ICE

Back in 2001 my daughter Julia had a year at Giessen University and I got to make two trips over to Germany during the time she was there. On the first visit we took the train up to Koln (where the picture above shows the main station and the cathedral) and on the second visit we toured around a bit by car and I got a good look at the new high speed line between Koln and Frankfurt.

That was some day. I'd identified a good 'gricing' spot on the 1:50,000 map and it really WAS good. The Germans don't hide their hew high speed trains behind big wire fences - incredibly there the track wasn't fenced at all - so you could get some great views of trains running at 150 mph a few feet away.

At this particular site there was a tunnel and the sound of trains approaching through that was extraordinary, almost like an organ playing before they burst into the open.

Here's one of the new ICE Inter-City units I saw on that day. The are pretty smart and the livery is nice too. Another train to get a ride on to somewhere, some day.