For these trains and coaches, the good days are counted. Some of them are placed on sidetracks as long as possible. Other trains were forgotten - together with the rails on which they once commuted. Still, many hundred kilometers of "ghost rails" are hidden in and round the declining number of fallow lands, in the woods or between the active rails in Frankfurt. To be used as a dumb site became kind of a natural fate in an urban environment like Frankfurt. In other cases rain water, sunlight and wind brings back new life. Pioneer plants, mostly grasses, birch trees and blackberry bushes, are the first who settle between sleepers and gravel.

Necessities, efforts and money to conserve the trains are rare. Some trains are cared by small groups of hobby train enthusiasts. But even for them, it's a race against rust, decay and thieves.