Smoke on the Water

I got up way too early today to catch 41 360 here in Cologne, stopping with a special train to a christmas market. First of all, I have to say it was a great experience. The entire central station was full of steam, there was lots of (possibly unnecessary, but nevertheless cool) whistling, the typical great smell and a sound when starting that had no trouble at all drowning out everything else in the not-that-small station hall. It's been way too long since I last saw a large steam locomotive.

However, I'm not pleased with the photos. This is by far the best, and even by my standards0 it's not that impressive. Most others are unsharp and often too dark as well, and angles are at times not what they could have been. The ugly Santa Claus on the smoke box door didn't exactly help either. I did get some nice ones of ordinary trains and I will post these later, but overall, this was a disappointment. I guess I'll have to learn how to take good pictures some day...

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While you're here already, my sister has posted her first railroad deviation. She told me she has no intention to make this a habit, but if you all help maybe we can get her to change her mind about that.