Lehrte Bahnhof – DB ICE, IC, RB and Freight trains – Heavy rain evening at railway station [4K]

Railway station Lehrte is a unique and special railway junction for 5 railway lines in norden Germany. As a whole, this railway junction is in the shape of a tracks triangle. It is very interesting as a place for watching trains, because numerous ICE, IC, Regional Bahn and various freight trains are pass there. The central platform with its associated space looks like a big island. It is oriented on two sides and looks from one side to the tracks where mostly fast trains pass without stopping, and from the other to the group of tracks for slower and freight trains.

The main lines that meet here are Berlin–Lehrte, Hannover–Braunschweig, Schnellfahrstrecke Hannover–Berlin, Lehrte–Nordstemmen and Bahnstrecke Lehrte–Hamburg-Harburg. Lehrte had developed by the mid-19th century into a major railway junction of the Royal Hanoverian State Railways (Lower Saxony or Niedersachsen) and it had become known as a typical railway town. Lehrte station is now used only for regional transport services, as the Intercity-Express and Intercity (IC) services towards Berlin and the IC services towards Leipzig run through without stopping. Junction Lehrte was built to provide connection for freight trains from the Hanover freight bypass to the east and as a route from Celle to Hildesheim and Brunswick. The long-distance trains from Wolfsburg and Brunswick run through Lehrte at 120 km/h.

Inter City Express trains run at 120 km/h and produce their distinctively beautiful and powerful sounds. On the other side, there are several track crossings that produce the old-railfashioned and loud rattling of the wheels sounds of freight and other trains. The old German ICE 1, ICE 2 and ICE T trains pass here, as well as the new ICE 4 trains. Unfortunately, no new train can replace the powerful sound of the old ICE 1 and ICE 2 trains, with separate locomotive traction. Several EC fast classic passenger trains also pass there without stopping. Such are, for example, trains with passenger cars and Dutch Siemens locomotives at the head of the train.

As the rain intensified during the recording, which did not stop falling for the entire time, it gave a special charm and specificity to this recording. The evening’s blue sky and heavy rainfall created a scenic contrast. In some scenes, the pantographs of fast passing trains take water from the contact wire and scatter it around in the form of a misty cloud, which stretches out behind them. Towards the end of the recording, the camera accumulated so much water that the microphone began to pick up underwater deafening noises. Such sound frames depict a special rainy evening ambience until the end of the video.

For the purposes of creating this 30 minute ultra hd video, the recording was done in February 2024.