Cab ride
A cab ride is a railroad film in which a camera is attached to the locomotive or another rail vehicle in the driver's cab so that the film shows the journey from the perspective of the engine driver .
The cab ride represents a modern variant of the phantom rides of early film history, in which an otherwise immobile camera was mounted in front of the locomotive to take panoramic pictures. You have been known to the general public since 1993, when the Sender Freie Berlin began, in cooperation with the DB , to show trips on the Berlin S-Bahn in the night program . A video series of the "10 most beautiful railway lines in Germany " was later published, expanded several times and also published on DVD . The ARD showed between September 1995 and October 2013, the above title in her night program Cabrides from home and abroad.
But driver's cab rides are still being recorded. Because this way, free transmission lines can be filled in a simple way. The City TV Dreieich features to together with the Deutsche Bahn rides the commuter trains in the Rhine-Main area on. Due to constant expansion, the existing material grew to over 24 hours. The special thing about rides in the driver's cab is that nature lovers have something to see, especially on scenic routes. However, the view is only given in the immediate straight-ahead direction. Those interested in the train also get a glimpse that is usually reserved for the train driver. A large selection of such films is available on YouTube .
At the now discontinued station Bahn TV , the program BahnTV was in motion several times a day . She was an integral part of the program.
There are various options for cropping images when driving along in the driver's cab :
The first variant is probably the best known, the use of a rigidly mounted camera and the choice of a middle range of the focal length . This narrower angle of view means that the track consistently forms the center of the image and only a smaller part can be seen to the left and right of the track bed . The advantage of this variant is that it has a higher artistic expressiveness, because the perspective of the driving effect can be felt most clearly here (switches flowing together or separating, catenary masts scurrying past, bridges seemingly flying over the viewer, entering and leaving a tunnel etc.). In addition, the viewer sees more of the course of the route , always with the buildings or landscape immediately surrounding it.
The disadvantage is that the non-guided , fixed camera (technical jargon : walled in ) means that you have no view of the route and the inexperienced eye can easily get the impression of a surveillance camera .
In another variant, the camera ( tripod or handheld camera) is guided , it is located like a second person behind (technical language: overshoulder setting ) or next to the driver. Here, the choice of focal length is generally to be found in the wide-angle range , whereby the camera can also use the zoom on the route, which for a while is equivalent to a setting as in the first variant. The advantage of this second variant is that you get more of the feeling of the train driver because his perspective is imitated. The camera setting can also show details on the dashboard or handgrips, and the sound can reproduce any speech traffic.
A direct disadvantage is not to be mentioned, because this is a different task that is more in the direction of documentation or reporting . In contrast to the first variant, the train driver and his machine are the focus of the observer, while the observer inevitably has - if at all - only a limited view of the route itself.
Web links
- Führerstandsmitfahrten.eu - a collection of cab rides from goods, local and long-distance transport.