Salaspils in latvia! On the lower picture one of the remaining signs of the east in Lithuania, a couple of M62K's were switching in Panevezys in the middle of the country on the hot summers day in 2007. While we believe most of the remaining older eastern locomotives like the M62, 2M62, Tep60 and like will be gone in a few yers time, we will try to document these while they are still in active service. Some of these units (especially the 62's) will be rebuilt to western standards and remain in service. Others like TEM2's, TEM3's and 2Te116's and Tep70's are probably good enough for the purpose to survive. In addition to documenting the above, in April the new pages on Latvia and Lithuania will be started. Picture: Ilkka Siissalo 2007.
Links to follow later... |
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Picture of the Month March 2008 - Premium Service for Premium Trains |
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Premium Service for Premium Trains - Boarding the Hikari Rail Star As super high speed trains are closing fast to match the airliners in travel times on short and medium distances between the bigger cities world wide, the services are picking up as well. You might think this picture was taken in the airport with airliner personnel boarding and the front of an airliner visible. However, the picture was taken on of Kioto-Hiroshima Shinkansen in Japan, the nation with a history of the "bullet trains" since 1964! Picture: Timo-Jussi Hämälainen 2007.
Super
Fast trains on 4rail.net...
Shinkansen pictures page... |
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Picture of the Month February 2008 - Chancing times at Paris Gare du Nord |
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Chancing times at Paris Gare du Nord With the Paris to East connections first phase completed, the Paris Northern station Gare du Nord now houses a wide variety of super high speed trains arriving from Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany! Here a rare (but daily) visitor Deutsche Bahn ICE3 super high speed train alongside the SNCF general purpose super high speed TGV-Reséau. Right next are the brand new TGV-POS's and Eurostar capital trains. One might think that the competition is opening now, but since all the super high speed operators have pooled their marketing efforts, there is still absolutely no competition and rail travel is still a lot more expensive than flying. So believe or not the acquaintances of the editor are still flying even between London and Paris...3 people can fly for the price of one on train! Thank You for sending numerous pictures to the publisher for the picture of the month! We saw through several hundred pictures, and finally it was easy to choose this interesting "Chancing times" picture from Sanna Siissalo. Many other pictures will follow later. Picture: Sanna Siissalo, January 2008.
Super
Fast trains on 4rail.net...
TGV/AGV
page... |
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Picture of the Month January 2008 - Beatiful Christmas Weather at Sumpter Valley |
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Beautiful Christmas Weather at Sumpter Valley The morning after snow storm a Sumpter Valley steam locomotive pulls two cars across the wilderness. You can almost feel the presence of the "Lost World" of the century before! Snow, blue skies, clean mountain air and an ancient steam locomotive... This picture taken by Ken Storey is a masterpiece with composition, use of the light and the subject. Sumpter valley is a living museum for old steam era vehicles. It's located in Oregon, USA. Picture: Ken Storey, December 2007.
4rail.net
Timeline has some more interesting stories on the
early history of the railroading...
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Picture of the Month December 2007 - Paris Metro offering a refuge from the heat on a hot summers day |
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Waiting for the metro on line 1 in Paris on a hot summers day The underground gives a moments relief from the heat to tourists and the locals alike. On this line you can see several stations from the Franklin D. Rooselvelt both ways, since the line is straight and the stations just a few hundred meters apart. If you wish to see other quality pictures from France, suitable for desktop background use as well, please visit the clairvaux.net ! Picture: John McKey, July 2006.
Clairvaux.net - quality
background pictures... |
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Picture of the Month November 2007 - BNSF Railway Dash 9's start their journey across the mountains |
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BNSF Dash 9's 4020, 5049 and 5121 at the point of the train glide past near the coastline in Seattle. A typical set of BNSF Railway 4400 Hp C44-9W's add momentum to some 120 empty grain hoppers. Hordes of GE Dash 9's and ES44's can be found all across the BNSF networks in the USA. The covered hoppers are taken over the mountains, filled with grain and pulled back to the coast. The grain is probably shipped to China in exchange for manufactured goods for the U.S. consumers. Interestingly the situation has changed from a few decades ago, U.S. and other western countries now supplying food and raw materials and China making much of the manufacturing. One of the few sunny days in Seattle, sun makes great reflections from the sea surface and buildings to trains. There will be a lot more pictures from the Pacific Nortwest in 4rail.net in the near future. Picture: Ilkka Siissalo, October 2007. More on the subject: North American Main Page BNSF Roster Page |
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Picture of the Month October 2007 - A Finnish Pendolino Sm3 tilting at the curve |
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VR-Yhtyma type Sm3 Pendolino tilts at the Curve in Vantaa Finland The sets of Pendolino trains form the backbone of the national operator VR-Yhtyma's fast trains. These tilting trains have the ability to run in freezing cold of tough winters of Finland. Just imagine the snow flying around the train when it dashes through the total darkness (days are considerably shorter in the north)! No wonder the trains are pressurized like airplanes... Here is a double set of Pendolinos, ususally the Pendolino sets are run either as sigle units or double, sometimes even triple or quadruple sets are seen. It's doubtfull the quartets will fit by the platforms on stations, so those might be just for the testing purposes and moving rolling stock to where it's needed. Notice the Pendolino unit behind tilting visibly to give more comfortable ride to the passengers and enable the trains to run faster on conventional track. Picture: Stanislav Voronin Early 2007 More on the subject: Pendolino Page... Swiss Cisalpino Pendolino Page... |
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Picture of the Month September 2007 - ICE1's unboarding at Berlin Hbf |
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Deutsche Bahn ICE1's unboarding passengers at Berlin Hauptbahnhof The passengers of the two ICE1 trains leave their trains to crisp but sunny weather in January 2007. The ICE1's and ICE-T's are a common sight in Berlin. Many of the older stations were built to create a comfortable environment for the passengers. After numerous years of "functionalism" the Berlin Hbf is a sign that a station can be both functional and piece of art itself. The structure is mainly of glass and steel and built into numerous levels, of which two are for trains, both long distance and local. The levels inbetween are for services and interchange to local buses. The topmost levels are set up as offices. The Station forms a big cross but the visible parts look like a huge tube covering the trains. Building the structure was exceptionally demanding with some of the lower levels located under the Berlin waterways! Picture: John McKey January 2007.
Super
Fast trains on 4rail.net...
ICE pictures page... |
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Picture of the Month August 2007 - Dependable urban traffic in Grenoble France |
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The Grenoble trams in the vicinity of the University area The French city of Grenoble is a typical example of an European urban area with a working network of trams. Citadis trams serve the three lines, driving slowly in the center and fast in the suburban areas. In the suburbs the tracks are set up like the train routes. The SNCF is receiving similar Citadis trams in 2007. Those will be equipped with dual electrical systems. SNCF has prospects of trafficing them both on the train and the tram tracks. IS Picture: Ilkka Siissalo. Taken near the Grenoble University Campus area in June 2007. |
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Picture of the Month July 2007 - Eesti Raudtee C36-7i and C30-7i pulling a heavy tank train |
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Eesti Raudtee C36-7i 1542 ja C30-7i 15xx (3600 hp / 2700 kW ja 3000 hp / 2250 kW) are pulling a 2 kilometer long tank train of Russian oil through Estonian countryside in a heavy rain. Almost 80 of these North America originating iron horses are busy hauling unit trains between Russian border and Estonian ports. Volume seems to be huge and even in the local production respectably high. According to the train personnel C30-7i and C36-7i diesels from 1980's are very reliable...and to everyones surprise seem to fit well even to the local switching! Picture: Hannu Peltola June 2007 More on the subject: C36-7i ja
C30-7i More pictures
Eesti
Raudtee |
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