Week 11 – no comment
To Styria and back to NRW.
Posts from the ‘Industrial History’ category
Vienna: snow globes since 1900
Above/featured:“Greetings from Vienna.” Vienna-themed snow globes, 25- and 45mm sizes.
The five-year old boy sat transfixed, flipping the paperweight one way and back over, watching the “snow” slowly float and settle. My fascination with snow globes didn’t wane, long decades after that first memory.
In the Austrian capital city of Vienna, I’m visiting a small shop and accompanying museum to learn about the production of the “original snow globe” whose story begins with Erwin Perzy in 1900.
Perzy who produced surgical instruments was tasked to improve the output from the recently invented electric light bulb and further brighten hospital surgery rooms. He realized that a water-filled glass sphere containing loose reflective bits could provide a solution, except that the materials kept sinking. Flakes of white semolina tended to stay afloat longer; this experiment reminded him of light snowfall. After registering an official patent for the “Schneekugel” (snow globe), Erwin and his brother Ludwig created a shop to produce and sell small snow globes whose early designs included churches. Today, the 3rd generation of the Perzy continues to produce snow globes of various sizes; what material the “snow” is and how it continues to “float” remain secret.
Germany: 30 years of ICE on the rails (2021)
Above/featured: Berlin Hauptbahnhof – 9 Dec 2015 (6D1). Departing from track 3 is ICE 554 to Köln (front-half) and ICE 544 to Düsseldorf (back-half); trains split in the town of Hamm.
June 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of high-speed Intercity Express (ICE) service on German rail.
In the 1991 vs. 2021 comparison graphic provided by Deutsche Bahn, I’ve marked in green the ICE routes upon which I’ve made dozens of trips since late-2001 (when I moved to Heidelberg). Even after leaving in 2003, frequent annual trips back to Germany meant spending a lot of time planted on express trains across the country. Arriving in Europe mostly meant flying into Frankfurt am Main airport, from which I’d travel:
- Frankfurt to Berlin, via Kassel
- Frankfurt to Heidelberg, via Mannheim
- Frankfurt to Köln
- Frankfurt to Munich, via Stuttgart
- Berlin to Frankfurt, via Kassel
- Berlin to Köln, via Hannover
- Köln to Berlin, via Hannover
- Köln to Frankfurt
- Munich to Frankfurt, via Stuttgart
Over the last few years, the express stretch between Erfurt and Halle/Leipzig has vastly improved the Berlin-Frankfurt and Berlin-Munich routes, cutting the one-way travel time for each route by about one hour. Except for the Erfurt-Halle/Leipzig stretch, I’ve travelled on every “Stundentakt” ICE route (thick red/green in the graphic below).
ICE coverage, including recent work on the Erfurt-Halle/Leipzig stretch; graphic courtesy of Deutsche Bahn. My “dozens on ICE” are marked in green; red filled circles indicate cities I frequented the most (B, F, HD, K, M).
The ICE fleet of trains include vehicles with maximum speeds of over 300 km/h; graphic courtesy of Deutsche Bahn.
Morning ICE 5 service from Frankfurt am Main to Basel; how to read this train station signage – 20 May 2016 (6D1).
Morning light at Munich’s Hackerbrücke station. Foreground: westbound metallic-white ICE train just departing the city’s central station, traveling right to left. Background: red DB regional train approaching central station, from left to right. Photo on 23 Feb 2017 (6D1).
I made three images above with a Canon EOS6D mark1 (6D1). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-l60.
Seattle’s 1st Starbucks, 1971–1976
Above/featured: Exhibition “Edible City: A Delicious Journey” at MOHAI – Seattle, 8 Jan 2017 (6D1).
What: 1st Starbucks, in the Rhode Island building at the corner of Virginia & Western.
Where: A restaurant now, but no historical plaque or sign.
Why: 1st location between 1971 to 1976, as historical exercise.
Many write about and refer to the “original Starbucks” location in downtown Seattle. If they’re referring to the present location in Pike Place, that Starbucks outlet while the world’s oldest is not the first or original location.
So, what happened to Starbucks’ very first shop from 1971 to 1976?
My Mittenwald: mountains, masks, music, Mahlzeit!
Above/featured: From the regional train: facing southwest over Schöttlkarstrasse and the eastern end of the Wettersteinwand at right.
In 1786, the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described the alpine town of Mittenwald as “lebendes Bilderbuch” – a living picture-book. Images and descriptions in print and provided by visitors became a real draw and lure. Funny thing is I’d stayed in nearby Garmisch-Partenkirchen several times, and I hadn’t taken the easy 20-minute train hop to Mittenwald.
I took care of that with two visits within a span of 15 months: with snow and without snow.
Wandering through Mittenwald is pure delight because of abundant fresh mountain air, picturesque surroundings, and the compact nature of the town. The description becomes a common refrain for alpine towns.
Mid-winter is special with the combination of seeing mountains freshly frosted with snow, people of all ages wearing masks and costumes during carnival season, houses painted in colourful “Lüftlmalerei”, and the town’s special place in music history. When the warm sun dominates in spring and summer, it seems like an endless vista of blue skies along with green meadows and mountains to accompany your time outside on walks and hikes in the area.
Fotoeins Fotografie 