European Railroad Discussion > Esslingen am Neckar Trains Trolleybuses and Tugs

The main reason that I wanted to go to Stuttgart was to see the trolleybuses in nearby Esslingen am Neckar. After riding the Zacke in Stuttgart I rode the U-Bahn Line 7 to Ostfildern and the bus to Esslingen. It was actually snowing in Ostfildern and looked like I could end up with less than craptacular pictures. i got on the first trolleybus and rode to Obertürkheim. By the time we got there the weather had cleared up. In looking at Google Satellite I could not figure out what was happening on the hillside above the trolleybus route so I had to see it in person. It ended up being grape arbors or something up on the hillside. The trolleybus runs along the hill and the railway runs outside the road and across the tracks is the Neckar River. It is quite a beautiful place and on top of that there were lilac trees or something and wild Tulips. There is no fence to keep you off the Deutsch Bahn. I thought there was a sign but it tells you that the area is a lizard habitat. I would come back here again and again, if I didn't live so far away.
1) 15:48 S-Bahn to Stuttgart.
2) I got as much as I could into this shot, the lilac, the wild Tulips, the grape arbors and of course the trolleybus.
3) The trolleybus goes through Mettingen on it's way to Obertürkheim. Like a lot of other places really ancient buildings. That church in the background actually has trolleybus span wires attached to it!

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I rode that trolleybus to Oberesslingen and back to Esslingen. I wanted to check out a pedestrian bridge in Esslingen I had seen on the satellite maps. I ran back to the bridge in time to get the trolleybus that I had first rode on going under the bridge toward Oberesslingen.
4) You can just barely see the pedestrian bridge if you look at the big old tower thing behind the DB Regio 19234. 
5-6) The trolleybus runs on Neckarstraße right next to the tracks.

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The trolleybus pictures and the next pictures are all timestamped for 17:20. I took another trolleybus picture after the one I posted and heard a train ran and got pretty good results. I am not really sure what I would have done if the train was seconds, and I mean seconds earlier?
7-9) Electrics pulling a tanker train. We saw many tanker trains in Germany.

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Not only is the pedestrian bridge a great place to see trolleybuses and trains but there is also a French Restaurant underneath it with unbelievably good prices!
10) Watch trains and trolleybuses while you eat.
11) Food was as good as the views!
12) I went back up on the pedestrian bridge again as I kept missing the third trolleybus that was out on Sunday that was wrapped with an add with Kangaroos on it. While up on the bridge I got a tanker boat that is a family owned affair as you can see from the car onboard. The Neckar is right there next tot he tracks so there is a lot to look at in Esslingen!

From Esslingen it was back to Stuttgart to take tram pictures from the hotel which I posted on the earlier thread. 

Thank you for looking!

Jim

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Thanks for new things to see.
One little experience I remember about German travel is that there is some really nice wine coming from those steep vineyards.

Another interesting fact about Esslingen am Neckar is that it was the home of Maschinenfabrik Esslingen, a specialist manufacturer of (among other things) steam locomotives, particularly for rack (cog) operation. They delivered many of these to Java (Indonesia), India and Argentina, among others. The Argentine locos were delivered in 1955, and were, IIRC, the last mainline steam delivered to Argentina. On top of that, they were 0-12-2T's.

Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)