It's the same here in the Netherlands. Around June 21 twilight lasts past 22:45 and around 04:30 you'll see the eastern sky turn red again.
Not to mention the fact that the Central European Timezone runs from the Poland - Belarus border (~23 degrees east) to the western most tip of Spain (~9 degrees west), which is further west than Great Britain.

We had it somewhat solved prior to world war two. The Netherlands had its own GMT +00:20 timezone which went quite well with the fact that Amsterdam is about five degrees east of Greenwich.

I don't think you meant the North Sea.

Firewire 800 all the way. Yes, it costs more, but it's quite a bit faster.

It seems the linked page focusses on information for people who want to shoot photos for ads and similar things. Although I'm sure they'll also apply it to a trainspotter shooting some photos.

I've shot plenty of train pictures in various European countries and so far I've only experienced problems in Marseille this summer. I was asked to stop taking pictures by a gentleman with a somewhat official suit and a walkie-talkie. My lack of French at that point made it smarter to follow the instructions rather than ask him what the exact problems were. In both Germany and Switzerland no one even came to ask what I was doing while taking pictures. Especially Switzerland with all the different railroads and rolling stock is a country where you might end up with a small group of people all shooting the same trains.