Notes

This is a picture I like much more: Better angle, clean train - only it’s the wrong one. This ancient signal bridge should be shown with a class 218 instead. Ah well.

This signal bridge is, railway-wise, the most interesting thing about Bad Harzburg. Actually, I don’t think you’d be wrong if you said that it’s the most interesting thing about Bad Harzburg in general. It might even be classified as a historic landmark, but don’t quote me on that, I’m not certain there. Either way, it looks great with all it’s small semaphores on top, protecting the (only) exit of this small terminal station. The route to the right goes to Vienenburg, the one on the left via Oker to Goslar. There used to be a third route via Eckertal to Wernigerode, but these days the traffic to or past Wernigerode (such as this train) goes via Vienenburg instead.

“Niedersachsen ist am Zug” is a slogan that can’t be translated without loosing the (admittedly awful) pun and is the apparently official motto for regional rail traffic in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen). The slogan can be seen on trains in two variations: With the official crest of Lower Saxony (which shows a white horse), or with the weird combination of shapes seen here on the front of DMU 612 518, which are meant to symbolize a horse’s head. This logo was used for all of Lower Saxony for a while, but when the state government changed it was decided to revert to the crest. The 612s for the “Harz-Express” from Hanover (Lower Saxony) to Halle (Saxony) through Saxony-Anhalt are all stationed in Saxony, but some are apparently paid for by the state of Lower Saxony and wear their logos, while all the others have a stylized crest of Saxony. They are usually mixed freely, but this is a rare all-Lower Saxony train here.