European Railroad Discussion > Gloom over Cologne

Back in April of this year the wife and I took a week-long Rhine River cruise starting in Basel, Switzerland and ending up in Amsterdam, Holland.  Quite a trip it was, and in addition to all the fantastic non-railroad sights along the way I was able to do a suprising amount of railfanning during the trip.  I still haven't edited all the railroad photos yet, but I wanted to share one with you now.

One of the few cruddy days we had during the entire fortnight we were on the continent (and the only day it rained during our entire cruise) was in Cologne.  However, due in part to the magic of Photoshop, I was able to salvage a few shots, including this one of a typical ICE train pulling into Koln Hauptbahnhof (Cologne Main Station).  In the background is of course the magnificant and massive Cologne Cathedral, supposedly the "nummer einz" (number one) visited landmark in all of Germany.  The train just crossed the Rhine on the Hohenzollern Bridge, a six-track three-span through-truss bridge (actually three side-by-side-by-side two-track bridges for a total of nine spans) - over 1,200 trains cross on a daily basis.

Sorry if this is old hat to you regulars on the Europe Board - to this New Yorker the justaposition of the cathedral, a classic train shed, and a huge through-truss bridge is pretty impressive.

Hope to post more from the trip in the near future.

Rob Benkovitz
New York, NY  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/15 18:37 by rbenko.

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Beautiful!

Posted from iPhone

Here's a link to what this scene looked like just after WWII - the Germans blew up the bridge in March 1945 after retreating across the Rhine.  The Cathedral was heavily damaged during the many Allied bombing raids during the war, but was thankfully not destroyed.

https://graemeandrobyn.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/bridge-bomb.jpg
 

rbenko Wrote:
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> Sorry if this is old hat to you regulars on the Europe Board - to this New Yorker the justaposition of the cathedral, a classic train shed, and a huge through-truss bridge is pretty impressive.
>
Don't apologise - it is impressive.

Impressive picture with some of the essense of Köln! Hope you can post more views here later.

I think there is always someone on board that has something new on any subject so no apologies are really needed. Besides by looking at the same views multiple times we always find something quite new, don't we? Every picture taker in Köln so far in pics i put online has so far taken pics the opposing direction from you, so this picture opens totally new views to me at least. :)

The "Dom," or the cathedral in Koln (Cologne to non-German speakers) was used as a navigation and bomb aiming reference point by Allied bombing crews, so it was "off limits" to bombing, not that aiming at churches was policy.  Given the proximity of the Hohenzollern bridge and the main rail lines, it is truly amazing it was still standing by the end of the war.

Never tire of these photos! Keep them coming!