Yet more random foreign photos.....

[Johann Marsbar]

The only planned rail interest during the next 4 days worth of coach travel was a one-way trip on the George to Knysna line which had been designated a "Museum Line", with 5 steam locos sub-shedded at George to work the line.  The original itinerary said we were supposed to travel from Knysna to George, but in fact we did the line the other way round.

The weather was somewhat wet, but there were a couple of locos in steam at George, one being used for shunting......

 

 

...whilst the other one worked our service, which was actually timetabled to run as a mixed train, here seen from the carriage window as it crossed the famous "Bridge over the Indian Ocean"....

 

 

Shunting took place en-route, which was handy for photos. The bogie van had just been picked up at the time of this photo.....

 

 

This SAR Road Services vehicle was parked up outside the station at Knysna as an exhibit......

 

 

Our coach driver was obviously aware that a selection of older SAR classes were shedded at Voorbaai depot in Mossel Bay for special train workings so decided to add a visit there into our tour just by turning up at the depot on spec and getting us access, the variety of locos there making it well worthwhile.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As part of the tour, we had some time in Mossel Bay itself and this train was seen on the docks branch......

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

2 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

The only planned rail interest during the next 4 days worth of coach travel was a one-way trip on the George to Knysna line which had been designated a "Museum Line", with 5 steam locos sub-shedded at George to work the line.  The original itinerary said we were supposed to travel from Knysna to George, but in fact we did the line the other way round.

The weather was somewhat wet, but there were a couple of locos in steam at George, one being used for shunting......

 

 

...whilst the other one worked our service, which was actually timetabled to run as a mixed train, here seen from the carriage window as it crossed the famous "Bridge over the Indian Ocean"....

 

 

Shunting took place en-route, which was handy for photos. The bogie van had just been picked up at the time of this photo.....

 

 

This SAR Road Services vehicle was parked up outside the station at Knysna as an exhibit......

 

 

Our coach driver was obviously aware that a selection of older SAR classes were shedded at Voorbaai depot in Mossel Bay for special train workings so decided to add a visit there into our tour just by turning up at the depot on spec and getting us access, the variety of locos there making it well worthwhile.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As part of the tour, we had some time in Mossel Bay itself and this train was seen on the docks branch......

 

 

Had a couple of nights in Knysna in Sept 2007. Hoped to do the run down to George but it did not work out.

[Johann Marsbar]

We had 3 nights in Cape Town though I only have a couple of photos from that section of the trip as that was one of the slide films that Kodak managed to lose.  Thankfully my Father did take some photos there, so I can fill some of the gaps.

 

Golden Arrow were the primary bus operator - direct successors to Cape Tramways - and they were still operating some Leyland (Guy) Victory double deckers.....

 

 

...along with a variety of single deckers.....

 

 

Cape Town still seemed generally safe to wander around at that stage - though we did get a bit of hassle in one of the bus stations - a situation that changed within a few years according to a friend who went there in the late 1990's.

 

We left Cape Town on the "Trans Karoo" for the long journey to Johannesburg, the train actually carrying a headboard.....

 

 

This Garratt was an unexpected sighting at the main station in Cape Town, though there was a Rovos Rail tour around in the area on that date according to the "Railways of Southern Africa" loco stockbook I bought during the trip.......

 

 

A selection of shots from the train en route to Jo'burg......

 

 

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

We only spent one night in Johannesburg on this section of the tour before heading out of the Country and the rest of the day after arriving by rail from Cape Town was basically a "dead" time with no activities planned.  At least one bus route passed the hotel, so a few (poor) photos were obtained of vehicles, though it was very obvious that the hotel security guards kept a close eye on us when we left the confines of the grounds........

 

 

The following morning we had a visit to "Gold Reef City" which is basically a theme park (with all the associated rides) established on a former gold mine site. The main attraction was a trip down the mine and presentations on gold mining/refining/production which was quite interesting.

Our time there was limited by the fact we had a train to catch in the afternoon, but we did get time to have a look around the recreated buildings that had been constructed in tune with the late Victorian era plus have a look at various "props" (and exhibits) positioned about the site, a selection of which is shown below......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the most unexpected thing to find there, albeit partially obsured by foliage......

 

 

An E.R & F. Turner portable steam engine, manufactured in Ipswich, and likely to be the only survivor of that manufacturers portables - unless anyone knows different.   There is another of their steam engines derelict in the former Tolly Cobbold brewery in Ipswich, but that was a fixed installation.

 

After a look round the bus park (the place was full of school parties).......

 

 

........we headed off to catch our overnight service northwards.......

[Johann Marsbar]

We departed Jo'burg station at 15.25 on the 25 hour journey by rail north into Zimbabwe, our destination being the City of Bulawayo where we were going to spend just one night.

Zimbabwe seemed to have been tagged on to the tour as a bit of an afterthought and we could have really done with more time there and less in ZA.  Little forethought had been given to the time there either, as given that they still had Garratts engaged on shunting/trip work around Bulawayo, no shed or photo visits had been arranged and, more importantly, the need for Photo Permits for rail photography had been completely ignored as well.......

Most people just carried on photographing more or less as normal and nothing was said, but it would have only taken one officious individual to mess things up!

 

Once over the border at Beit Bridge the next morning, this was our train loco a product of GM (Canada), though I didn't note the location of the photo. I dont think it was at BB - more likely somwhere where the train loco detatched a carriage or did some shunting.......

 

 

En route......

 

 

 

On all our rail trips throughout the trip we saw vey little in the way of "big game" from the train apart from a small number of giraffes and a solitary (but serously large and well tusked) elephant, which was a bit of a disappointment.

 

As we approached Bulawayo, we passed the United Portland Cement plant at the appropriately nemed place called "Cement" where this ex SAR 19D 4-8-2 was used as a shunter....

 

 

...and various Garratts were passed shunting in the yards at Bulawayo......

 

 

Zimbabwe was a breath of fresh air after ZA as there didn't appear to be any safety concerns about walking anywhere, though the place seemed to be totally disorganised in several respects.

This was brought home when we arrived at our hotel for the night expecting to be able to get some Zimbabwe Dollars and found that they didn't have any in stock!!

The entire tour group therefore lived on credit until the following morning when a visit was made downtown to visit a bank - an experience in itself......

 

Our hotel, The Churchill, was well out in the suburbs on Winston Churchill Boulevard but the Shell petrol station next door appeared to be a calling in point for long distance bus services, such as this somewhat interestingly loaded vehicle, travelling along with the passenger door being held open....

 

 

After the bank fiasco, we headed off for a visit to the Railway Museum where some of the NRZ Garratts seemed to have been moved for storage......

 

 

More from the Museum in the next post.....

[Johann Marsbar]

A selection of the exhibits at the Railway Museum......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Late that afternoon we boarded a service train for the overnight journey from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls - the group occupying a couple of private cars at the rear of the train, from where this photo was taken.....

 

 

Interestingly there are at least 4 carriages with a clerestory roof in the consist of the service train.  Our two private coaches came from a Zimbabwe based tour operator, but it was rather annoying to be told when touring the Railway Museum that they could have arranged for steam haulage on the journey if only someone had actually bothered to ask.......

 

This pair of locos were seen from the train somewhere en-route...

 

 

We arrived at Victoria Falls early the following morning and just had one night at the (rather touristy/OTT) Victoria Falls Hotel.  There seems to have been an "official" bus trip to the falls area as part of the tour, but as it was within walking distance of the hotel, we did walk back there seperately to the group on the final morning.

 

A couple of shots of the scenery.....

 

 

 

We didn't see any rail activity at all during the time we were at VF, though at least there were a few buses to photograph.....

 

 

 

I don't know where the ZUPCO bus originated from but the destination blind appears to have "Manchester Rd" as the next display under the "Private" !    There doesn't appear to be a road of that name in VF......

 

The last night in Africa was duly celebrated by a barbeque at the Victoria Falls Hotel where at least one member of the group managed to get food poisoning!

 

Next day it was off to VF airport to board this SAA/SAL 737 for the connecting flight to Jan Smuts for a 747 back to Heathrow.......

 

 

VF remains the only airport that I've had to physically identify my luggage sitting out on the tarmac before it was loaded onto the aircraft!

 

So ended my one and only foray to Africa and whilst I did think about going on a trip to Zimbabwe in the '90's, having found that Country to be more interesting, I never did, and its unlikely I'll be going there at any time in the future.

 

After 3 long distance trips in consecutive years, the next 5 years were spent visiting places somewhat closer to home as during the early 90's things had been changing rather rapidly in Europe, particularly in the east, so the opportunity was taken to make some visits there before things changed too much.......

[jamie92208]

Very interesting photos from Southern Africa, I've enjoyed them.  Also how different the early 737 looks with those much smaller engines. 

 

Jamie

[Johann Marsbar]

11 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Very interesting photos from Southern Africa, I've enjoyed them.  Also how different the early 737 looks with those much smaller engines. 

 

Jamie

 

There are still 5 long distance (Australia, NZ & Argentina) trips to come in this thread, but the rest of them are all in Europe and they increase in number considerably once the era of the low-cost airlines kick in from about 2000 onwards!

[Adam88]

8 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

We arrived at Victoria Falls ...

 

Interestingly the engineer for the bridge was a Yorkshireman, George Andrew Hobson, who is commemorated in a window in Hubberholme church in the Dales.  If you look closely you will see the bridge included in the design - from https://www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic DVD/News/May 2019/may23/may23.htm

 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Adam88

[Johann Marsbar]

11 minutes ago, Adam88 said:

 

Interestingly the engineer for the bridge was a Yorkshireman, George Andrew Hobson, who is commemorated in a window in Hubberholme church in the Dales.  If you look closely you will see the bridge included in the design - from https://www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic DVD/News/May 2019/may23/may23.htm

 

 

 

I actually meant to put a photo in which included the bridge but forgot!

 

Here's a couple from the trip.....

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Moving on into 1995 I started looking at options for a trip to eastern Europe, particularly to somewhere "new" that I'd never visited before.  With the dramatic changes there since 1990 it had opened up a large number of options though I was particularly interested in the former Czechoslovakia and duly spotted an advert from the UK railtour group ADL (Along Different Lines) that was heading off to the Czech Republic in October of that year. This actually turned out to be the first of many ADL trips I would go on over the next 10 years, though, with hindsight, I wish I had gone on a few more of them back then!

 

The full trip from London was undertaken by rail and this turned out to actually be the last time I made such a long trans-European trip by train as for most of the other visits to Europe an air journey was generally involved. The trip provided my first opportunity to sample Eurostar from Waterloo.......

 

 

.....though, as it turned out, I've only ever made five (I think..) other return jouneys on it since then thanks to the low cost airlines!

 

The trip to Prague was somewhat enlivened by the statutory SNCF strike action with a doubt hanging over the operation of our onward train service from Gare de L'Est to Frankfurt (Main), though thankfully this did operate as scheduled. A connecting service from Frankfurt to Prague was taken and we duly arrived in that City to a cloudless sky early the next morning.

 

Transferring to a coach, we spent some time visiting a selection of depots and stabling points around Prague, where the variety and colour variations of the locomotives made the long trip worthwhile.....

 

 

 

This loco still retained its CSD lettering and old number series......

 

 

 

 

 

There were a few semi-derelict steam locos on shed at Vrsovice, this one seemingly having been used as a carriage heating loco......

 

 

Three working steam locos were allocated there as well at that time for specials and we were to have a couple of trips behind these over the coming days.

 

This trip turned out to be another one (as for South Africa in 1994) where the "Curse of Kodak" struck.  Rather than losing films this time round, they managed to completely mess up a couple of slide films by processing them incorrectly which just ended up with seriously washed out images, most of which were only fit for the bin....

This meant the railcar trip to the Velim test track and various Prague area freight lines the next day doesn't feature here as all of the images on that part of the trip were beyond redemption.  I do have some images which were salvageable from the late afternoon visit to the Transport Museum in Prague, though when we got there we discovered we couldn't get access to most of the main display hall due to a "private event", which turned out to be some sort of British Trade Delegation reception which was rather unfortunate.....

 

 

That was the final straw as far as Kodak were concerned, so I changed to Jessops (Agfa) slide film shortly after this trip, finishing up on Fuji after that was discontinued, with Digital starting to take over from 2005 onwards.  I wish I had gone digital earlier though, as the Fuji film has not held its colours as well as the other two brands.

 

[Johann Marsbar]

The next day of the tour was taken up by a charter involving a 2-8-0 tender loco of class 434 hauling a rake of vintage four wheel coaches.  Departing from Praha Hl.n (the main station) the tour took in a circular route to the south and east of the city and our tour group was joined by a party of Austrians for the day, the train having a 3-piece folk group performing on board plus a well stocked (and remarkably cheap...) bar car.  From memory, the (large) glasses of rum grog were something like the equivalent of 40p !

 

A few photos from the morning part of the tour........

 

 

 

 

At one of the locations we stopped at, this steam rotary snow plough was in storage......

 

 

On reaching Strancice we took the 6km long branch to the Velke Popovice (Kozel brand beer)........

 

 

....as a significant chunk of the afternoon was taken up by a pre-arranged p... up at a brewery!

 

The brewery had their own industrial shunting loco.......

 

 

....plus a photo of a Skoda beer tanker of the era.......

 

 

Our group had taken the sensible option of having our provided lunch on arrival, before going on the brewery tour, and the logic of doing it this way round, unlike the Austrian group, became apparent later in the day as some of them were more than slightly the worse for wear as we made our way back to Prague on the special train!

 

The next morning we had some time for tram photography before boarding a charter using a preserved tram/trailer set.......

 

 

 

...... and that is where my photographic record of the trip finishes abruptly courtesy of the Kodak problems mentioned in the previous post.  That included the afternoons steam charter with a 2-6-2T, a railcar charter around local freight lines the following morning, plus the whole trip back to the UK.  The latter was a particular loss as I'd taken quite a few shots of SNCF monocabines from the train as we passed through the likes of Metz and I never saw any of those again.....

 

Apart from a brief visit to Prague for an airshow in 1997, it would be another 10 years before I returned to the Czech Republic (with a railrover ticket), by which time it had changed considerably compared to 1995.

[Johann Marsbar]

The next ADL organised trip that I went on was a rather long day trip (or endurance test) to Luxembourg in July 1996, a rail system that tends to get overlooked compared to other European networks. 

After driving down to Ramsgate to join up with the group, a ferry to Oostende was taken in the early hours which connected in with a rail journey from there to Luxembourg, changing trains in Brussels en route.

This DB multi-voltage 181 was one of the locos present in Luxembourg station when we arrived there.....

 

 

The ADL charter on CFL used this preserved DeDietrich railcar dating from 1949 (towing an ex SNCF trailer car) and covered a greater part of the rail network there during the day.....

 

 

Baldwin designed (but built by Ateliers Anglo-Franco-Belge) diesel 805 of 1954 was a surprise addition to our train to return it from the depths of Bettembourg yard back to the station .....

 

 

One of the CFL electric units is seen at Ettelbruck.....

 

 

...with 1963 built BN built diesel 1804 seen at Luxembourg station......

 

 

As the final stop on the tour, our train continued into the loco depot for a "free for all" shed visit where a wide range of CFL rolling stock was available for photography....

 

 

 

 

 

Return to Ramsgate was made by the reverse of the outward route and I think I finally got into bed at about 05.30 the following morning!

 

According to the Tour report in the ADL newsletter after the trip, the "number crunchers" had managed to see 80 of the 85 CFL locos that day and all bar one of their units!

It was obviously deemed to be a success, as something similar, but spread over 3 days, was run again in 2000 as you will see in a future installment....

 

 

.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Johann Marsbar

[Johann Marsbar]

September 1996 saw another "new" country added to the list when I travelled on an ADL Tour to Slovenia, travel to Ljubljana being by an Adria Airways Airbus A320 from Heathrow, much quicker than taking an overland rail journey!

The first day of the trip gave free time in the Capital, though a number of the group headed off to Zagreb in Croatia for the day.  I remained in Ljubljana and had a quite extensive walk around the place, rather unexpededly finding this preserved tram/trailer set on display where it appeared to be in use as a cafe/diner of some sort. Trams actually last ran there in 1958.........

 

 

I did spend some time by a railway line and managed to photograph one of the few Pafawag built EMU's that SZ operated at the time - the same as the PKP EN57's.......

 

 

Most of the trip was composed of 6 days worth of steam haulage around the SZ rail network with various loco depot visits thrown in and on the first morning of the railtour we caught a service train the short distance to Jesenice where this class 643 diesel was photographed.....

 

 

We then joined our special train, headed by 03.002........

 

 

...and headed off down the former "Wochienerbahn" as far as Nova Gorica where we stayed in the area overnight.

 

There were several photo stops along the line and some of the images from the trip are shown below, including a 4-wheel coach still in service at that date and a couple of different diesel units passed en-route.....

 

 

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Whilst in the Nova Gorica area overnight we had a shed visit and were able to get some photos of activity at the station.....

 

 

 

 

 

That pair of FS diesels are the only Italian locos I've ever actually seen!

 

The following day we continued south behind 03.002 as far as Sezana with various photo stops en-route, the one below being taken at Stanjel, our lunch stop.....

 

 

It was very noticable on this trip that there were a very large number of former JZ goods vans (as seen on the right) stabled at most stations we passed through in Slovenia. It seems that a lot had been moved there out of the other parts of the former Yugoslavia due to the various internal conflicts that broke out in the early 1990's. Slovenia didn't experience those to any extent, so it was deemed a "safer" place to store them, but whether they ever were returned is another matter.

 

At Sezana a number of our group transferred to this service train....

 

 

...for a quicker return to Ljubljana, though a number of us stayed on our special, which was "dragged" by an electric back to the Capital at a much slower pace, though this did allow more photo opportunities en-route........

 

 

 

 

Note the rake of 4-wheeled passenger stock over to the left in the last photo.

[Johann Marsbar]

Another photo taken on the way back to Ljubljana on our special shows one of the SZ Class 362 electrics at Pirka......

 

 

The rest of the trip was based in the Capital with various excursions being made from there each day behind steam, the next two days using 2-6-2T  17.006.

 

First thing the following day we found these two locos parked in the vicinity of the main station, the locos being en-route to a works for repairs.......

 

 

Our special train is seen at Ljubljana that morning.   A supplemental coal supply was in the open wagon behind the loco......

 

 

....with these locos also present there.......

 

 

A few other photos from those two days of trips......

 

 

 

 

 

The Capitals bus services were operated by quite a variety of types....

 

 

...though the network was solely operated by motorbuses as the small trolleybus operation had ceased there in 1971, the trams finishing much earlier, in 1958.

[Johann Marsbar]

A few more photos to conclude the September 1996 Slovenian trip......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was certainly an interesting trip and there was a lot to see on the railway side with quite a variety of motive power, both the current scene at the time, plus the various steam locos that were either plinthed or stored at different locations.  At that stage they were still in the process of establishing their National rail museum, so potential exhibits were scattered across the Country, though some had started to be gathered in Ljubljana for that purpose.

 

It was, however, a country I have only to make one visit to (so far...) and is the only part of the former Yugoslavia that I've visited. Once the "cheap flight" era really started in the early 2000's, the European visits tended to either be to Germany or Poland and there are still a number of Countries I've never even visited in Europe!

[Johann Marsbar]

The only other European trip in 1996 was the Werkgroep 1501 Dark side of the Moon  railtour on 28th September that year, travel to/from the tour start at Hoek van Holland being by sea from Parkeston Quay, which tuirned out to be the last time I actually sailed on that route!

 

Basically a large circular tour through the Netherlands with a visit en-route to Tilburg Works, there were a number of photo stops on the way, one of the first being at Rotterdam CS where this Belgian electric was photographed with our tour visible on the left.....

 

 

Heading to Tilburg first, our tour loco was posed on the turntable there, 1501 having recently been outshopped in its original BR livery as 27003.....

 

 

Elsewhere on the site, a variety of NS motive power was available for photography......

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Tilburg we continued via Utrecht to Apeldoorn where a photo opportunity had been arranged with the local preservation group and their former Polish 0-8-0T......

 

 

At Onnen there was a photo session where 1501 was posed on an adjacent train of tank wagons.........

 

 

....and then on to Groningen where this little lot ran through the station whilst we were there........

 

 

Then it was back to the Hoek via Hilversum to conclude a very enjoyable tour.

 

In 1997 I started to go on a few Aviation related tours and my next forray into Europe would be one of those into Eastern Europe, thogh I did manage to fit in a selection of rail related activity on the way...........

[Johann Marsbar]

Early in 1997 I saw an aviation enthusiast tour advertised which was going to visit a number of Hungarian Airforce bases, plus some air museums and Prague Airshow, in September of that year.

The writing was on the wall by that time for the various Soviet aircraft types operated by the former Warsaw Pact countries, so I duly booked on the trip to see them before they were all withdrawn and the trip also provided an opportunity to see some rail and tramway activity at some of the places we stayed at en-route.

Starting point for the trip was Budapest and it wasn't that long a walk from the hotel to the tracks leading into Nyugati terminal, where this V43 electric is seen.......

 

 

..and a walk into the central area enabled some tram photos to be taken......

 

 

 

Budaörs Airport, which was the pre-war air terminal for Budapest was visited on the tour, the place seemingly being full of AN-2 biplanes, some in decent condition.....

 

 

...whilst others (not shown in the photo) were in a fairly decrepit state.

A variety of redundant military equipment seemed to be scattered around the place as well, and whilst they might not fit into the "A légpárnásom tele van angolnákkal " category, these high speed river patrol boats looked interesting......

 

 

Moving on from Budapest to Papa for an overnight stay prior to visiting the nearby airbase the next morning, I found a rail yard near to the hotel and managed to see an M62 passing with a passenger train....

 

 

...along with a Bzmot railcar and trailer........

 

 

The Airbase visit the next day was certainly worthwhile.....

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

From Papa airfield we moved on to Szentkirályszabadja which, at the time, was a major Helicopter base, again with purely Soviet era equipment (Mil-8, Mil-17 & Mil-24's)....

 

 

The tour involved a flight over the area, which included Lake Balaton, in one of the Airforce Mil-17's - quite an experience - though the best bit was the full speed "beat up" of the airfield runway at about 10' off the ground!

 

We stayed overnight at Siofok and I was able to have a look at the station there the following morning....

 

 

....before we carried on to Kecskemét airfield for such sights as this......

 

 

From there, it was on to Szolnok airfield which had some preserved fire appliances on display. This 1970 Csepel was to be expected.....

 

 

...but these rather ancient horse-drawn manual ones certainly weren't.......

 

 

 

...the latter one certainly needing rather more than a little TLC, judging by the state of the rear wheel!

 

Back into Budapest, I had a wander around the Nyugati area again, including the carriage sidings and the station itself......

 

 

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

A last selection of photos from the Hungarian trip starts with a pair of airport crash tenders at Tokol Airbase......

 

 

....from where we returned to Budapest with most of the afternoon free, so it was then time for another wander around the City.

 

Budapest has a fairly extensive trolleybus network as well as the trams and this pair of Russian built ZIU trolleybuses were at a terminal loop near to Keleti station....

 

 

They may have looked resonably good from the outside, but, as I was to discover on a future trip to Hungary in 2002, the interiors were in a bit of a state and their riding qualities were seriously rough!

As well as the ZIU's, the Hungarian manufacturer Ikarus also supplied articulated trolleybuses to the network......

 

 

In Keleti terminus, a GYSEV V43 had just come in on a train........

 

 

....whilst a MAV V63 awaited departure.....

 

 

Plinthed outside the station at that time was this V40 class 16Kv AC electric loco of the early 1930's, which actually has a MetroVic supplied traction motor......

 

 

That particular loco was moved a few years later to join the then new Hungarian Railway Heritage Park elsewhere in the City - somewhere we will visit in a future installment.

 

After a last night in Budapest, we headed off to the Airport the following morning to catch a flight to Prague, but first we had a comprehensive "ramp tour" there, at a time when Soviet types were still much in evidence.....

 

 

 

Our hotel in Prague was a fair way out of the central area, though it was on a main tram route to downtown, so I did manage a brief forray there - mainly in search of plastic aircraft kits (!) - on the afternoon we arrived.

This pair of Tatra cars were seen on that trip......

 

 

...though they will feature a lot more in future postings on this thread, as will the railways, so will just leave this as a token image.

 

The next day was taken up with a full day at the Prague Airshow and then a visit to the Kbely Air Museum the following morning before flying home. It ranks as one of the those trips I'm glad I went on, particularly from an aviation point of view as it was obvious things were changing fast and the pace of change was only accelerating.

 

That was actually the second aviation trip I'd done that year (the other was to the USA) so kept my eyes on the proposed tours for 1998 in case something of interest appeared for that year.

 

It certainly did, so the following May it was time to head north this time to a land of lots of lakes and even more trees, together with a fascinating collection of historic aircraft in storage sheds in the "back of beyond" and museums.......

 

 

......and a surprising amount of rail activity to photograph, as the opporunities for doing so were a lot better than the Hungarian trip......

[Johann Marsbar]

Those who know their aircraft national markings will have worked out that Finland was the destination of the May 1998 trip and a rather early check in at Heathrow (the first & last time I've spent an overnight there.....) saw the group board a Finnair MD80 for the flight to Helsinki.  Looking at the supplied tour itinerary, we seem to have made a number of variations to it as the trip went along, the first night beng spent at a Hotel somewhere close to the airport in Helsinki, so some way out of the City centre.

A visit was made to the Suomen Ilmailumuseo aviation museum nearby where this Mil-8 helicopter was on display outside......

 

 

The interior of the museum was packed with airframes as can be seen from the last image in the previous post and a lot of the aircraft on display there and elsewhere in the Country are types which have not survived elsewhere. Finland has historically drawn its airforce fleet from a wide range of Nations, so you have examples from Britain, the USA, USSR, Czechoslovakia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweeden etc, etc.  The strangest thing on the trip was being taken to some rather out of the way places to a nondescript shed at the end of a track through a forest and the doors being opened to reveal a selection of ancient airframes, mainly pre 1940, one of which had quite a few Bristol Blenheim fuselages in it!

 

The Itinerary states that the rest of the day was "at leisure" at the Hotel, but we actually made a brief trip down to the harbour area in the City Centre as I took some photos there including this Swedish sailing ship......

 

 

....along with a Helsinki tram........

 

 

Later on in the trip we had quite a long layover between flights at the airport and I was able to have a longer time in the City and visited the main station during that period.

 

We had quite a few internal flights during the trip but the next day was purely undertaken by coach as we headed off to Tampere for a 2 night stay, calling in at an air museum on the way.

The Hotel in Tampere was centrally located so I was able to see some non aviation related activity such as some of the local buses.....

 

 

...before arriving at the station where this EMU is seen.......

 

 

The station was quite busy and there were several things to photograph such as this small shunter in the local PW department....

 

 

...and this overhed line inspection/repair railcar.......

 

 

A 2-8-2 was plinthed in the station area as well.......

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Tampere turned out to be a good location as diesel hauled trains were in evidence as well as electrics as can be seen from the following photos.

 

Sr1 electric loco, built in the USSR 1973-85 and still in service....

 

 

Sr2 electric, built by SLM/ABB, Adtranz, Bombardier from 1995-2003.......

 

 

Dr13 diesel, built by Alstom 1962-65, all now withdrawn......

 

 

Dv12 diesel, built by Lokomo & Valmet 1963-84..........

 

 

Sm1 electric unit, built by Valmet, 1969-73.........

 

 

The main reason for being in Tampere at that point on the tour was to visit Pirkkala airbase as well as a local air museum, though we would actually finish up back there at the end of the tour for the Tampere Airshow. For reasons best known to the tour organisers, all of the tour participants had been declared to be "journalists/writers" - a more than subtle bit of deception - so we received visits/photo opportunities within the Air Force that you wouldn't normally get.  The ruse did get found out after the tour, but I believe they sorted it all out before the next group went!

 

Pirkkala was a base for F18 Hornets.....

 

 

...and the Saab Draken...........

 

 

...amongst various other types.

 

Moving onto the museum at Halli, this Foland Gnat - pronounced G-nat by the Finns, with an emphasis on the G - was pole mounted in the Town centre......

 

[Johann Marsbar]

The next couple of days were well away from any rail activity until the very end of the second day.

We started off with a visit to the Air Force Academy at Kauhava, home to a number of their BAe Hawks amongst a wide range of other types....

 

 

...and the following day saw a visit to Airforce HQ at Tikkakoski and the nearby Aviation Museum.

Airforce HQ produced this Piper Arrow.......

 

 

and one of the airfield crash tenders........

 

 

The air musum was an incredible collection of types, all in excellent condition, a flavour of what was there being shown in this photo......

 

 

The first three on the left are a Gourdeau Lesseure GL22, Avro 504K and a Martynside F4, so there were some fairly rare survivors in there!

I think they have managed to preserve examples of every type of aircraft that they have ever operated (or in some cases produced replicas) since they were gifted their first aircraft to start the air force in 1918. That includes a number of British built types, such as the Blackburn Ripon, none of which have survived elsewhere.

 

We then moved on to Kuopio for an overnight stop and this enabled the station to be visited, where this Vr3 0-10-0T of 1924 was plinthed......

 

 

Some traffic was seen moving, mainly the previously seen classes.......

 

 

...though this Dv16 of 1962 was a new type to be seen.......

 

 

As befits a land with lots of riversand lakes, there was a lot of maritime interest to be seen along the way, including this 1904 built steamship....