For my 20'000th photo on Railpictures.net, I chose one from one of my favorite photo spots, the pond in Riedt near Erlen in the Thur Valley. The new 202 meter long SMILE high-speed train for 250 km/h from StadlerRail for the austrian Westbahn, RABe 501 # 044, is reflected as it passes by on its way back from test runs to the StadlerRail commissioning center in Erlen. Westbahn has ordered three of these trains, leased for six years, for use from Vienna via the Semmering to Graz and on via the newly opened Koralmbahn to Klagenfurt and Villach. When the Semmering Base Tunnel opens in around 2031, allowing double-decker trains to be used on this route, Westbahn will have the option of extending the contract, purchasing the trains, or returning them to the manufacturer.
How it all began: A good friend of mine, a retired flight engineer with the former legendary „Swissair“, and before that, in the 1950s, fireman on the last steamlocomotives of the SBB between Bellinzona and Luino and for shunting duties in the Basel area, very interested in the American railways and owner of a large O gauge layout with American models, was a regular user of RP since quite some time, not as a contributor but as a visitor to the website. He had noticed that Switzerland was relatively poorly represented, the quality of the pictures was also mostly rather moderate and what he disliked most was that the pictures practically never had captions/explanations/remarks. He then approached me, if I could "help" a little bit with my pictures from Switzerland. That was about 18 years ago and in February 2008 I started uploading my first pictures. Already the fourth submitted picture was awarded with a "Photo of the Week", which of course encouraged me to continue. I always tried to add something to the picture in the captions, i.e. additional information around. So, over more then 18 years there are now 20000 of my pictures on RP, of course not only from Switzerland, but also from the USA, Canada, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Morocco, Mauritania, China, Mongolia, Japan, New Zealand and of most European countries including Great Britain.
