Dashing Through the Snow

Temperatures below zero, heavy snow fall, just the right weather to maybe buy a movie… and then put that movie in the backpack, get out and take more train pictures until it actually gets dark, because you're not some crybaby who goes "we're all gonna die!" just because the landscape turned a little white, thank you very much.

Cologne is not good at dealing with snow. The roughly 5 cm would be called "Oh, snow!" by most rational people, but in Cologne, it was apparently seen as a sign of the end times. Three hundred traffic accidents yesterday alone! And today, the main signal box failed, but that was apparently not weather-related, just a normal bug. Okay then…

Here, a class 644 train is racing towards Cologne central station, past the storage and maintenance facilities at the north-west end of the station. The 644 is a version of the normal Bombardier Talent DMU with higher power output (a total of 1.1 MW), built specifically for fast services in the Cologne area. They'll be replaced in a few years, by a three-engine version of the Alstom Coradia LINT, as part of the renewed franchise deal between DB and VRS (the agency in charge of handing out franchises in the area). I'm not sure what will happen to the 644s then, but given that they've been extremely heavily used and start to break down more and more, I don't think they'll easily find a new job.