TRAINS

I have always had a passion for trains, especially since I was 18-20 years old. Around year 2000 I launched this website to share some of my train pictures.

On 4 interrail trips through Europe in the late 1980's I got a (small) collection of train pictures, and in the 1990's this collection expanded slowly. Since I started travelling in USA in 1999 and with my switch to digital cameraes a few years later, which made photography cheaper and easier, I have taken many pictures of trains in Europe and USA. Today my holidays almost always involve a bit of railfanning.

I am fascinated by american railroads because the trains are so long and big, each trains hauled by 3-4 locomotives. Besides the american railroads often go through very beautiful nature. On the other hand the diversity in american railroading seems to be disappearing - many (or at least some) years ago there were many railroads but in the 1990's mergers reduced the number of big / class I railroad to 6-7. These mergers also meant that the many different color schemes were reduced - and massive investment in new, modern locomotives from EMD and GE have further reduced the diversity.

Europe have seen a different development (but also similar trends). Some years ago every european country had a national railway company that took care of both passenger and freight services as well as track maintenance. Today, in most european countries private operators can access the rail system, especially for freight trains. This means you can see many different rail companies on todays european rails. Many private companies have specialized and for example offers transportation of containers on a specific corridor or for a few specific container companies.

On the other hand the american trend with modern, high-tech locomotives is also common in Europe. Years ago locomotives and trainsets were specific for each country and normally built locally in the country. Todays locomotives and trainsets are build by a handfull of big companies like Siemens, Bombardier, EMD and Alstom.

These pages are not affiliated with the railway companies in any way. I have put the pictures on the internet to share my hobby with other railfans worldwide.

Note: European "open access" operators are placed under the country where they are based, ie Lokomotion is placed under Germany, Crossrail under Switzerland and so on. Selected links:

• Jernbanenet: Danish site with a lot of links to pages about danish railways.
• The European Railway Server - A lot of train pictures, links and other stuff of european railways.
• Railpictures.net: Probably the biggest collection of trainpictures from USA.