DH 413 / MA-Fès

It is 14 February. On Valentine’s Day, I set off on my return journey from Africa to Switzerland. As my train from Fès didn’t leave until 11 o’clock, I was still able to take a photo of the first Al Atlas train to Oujda. To do so, we drove to the outskirts of Fès and were soon ‘spotted’ by a few schoolchildren. We had a bit of a chat – or at least as much as was possible given the language barrier between Arabic and French. My very good colleague ‘BMW-Lars’ was able to draw on his professional experience and, as a qualified teacher, ‘recycle’ a lesson. Having already had to teach a few schoolchildren in Switzerland how to count from 1 to 30 in French at the end of January, he was able to give the same lesson out in the fields outside Fès. The whole situation was extremely amusing, and after we’d given them a few dirhams as pocket money, they took a fancy to my snuff. They recognised straight away what was in the black tin. They held out their hands and took a pinch, just like the adults. Afterwards, the boys took off. With no distractions, we were now able to focus on the Atlas Mountains, and the photo of the DH 413 was in the bag by the scheduled time. As we were about to walk back to the car, a rather odd-looking gentleman approached us. He wanted to warn us about all sorts of dangers. He said that contact with the local population was dangerous, that the railway was dangerous, and so on and so forth. He asked us several times where we were staying for the night, to which we never replied. In the end, he unwittingly accompanied us to the car to ensure our safety. Before we set off, he took a photo of us and the number plate of the hire car. Feeling a little uneasy, we then drove to Fès railway station, where I was able to begin my return journey shortly afterwards. A week’s photography holiday in Morocco was slowly drawing to a close. The trip had been a complete success. We’d had a great time and the haul of photos was very varied. From the noisy GM diesel locomotives to the Nez Cassé with its long phosphate trains, right through to the fast Al Boraq we’d managed to take a great many good photos. As for the weather, although we had to chase the good weather around, we can definitely count ourselves lucky to have had just one day of cloud cover, especially when you consider the weather forecast. Hopefully, this won’t be our last trip to Morocco.

Automatically translated from German. Show the original

Vehicle

DH 400 413

Operator

ONCF

Train number

101

Photospot

Fès, Fez-Meknes

Taken

14. Feb. 2025, 10:13 a.m.

Camera position

From the ground

Photo type

Railway

Camera

Canon EOS R5

Focal length

35 mm