Advent Quiz - December 2022

[whole diary]

[grahame]

In  another country.

Yep - and it's really interesting to dig a little deeper, say "yes", and ask what gives that away.

[Red Squirrel]

The lattice masts are not a pattern I’ve seen in these isles, and the buildings in the right look a bit Parisian… but everything else looks pretty familiar to me!

[GBM]

A German or Swiss (Interlaken?) interchange.

[stuving]

I was thinking the OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") looked fit for no more than 3kV - but then again, maybe East German OLE was like that? The building style could fit there too (or anywhere else, really). But the sign on that building - "Living27" - appears to belong to a Colombian property company, which isn't helpful.

In any case it hardly looks like a major station, more of a little one camping out on a good yard.

[grahame]

A German or Swiss (Interlaken?) interchange.

Yes in (I suppose) the broadest sense of somewhere you might change between public transports in one of those two countries, but not Interlaken.

[grahame]

I was thinking the OLE^▸ (Overhead Line Equipment, more often "OHLE") looked fit for no more than 3kV - but then again, maybe East German OLE was like that?

I don't know what East German OLE looked like, and this picture won't tell you  . ... and I'm not going to try and quantify "major" or "minor"; one of the things that struck me as a generality in both Switzerland and Germany last month was the high volume of rail freight compared to the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), and most of it electric hauled.

[johnneyw]

Zooming in on the train below the bridge, the red livery looks like Swiss Rail or Deutsche Bahn.

[ellendune]

In  another country.

Yep - and it's really interesting to dig a little deeper, say "yes", and ask what gives that away.

The lattice masts are not a pattern I’ve seen in these isles, and the buildings in the right look a bit Parisian… but everything else looks pretty familiar to me!

Indeed that was my thinking

[Red Squirrel]

The lattice masts are not a pattern I’ve seen in these isles, and the buildings in the right look a bit Parisian… but everything else looks pretty familiar to me!

Lorks , I meant left not right. The building on the right could, sadly, be anywhere.

[johnneyw]

You know, the more that I look at it, the more that I'm convinced that it's Altona, Hamburg. 
I still remember the old station with it's grand old roof before it was demolished and replaced by the rather blander affair that now exists.  Other redevelopments around the station at the time were often similarly unattractive and in stark contrast to the rather more appealing architecture in adjacent old Altona that perhaps surprisingly survived the war relatively intact.
Altona was and remains Hamburg's largest terminus station but really feels like a shadow of it's former self.

[grahame]

You know, the more that I look at it, the more that I'm convinced that it's Altona, Hamburg. 

I'm afraid it isn't ...  Altona is one of those stations which I would like to visit just to see what it's about some time.  It reads like a major terminus of some long distance stuff, yet in the suburbs rather than the centre of Hamburg.

[eightonedee]

Doing a little research (going back to Grahame's Interrail threads, and using Google Maps) I'd guess that this is a view of Passau station taken from the east.

[johnneyw]

I'm afraid it isn't ...  Altona is one of those stations which I would like to visit just to see what it's about some time.  It reads like a major terminus of some long distance stuff, yet in the suburbs rather than the centre of Hamburg.

Indeed, Altona, like Wandsbek to the east, was once a separate town from Hamburg which got swallowed up as the city expanded.
Wandsbek and surrounds fared rather worse from bombing in the war.  My grandparent's house (the equivalent of a local vicarage) burnt down but adjacent houses survived.

[grahame]

Doing a little research (going back to Grahame's Interrail threads, and using Google Maps) I'd guess that this is a view of Passau station taken from the east.

Yes, indeed it is ... the last station in Germany before (behind were I took the photo from) it runs into Austria, and starting point for the very long distance service in the morning - 07:17 to Dortmund.    The name "Passau" has come up for me on many travels in Germany, as the stop before the train carries on to Linz and Wien (Vienna).

I arrived there from Villach, with a zigzag via Vienna, on 22nd November.  A pleasant town - flagged up as having a population of 52,000 but it felt somewhat bigger.  It is strategically important:

Passau, a German city on the Austrian border, lies at the confluence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers. Known as the Three Rivers City, it's overlooked by the Veste Oberhaus, a 13th-century hilltop fortress housing a city museum and observation tower.

In the picture, that's a sharp curve on the main line and having run pretty direct across Germany it takes this very sharp turn (only part is seen) before crossing the Inn and after a Berwick-upon-Tweed type enclave into Austria.

[grahame]

My grandparent's house (the equivalent of a local vicarage) burnt down but adjacent houses survived.

Goodness.   This is one of those occasions I want to acknowledge that posting but I do not want to click on "Like".  I was very much aware through Germany that I was visiting cities that had histories of which this is a micro-component but all encompassing for those involved.