Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Class 111

Believe it or not, the old DB Class 111 electrics from the 1970's, immortalized in Railroad Tycoon 2 and many other things, are still in service. This one was at Nurnberg (Nuremberg) Hauptbahnhof.

I was very happy when we arrived in Munchen Hbf to see several classic German locomotives, in addition to some original Class 401 ICE sets. This is a Class 111, introduced in 1974, and so well-known that it made it into the strategy computer game "Railroad Tycoon II," one of my all-time favorite games. In real life, these locomotives were so successful that 227 were built by various contractors until 1984, and the only ones scrapped to date (two of them) were totalled in accidents. These locomotives have 4990 horsepower, and can reach a maximum operating speed of 160Km/h (99 m.p.h.), although they don't generally work too many express trains anymore. Originally, they weren't used in express service, and weren't even rated for 160, but from 1980 onwards they were upgraded to support the even-faster (and older) Class 103 express locomotives, although both the 111 and the 103 have now been mostly replaced in this role by the 101 and similar newer classes.

This was an alternate to the shot I posted earlier of this same train. Here you can see the sillouettes of the auto racks better.

This was a lucky shot that I got walking into Zizkov at dusk, which actually meant quite late at night, as during the summer in Prague it doesn't start to get dark until after 2100 hours. This looks to be a Class 111 with a rake of auto racks, although whether these are new cars or the cars of rail passengers (to be coupled to a long-distance passenger train) I don't know. The bridge was built after I moved to Prague, around 2007 or so (It took awhile to build, starting around 2005) as part of major rerouting of the mainlines through Karlin and Zizkov. On this particular night, I had the chance to walk one of the recently abandoned roadbeds (if I'm not mistaken), only recently converted to a bike path. It would be cool to post some info on that sometime soon, but I haven't got proper photos of it since I didn't have enough light on this particular night.

The numberplate on this Class 111 was really chewed up, or at least the paint was, so I've found it unreadable even on the highest-res versions of this. Cameraphone limitations again... In any case, as always this locomotive wasn't our main power, as we had a diesel on the front. The route would be a really odd way to get to Ceske Budejovice, via Beroun and Zdice, that I didn't know existed until this trip. Me and my friends would ultimately get off at Jince.

These Class 111 electrics are mainly used for switching in Praha Hlavni Nadrazi, although they turn up other places as well. Here #111011-3 was making up an express for either Linz or Vienna (Wien), I don't remember which.