i am located in baumholder germany for the us army and i was wondering what the rules are for railfaning here and what i can and cant do and were some good places in this country are get photos
I do not know the exact rules but I have not had any trouble shooting photos from track platforms at numerous Bahnhofs. Just stay off the right of way and you shouldn’t have any trouble. I live in Bayern so i cannot help you with good places to shoot photos in your area. However since there is an armor brigade at Baumholder i am shore you can get good photos when units rail their equipment to GTA and HTA for training. The local population is not so uptight about taking photos as they are in america, however focus on the trains and not the people becuase privacy is respected here.
John
thank you how far are you from baumholder and what is the most common train you see in germany
I live outside of Würzburg and commute daily with the bahn to work Würzburg to Nürnberg line then switch to the Nürnberg-Regensburg line . On the line Würzburg-Nürnberg you can pretty much see it all. ICE, Inter City, City Night Line, Regional Trains mostly electric locomotive push pull type, with some DMU’s servicing branch lines. On the frieght train side one can see pretty much everything from unit trains to mixed trains. Since this line is electrified you do not see to many diesel powered trains.
X-Ray has covered the rules, the closest decent locations are either north to the Moselle and I recommend east of Bullay, or south to somewhere between Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern. The Moselle is more scenic, but the area in the Pfalzer Wald is pretty too. Freight traffic drops off noticeably after noon on Saturday, and doesn’t pick back up until mid-morning on Monday. The Mosellestrecke sees regular movements of the Iron Ore trains to Dillingen Hütte and SNCF Fret trains to Köln Gremberg. If Sunday is your free day I would try and reach the Rhine around Köblenz, Festung Ehrenbreitstein on the East Bank of the Rhine provides a great view of the railways on both banks of the Rhine. The 2010 freight timetable for the Rhine Valley should be available soon, I will post a link when it is available.
thank you so much i just need a map and car to get to some of these places and thank you agian you have very help full
Matt, I don’t know how adventurous your are or your circumstances. There is through trains from Idar-Oberstein just north of Baumholder to Mainz, and the DB website list connecting Bus service from Baumholder to Idar-Oberstein. Here is a link to the DB Travel website, in English;
Hi, I’m a German and live in Bingen on Rhine, not too far away from Baumholder.
If you want to take pictures of German trains, go to the Rhine valley between Bingen and Koblenz.
There you can easily watch about 400 trains a day on both sides of the river in a beautiful landscape with many medivial castles and ships on the river. Mostly electric locomotives. Both routes are electrified since the 50ies. But there are also some Emd Class 66.
The Diesel engines you can also find near Baumholder, nearly all are Diesel-hydraulics.