Notes

I’m afraid I didn’t get the pilgrim train the 110 was waiting for while it was entering the station, but I did get a picture of it’s lead unit at Aachen Hauptbahnhof’s east side. It has pulled away from the train, changed direction and is now heading straight back to Belgium.

The belgian class 27 was built in the first half of the eighties and is very common on all sorts of belgian trains. While belgian trains can generally drive right into Aachen without the need for any adjustments, you don’t normally see electric locomotives here, as all passenger service between Germany and Belgium is done using EMUs. Exceptions only happen for special trains, such as this one (which is why I was at the station in the first place, of course).

While we’re at it, take a look at the freight unit to the left. This is a class 139. The class 139 is identical to the 110, it just has different gears for freight use (there is also the 140, which lacks the electric brake the 139 and 110 have). In fact, it’s so much identical that several of these units were constructed in the nineties, by installing trucks of scrapped 140s in 110s. While this class is scheduled for retirement as well, so far it hasn’t started in large scales.