My railway photography trips in 2019

2019 was a busy year for me. It, for starters, marked the launch of my English language travel blog (this one), and also has seen the blog decline in the number of posts. The sad reality is that I will not be able to make posts as frequently as I wanted to - but 2019 was at the same time a beautiful year with colourful trips to various locations that may be represented in upcoming posts on this blog. Altogether, partly because of my hobby, partly because of work, I have taken railway-related photos in 15 countries in Europe, which is a lot. Each country on its own is easily an adventure of weeks for a railway traveller and I could be to this many countries without being shocked by the different sensations is that this year I have only been to countries I have visited before, most of them many times already. But in those countries, there were many new locations to discover. Let's see, what my 2019 travels looked like!

2019 started by a photo charter called Fények Fotósvonata (Charter of Lights), which was an appropriate name for the night photography trip at the Királyrét Forestry Railway, a narrow-gauge railway in Hungary.

The High Tatras in Slovakia could celebrate the refurbishment of a new historic railcar, the class EMU 89 of the TEŽ (Tatranská electrická železnicá).

The ÖBB class 4020 railcars are still running occasionally on the Wien - Wolfsthal section of the former POHÉV (Pozsony-országhatárszéli HÉV, a local railway, basically an interurban tram between Bratislava and Vienna in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy). The photo was taken on the Danube river bank dam at Hainburg an der Donau.

There are only three narrow-gauge forestry railways remaining in operation in Europe: the mocanita Viseu de Sus, in Romania, the ÁEV Gemenc, in Hungary (only about a dozen trains a year in the area often flooded by the Duna river in the Gemenc National Park) and the ÁEV Csömödér, also in Hungary, with 1-3 trains a day on a system of about 70 km. We managed to catch a train with six log cars in February.

Because of reconstruction works on the electrified mainline there were several, diesel hauled freight trains running every day for about 1.5 years in the area of Székesfehérvár, Hungary, obviously causing great joy to Hungarian and foreign railfans.

The famous railway market at Nagyszőlős (Vynohradiv, Ukraine, formerly Hungary) is a busy sight.

A historic train with a steam locomotive at the Soča valley, in Slovenia.

A high-speed train in Trieste, Italy.

In May, 2020, the Wolsztyn steam locomotive depot finishes daily operations and gives up its duties to new, low-floor railcars. Until then, it is probably the most intense place a European railfan could visit!

Budapest sees a huge increase in the number of restored, available historic tram cars. Each weekend, there is a different one serving one of the historic lines of the city, including line 2, which had been chosen as the most beautiful tram line in the world.

The Retro Weekend was a huge success at Lake Balaton, Hungary this year, and not only because of the large number of new, fitting, historic cars available for the old liveried locomotives but also as this was the last year with pure diesel traction on the North bank of the lake.

A steam photo charter freight train was organized at the Csömödér narrow-gauge railway early autumn.

The Oravita-Anina railway in Romania is always being threatened by closure. This year it survived by the slightest so far, so making a visit should be planned as soon as possible.

A fish transportation narrow-gauge railway is in operation at Lake White, Szeged, Hungary. There is only one open day each year.

There are still East-German trains running at the Berlin S-Bahn. To my delight.

The last trip this year, that actually ended only today for me, was to Bulgaria, the Septemvri-Dobrinishte narrow-gauge railway, which is 125 km long and is a popular mode of transport in the Rhodope, Ríla and Pirin mountains. With three days of varying weather, we had some very problematic and also some stunningly eyecatching photographs.

• Some of the trips already have a short travelogue and photo documentation uploaded to my homepage, benbe.hu. Please pay a visit if you liked these photos!