Morning all!

 

Well, the title for today's post pretty much sums up the motto of the photo session I did yesterday! In other words, I guess I'd been bitten by some kind of freight bug during my first stay at Thekla Station, which is why I returned there. Weather was quite sunny, too, and not all that cold – till about 2 pm, that is. Shall we begin...? B)

 

 

 

 

 

There sure would turn out to be a bunch of 155s on the road that day! 155 036 was the first of the lot to come along.

 

 

 

 

Aside from freight, I also intended to capture at least one of DB Regio's 182s on the Leipzig-Cottbus line. Which I did, as you can see here... B) The train seen here was the RE 18459 service to Cottbus, headed by 182 003 which appears to have been cleaned recently, going by the reflection off the red paint which you can see on the snow on the platform next to the loco. One thing which is interesting is that the 182s appear to have been refitted with the same kind of LED headlights which their Austrian sisters are now using as well. The first ES 64 U2 type locos I have seen thus equipped were those ÖBB 1116s detached to "railjet" services.

 

 

 

 

 

Next up was an Euroshed double whopper – this being one of the regular coal services operated by HHPI. The leading loco was 29004 or 266 027, named "Dave Meehan", which I had also spotted during my previous Thekla session.

 

 

 

 

 

The next "Pan Loaf" to come along was 155 031, trailing a mixed rake of wagons.

 

 

 

 

 

Shed Attack! – This was HHPI loco 29006, or 266 028, which I had, unsurprisingly, also seen during my previous session at Thekla.

 

 

 

 

 

155 172 is one of the many of her class with DSA 200 type single arm pantographs. I actually can hardly remember when I last saw a 155 with the original diamond pantographs!

 

 

 

 

 

185 554 was one of the locos which had been used on the Frankfurt-Würzburg regional line several months ago but is now back in freight traffic. The wagons behind her are Falns type coal hoppers owned by Polish operator PKP Cargo.

 

 

 

 

 

This here is 420.11 or 92 80 1 223 031-6 D-EVB, one of the four Siemens Eurorunner ER 20 type diesel-electrics operated by Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser (EVB), who are headquartered in Zeven in the northeast of Lower Saxony. I would not really have expected a loco from this company this far east!

 

 

 

 

 

Siderods, anyone? 363 424 came along with three empty container wagons on a stock positioning service.

 

 

 

 

 

More good stuff came along in the shape of this service headed by 145 009 – the loco dead in tow behind it being a brand-new Voith Gravita diesel-hydraulic shunter owned by stock leasing company "northrail." Interestingly, those Gravitas used by DB Schenker actually are northrail property as well. The Gravita seen in this image may well have been one of those allocated to the Halle yard. In DB service, they are designated as class 260, but are, of course, not to be confused with the V 60 type C-coupled shunters from the Bundesbahn era which originally were designated as class 260 as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, 185 238 was trailing a class 232 diesel-electric, in addition to a mixed string of wagons.

 

 

 

 

 

Diesel shunter 290 531 travelled light in what was the shine of a sun already beginning to set.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the last train I captured was the RE 18460 service from Cottbus, which would eventually return there as RE 18461. It was powered by 182 005, which again was difficult to recognize due to the ice and snow on the front.

 

After this, it was getting decidedly cold, so I called it a day and headed home to warm up.

 

Thanks for looking!