The freight station Köln Eifeltor in the south of Cologne, seen from the 17th floor of the TausendFenster-Turm on 18 January 2005. The station itself is in the background, in the foreground there are several tracks connecting the Südbrücke ("South Bridge", a bridge crossing the Rhine which is mostly used for freight trains) on the left, the station Köln Süd on the right and Eifeltor. The two leftmost tracks are freight tracks from Köln Süd to the Südbrücke, followed by two freight tracks from Süd to Eifeltor and the track for passenger trains running from Eifeltor to Süd. Then there are two passenger tracks from Köln Süd to the Südbrücke (used for the ICE line 78, Frankfurt-Amsterdam), with a lot of space in between. It seems that there used to be storage tracks in the past. On the right edge of the area runs the passenger track from Süd to Eifeltor.

Digital photo by Christoph Schmitz (christoph.schmitz2@post.rwth-aachen.de)