Notes

About an hour from Aachen, you’ll find (if you know where to look) the Siemens Test Center Wegberg-Wildenrath. This facility is used for testing railroad vehicles before delivery in just about any ways you can imagine. Here, a class 232 (Ludmilla) is on it’s way on the outside circle, which allows testing at speeds of up to 160 kph. The huge white area at the end is required by law for service in the Netherlands. This locomotive, however, is not what is being tested here.

Instead, the train behind is. This is one of the earliest examples of the dutch class 2400 (if I counted right, it might also be the class 2600 which is longer), which has, as far as I know, not even seen the Netherlands yet. These vehicles are based on the german class 422 (not yet in service), 423, 424, 425 and 426 (no, I don’t know why that takes so many classes either), and built by a consortium of Siemens and Bombardier. It was being dragged around the circle at rather slow speeds with the pantograph up, measuring who knows what. I’m afraid I don’t have a good picture of the train itself, but if you’re interested I can upload a bad one instead.