...could be said to be the tagline for the following pair of photos I snapped this afternoon ...

Last time I snapped one of these it had been cold and snowy, and as I currently do not have any knowledge about when the new class 440 EMUs will finally enter service around Würzburg - thereby eliminating the need for DB Regio to continue the lease on the MRCE 185s - I thought a picture of one of these in bright sunlight would be nice. This here is 185 557 with RE 4612 from Würzburg to Frankfurt Central Station, just departing Frankfurt Southern Station.

As I had merely meant to have a brief stopover at that station I was not aware of anything special supposed to come along - but then I did spot something special, slowly entering the station from the east. Cue me darting over to Platform 9 through the underpass, which is normally used only for a couple of peak hour regional services...

...and snapping engine 212 240 while entering the sidings to the south of the station. This engine is now owned by EfW Verkehrsgesellschaft which is a small private TOC headquartered in Frechen, west of Cologne. The company has an interesting fleet of former Bundesbahn and Reichsbahn diesels, including seven V 60 type C-coupled shunters, six V 100 type light mainline engines, two V 200.1 type and one ex-Reichsbahn class 232 heavy mainline engines. EfW appear to make sure that their engines all come in historic colours of their respective former owners, and 212 240 - originally put in service as V 100 2240 on 13 January 1965 with works number 1000287 - is no exception. There currently is some permanent way work going on west of Southern Station, and 212 240 appeared to be helping out there, coming in with a rather long rake of ballast hoppers.