Handover

I promised to take some more rail pictures, and today, I finally got around to actually doing so. This was taken in Aachen West, which had a most important change: A fence has been removed. It used to stand between the passenger and freight tracks, and made taking pictures all but impossible. But no more, or at least no more for now!

You see a lot of activity in Aachen West, primarily because this is where trains from Germany to Belgium have to change their locomotives, from Germany-only electric to either Diesel or multi-system electric. This seems to be a good example.

To the left, we have 185 577-4, a standard Bombardier TRAXX for Germany and probably Switzerland, owned by leasing company Alpha Trains, which used to be Angel Trains Cargo. It still carries the old Angel Trains livery, I think there is still exactly one locomotive that has an alpha trains paints cheme. My guess is that 577 is working for swiss company Crossrail, based on the simple reasoning that it pulls the same containers as the locomotive besides it.

DE 6309, an EMD class 66, used to run for belgian Dillon & Le Jeune Cargo, in short DLC. DLC got bought by Crossrail, but for a long time they kept the old name for their Benelux operations. No more, though. Crossrail has a new livery, all red with a white cross (I wonder how they got that idea…), and DE 6309 has at least gained a patch of that on the side.