A class 50 2-10-0 50-485 is crossing a deep valley at Buch with a west bound freight train from Crailsheim to Heilbronn. If you look carefully the engine is attached to a tender with a guards compartment behind the coal space. These were not universal though. The engine also has a covered front valance below the smoke box down to the buffer beam, these were rare on this class in West Germany. We had come here to see the last few 003 Pacifics at work out of the cathedral city of Ulm. Their work covered the non electrified routes to Crailsheim, Heilbronn and south to Friedrichshafen on Lake Bodensee which formed the border with Switzerland. We had travelled here in my trusty old black Ford Anglia WON 724 through France via Verdun and Strasbourg for a two week bash all round mid and southern West Germany which included the Black Forest and Tubingen to see the last Prussian P8’s 4-6-0’s still busy at work. The remaining few of this once four thousand strong class of engine still had two more years of service left before they became extinct.

Sunday 4th July 1971.

Regards
Ledg.