L.A. Union Station

Union Station of L.A. is certainly one of the most famous and most good-looking train stations of the world and served as a movie location in several Hollywood movies like most recently in Dark Knight Rises.

I haven't made a picture of the front entrance -forgot it- but the backyard is beautiful for a station area. 

 Seating is first class: fine (artificial) leather armchairs.

 Building itself is nice as well, sort of Mexican style...as far as my judgement goes.

Station series: Königstein

A rather tiny station, but beautifully located next to the river Elbe.Nowadays every ordinary regional train looks like a space ship, much more futuristic than some 80's science fiction movies...

Train stations: Dresden again

The iron horse patiently waits in its stable. Well fed, it is ready to gallop a long distance at over 250 kilometers per hour, carrying lots of peoples reading their books or looking out in the night..

Station series: Bielefeld

The central station of Bielefeld...looks almost identical to the station of Wolfsburg, which I passed on the way. Todays business trip was 800 kilometers just for a two hour meeting, it was a good one, though.
Bielefeld is mainly known for the fact that a large group of people deny its existence, the so called "Bielefeld-Verschwörung" (English: Bielefeld conspiracy). At least I can prove there is a train station with the name Bielefeld, but not sure if it was faked, the station looked like so many others :-)

Station series: Wolfsburg station

Wolfsburg station is rather small, or better very small, or better tiny compared to Berlin Hauptbahnhof or the other major stations. Surprisingly the fast InterCityExpress has a stop here. The business travellers from and to the Volkswagen car plant are seemingly a good reason.
The train station is located just in front the plant. Well, EVERYTHING in Wolfsburg is located just in front of the plant.
There is not much to tell about the Wolfsburg train station besides the amazing fact that some of the ICEs are passing the station without stop...in full speed of 200 kph and more. This is always a strange experience when one of these large trains passes with full speed (and noise) just 2 meters in front of you.

Station series: Berlin Hauptbahnhof

Yes, I have posted pictures of the Berliner Hauptbahnhof already. But since I took some more last week and to compare it to the crowded Hamburg station I thought it is worth a post.
It looks huge, actually these are only the lower levels (the new north-south railway).

Station series: Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

Continuing my collection of photos of German railroad stations: here is Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (Hamburg central station). It is a pretty busy place, I suppose it is already overloaded. Trains leave almost every minute and everybody is running around, hitting other travellers with the luggage and there are more than usual of these incomprehensible announcements which we hear at every station or airport :-)
It is really heavy crowded. One of the reasons could be the neighborhood of the station, nobody dares to leave it. On one side of it there is a shopping center but on the other side there is the probably worst red-light district in Germany. And it is far from obvious which exit leaves in which direction. I remember one day I had time left to the departure of the train and I had the idea of leaving the station and do some shopping. But I took the wrong exit. Suddenly I was surrounded by mean looking pimps and there was nothing to shop besides drugs or girls, it was like entering sin city. I was back in, in cold sweat, after a few minutes. Until today I'm happy that I got away with my life and all my belongings (ok, this is a very small exaggeration ;-)

Train stations

Actually I prefer to travel by train to flying. There's more space for your legs and you don't have to bear the bothering check in procedure. Just enter the train, sit down, relax and watch the countryside flying by. Also it's possible to read or to use the computer without having close physical contact with your neighbor.

Only the good old train stations are starting to disappear. Modern train stations look more like shopping malls. However, this has also some advantages, you don't have to wait in a small area with usually not enough seats as on air ports.
This is Dresden Hauptbahnhof:

This is Leipzig Hauptbahnhof:

This is Berlin Hauptbahnhof: