Yet more random foreign photos.....

[Johann Marsbar]

26 minutes ago, EddieB said:

It's PKP TKh100-45, Krupp 1770/1938.  In the PKP scheme the "100" refers to locos from private railways, in this case the loco was originally owned by IG Farben (Ludwigshafen am Rhein) and found its way into PKP stock post WW2.  Before preservation it had become a stationary boiler at a sugar factory.

 

Thanks for that - It was totally devoid of any ID when I was there so I just recorded it as an 0-6-0T in my photo notes.  

An old stock list I found online for the place recorded it as "15" and that appeared to be the number the Museum had painted on the smokebox door according to the photo posted on that site!

[Gordonwis]

13 hours ago, Johann Marsbar said:

 

Thanks for that - It was totally devoid of any ID when I was there so I just recorded it as an 0-6-0T in my photo notes.  

An old stock list I found online for the place recorded it as "15" and that appeared to be the number the Museum had painted on the smokebox door according to the photo posted on that site!

 

 

It is one of the 'KDL' series of war locos - types KDL 4 - 8 were only for industrial of private railways use (KDL 1 = DRG class 52 2-10-0). I think it is a KDL 7. As far as I am aware, only KDL 4 type  found their way on to any western European national railway rosters (SNCF 040TX)

[Gordonwis]

Here a couple of Helsinki phots from May 2023 for comparison

Edited September 15, 2023 by Gordonwis

[Gordonwis]

Edited September 15, 2023 by Gordonwis

[Johann Marsbar]

After our night in Elbląg, we transferred down to the quayside on the riverfront to commence our days travels - a day which was devoid of any conventional rail travel, though we did get a ride on some (very) broad-gauge lines!

Elbląg was another centre that suffered badly in 1945, with 65% of the place being destroyed, which included most of the historic central core of the place. This was basically abandoned post-war and apart from some clearance of rubble, no rebuilding - other than a couple of churches - took place until after the fall of Communism, and a new Commercial centre was built away from the riverfront.

By the time I first went there in 1999 they had made a start on rebuilding the old heart of the Town, mainly in a "sympathetic" style to its original format, some of these buildings being visible in the background of the photo below.....

 

 

The hydrofoils were used on a tourist service to Kaliningrad in what has since become a rather detached section of the former Soviet Union, formed from the northern section of the old East Prussia.

There were still large undeveloped areas of the old centre, with random old buildings that had survived (but not many), and they had started to excavate the foundations of others ready for rebuilding at this date. By the time I went back 2 years later, quite a few buildings had been constructed in the area and it was befinning to look rather different.

 

As well as the Hydrofoils, the quayside was the departure point for cruises along the Elbląg to Ostróda Canal, which opened in 1860 as the Oberländischer Kanal. It's notable for the use of inclined planes rather than locks on some sections due to the height differences needed to be overcome along its route.

We duly boarded one of the tour boats and headed off south from Elbląg, with at least one other tour boat following us.....

 

 

After traversing Lake Druzno - which is a large nature reserve - you enter the start of the canal proper, with views across the pastoral landscape....

 

 

...before reaching the first of the five inclined planes at Całuny Nowe.........

 

 

Over the next 9.6 Km, the 5 inclined planes lift you 99.2 m - the track gauge used on the ramps being 3.27 m. A boat in front of us is shown ascending the first of the planes whilst we wait for the other cradle to descend for us to use.

Here we are on the way up the first plane with the boat following waiting for the other cradle.......

 

 

We travelled as far as Buczyniec, which is the last of the 5 planes and the location of a Museum about the canal. This is about 30 km from the start in Elbląg and seems to be the terminal point of the "regular" tour boat runs, as this covers the 5 inclined planes, though the canal itself is 80.4 km in length.

The boat behind us is seen breasting the incline at Buczyniec.....

 

 

The trip had taken well over 4 hours and we were met by a coach to transport us on to where we would be staying for the next 5 nights - Mikołajki, in the heart of Masurian Lake District.

The Group ended up staying in 3 different Pensions  in a cul-de-sac in this pleasant lakeside town (which came out of WW2 relatively unscathed) as all the hotels in the area were full of German tourists at that time of year....

This was where the rail travel options became very limited due to the rather sparse train service through the place, so most of the time there involved coach travel. There were still 3 east-west passenger routes open from Olstzyn to Elk through the Masurian Lake District at that time, with the northern one through Korsze being the primary route.  My copy of the Atlas linii kolejowych Polski 2014  shows the central route through Mikołajki as being out of use, so I'm glad we actually stayed there in 1999, though I did travel on the route again in 2001.

 

The following morning, before our coach trip departed, I did have a wander down to the station and was lucky enough to actually find a westbound train due......

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Johann Marsbar

[Re6/6]

Fascinating stuff JM, thanks for posting.

[Johann Marsbar]

Most of the time we were staying in Mikołajki our activities were heavilly tourist orientated, though amongs the Churches, Monasteries, Nature reserves etc, etc, we did visit a collection of concrete built objects that were (still at that time) rail served.......

 

 

... buried deep in a forest - and fairly hard to photograph without a wide angle lens - Adolfs' former Eastern HQ, the Wolfsschanze - though the bunker above was that actually used by Hermann Göring. 

It was still in the early stages of development as a tourist attraction at that stage and it was rather telling that the published guidebook to the place in English ran to 36 pages, whilst the French language Le Retranchement du loup was somewhat more comprehensive at 96 pages - Illustrating the traditional Polish use of French as a second language rather than English.

That was also the case with our PKP Tour Guide who had more knowledge of French than English, so I did end up speaking to him in French on some occasions!

Nowadays, knowledge of English is very widespread over there - particularly anyone under 40 - though I did find zero English speakers (all 3 were in their mid-50's at a guess, the same as me at the time) at the Warszawa Sródmieście station ticket office in 2015, but even then we managed by a mixture of languages, and they even advised me there was a cheaper railrover ticket than the one I was expecting to buy!

 

There was one rail based day during the time there though and one morning we caught the train east to Ełk, the location of one of the surviving PKP narrow-gauge railways with a normal Public service.  This 0-6-0T was plinthed outside the station there..........

 

 

...and a wander around the NG station & yard area produced a variety of locomotives, most out of use.......

 

 

 

 

 

...the normal passenger services being operated by these railcars, the bodysides giving rather a hint of Leyland National in their appearance to my eyes!

 

 

The standard gauge shed still had quite a few steam locos scattered around, most giving the impression that they hadn't actually been out of service for that long, and there was at least one Ol49 that appeared to be still in use - presumably on specials.

 

 

I think that area was one of the last (other than Wolsztyn) to see regular steam workings, but I've never been able to find a "last steam" date anywhere for the rest of Poland beyond Wolsztyn.

 

This Ganz built SN61 single unit railcar was also on shed there........

 

 

That's not listed as a preserved one in my 2004 copy of Atlas Lokomotyw, so might have still been in use at the time of our visit.

 

 

 

.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Johann Marsbar

[Johann Marsbar]

Last batch of photos from the 1999 Polish trip today.

 

Continuing the look around the standard gauge shed/yard at Ełk, this rather pristine Ol49 was on shed there and certainly appeared to be still operational.....

 

 

......and they had the statutory out of use ST44 as well, though this one looked in better condition than most of the others we had seen.....

 

 

We had a ride on the narrow-gauge line out as far as Sypitki - the end of the operational portion, though the track was still down beyond that point at that stage on both branches. They don't appear to have restored any more trackage since then, the line now being a private operation with PKP ceasing running around 2001.

Motive power for our trip was their operational steam loco Kp4 3750.........

 

 

Then it was back by rail to Mikołajki later in the afternoon.

 

The next day consisted of a long cruise on some of the lakes in the area, a local PKS Autosan coach being provided to return us to Mikołajki.......

 

 

I did manage this photo of an eastbound service crossing the rather "Airfix" looking bridge in Mikołajki later that day though.....

 

 

The next day we started our journey homeward by taking the train back to Ełk, this pair being passed on some sidings as we arrived.....

 

 

As the weather was a lot better, a few more photos were taken whilst we waited for our connecting service to Bialystok, this being one of the narrow gauge railcar trailers.....

 

 

.....along with a somewhat more elderly MBd1 (133) railcar........

 

 

That railcar has since been preserved on another narrow-gauge line elsewhere in Poland.

 

We stayed one night in Bialystok, but didn't see much of the place, and the only photo I took there was this narrow-gauge loco plinthed outside the main station.....

 

 

The only memorable thing about the place was the taxi transfer by the group from the Hotel to the Station early the following morning, when it was obvious the drivers were treating it as some sort of race, doing at least twice the legal speed limit and generally ignoring traffic lights.  At least there wasn't much other traffic about and I was to have a similar experience in Argentina a few years later!

 

From Bialystok it was straight back to Warsaw on the train for the flight home on another British Midland 737.  As it turned out, some of the places covered on the FT Tour would be revisited a couple of years later, but on a much more railway/tramway orientated trip with ADL.

 

.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Johann Marsbar
Number correction

[EddieB]

A quick comment - where a trip spans several posts could you please repeat the month/year at the top of each post, as it can be hard to find the first in the sequence and it is useful to put the photos into context?

 

Appreciate seeing Elk in 1999, as I called by there in May of that year - many of the locos being in the same place (though the supposedly active Ol49 was not seen).  Not working during my visit, but I think the active narrow gauge loco should be Kp4-3760.

[Johann Marsbar]

2 hours ago, EddieB said:

A quick comment - where a trip spans several posts could you please repeat the month/year at the top of each post, as it can be hard to find the first in the sequence and it is useful to put the photos into context?

 

Appreciate seeing Elk in 1999, as I called by there in May of that year - many of the locos being in the same place (though the supposedly active Ol49 was not seen).  Not working during my visit, but I think the active narrow gauge loco should be Kp4-3760.

 

You were in Elk a month before I was, as our FT charter on the narrow gauge line was on 23rd June 1999.     Have corrected the loco number now - error due to bad handwriting!

 

[Johann Marsbar]

The only other trip abroad (other than one to Colorado) in 1999 was a day excursion by ADL to Paris on a Saturday in July in search of freight activity. I seem to have thrown out the copy of their Newsletter that had a write up of the trip in it, and I can't rememnber exactly what we did on it!

It was a conventional Ferry/Rail trip - I think from Dover in this case - with two locations visited in Paris, the first one being somewhere in the St Denis/Le Bourget area, linesiding by the freight yards there.  From Google Earth it looks like we were at Bobigny Triage as I remember the St Denis-Bobigny tram line, the first of the new lines in Paris, was visible in the distance from where we were standing.

 

A few photos taken there - with what I take to be the A86 road passing overhead in the first one......

 

 

 

 

The local bus route tends to indicate we were standing on Rue de la Station ...

 

 

We then headed back to Gare du Nord where these photos were taken.....

 

 

 

...before catching the RER out to Villeneuve St Georges for passing freight traffic.......

 

 

 

France is actually somewhere that I have very rarely visited, not helped by the Low Cost airlines arrival on the scene in the early 2000's which meant that you could fly direct to a variety of destinations at competitive prices that you would originally had to travel through France by rail to get to in the past.

 

By that date I had changed onto what has turned out to be the more "unstable" Fuji slide film compared to the Kodak/Agfa ones previously used and that, coupled with the cheap "scanner" - which was actually a 2mp camera in a light box - that I used to digitise my slides several years ago, means that some of the images are nowhere near the quality they should be.  At some point, I'm going to have to try and get some better quality images from them using a "real" scanner!

At least from 2005 onwards, digital photography gradually took over, my last slides being taken in 2007.

[jamie92208]

I think that the big yard near Le Bourget is Drancy, still in use with three RER stations along their length. Sadly

remembered as the place where the Germans assembled French Jews for deportation. There is still quite a bit of activity There. 

 

Jamie

 

[EddieB]

This is all getting a bit spooky: 24th July 1999 and I was also on that ADL trip.  As you say the two locations visited were Le Bourget and VSG (which I think were at the recommendation of David Haydock).  Memories have faded, but I think we must have been issued with a pass for getting around Paris, as I remember leaving the group to take the RER line and "bunk" VSG depot.  I also called by at Austerlitz.  There was an early departure from Calais (behind 72011), and a change of trains at Lille Flandres on the way back.

[Johann Marsbar]

4 hours ago, EddieB said:

This is all getting a bit spooky: 24th July 1999 and I was also on that ADL trip.  As you say the two locations visited were Le Bourget and VSG (which I think were at the recommendation of David Haydock).  Memories have faded, but I think we must have been issued with a pass for getting around Paris, as I remember leaving the group to take the RER line and "bunk" VSG depot.  I also called by at Austerlitz.  There was an early departure from Calais (behind 72011), and a change of trains at Lille Flandres on the way back.

 

There are a selection of ADL trips I went on in the 2001-2005 time period still to come in this thread, so there might be others you went on !

[Johann Marsbar]

April 2000 saw a long trip to the other side of the world on an Aviation Tour to New Zealand - the out and back trips being routed via the USA with Air New Zealand, a diversion being made via Hawaii on the outward route for a couple of nights stay. A few photos from the Hawaii section were posted in the previous "North American" thread, not that we saw any trains there though!

 

As regards New Zealand itself, the trip covered all active RNZAF airfields - when they actually had fighters - together with a multitude of aircraft preservation and restoration sites and the Internationally renowned Warbirds over Wanaka Airshow on the South Island.  There was a reasonable amount of free time as well, though from a rail point of view, Wellington was the most useful place for this with a full free-day there.

 

After leaving Hawaii, we flew to Auckland, with a plane cleaning/refuelling stop on a very humid Tonga, where, despite being hearded into a holding transit building away from our plane, a few photos were possible of the local airline......

 

 

On arrival in Auckland, we had a coach tour of the City, which involved a visit to the MoTAT museum, where tram 248 was in service, as for my 1993 visit there......

 

 

An evening walk from our Hotel (where we were staying 3 nights) to what was then the main railway station found this Track Evaluation Car parked up there.......

 

 

....but nothing else in the way of rolling stock of any note.

Next morning we headed out to Dairy Flat airfield for a look around there, before most of us partook in a 40 minute flight over the Auckland area in this DH Dragon....

 

 

One photo taken from the plane shows part of the Container Terminal with the main station in the centre upper background. This complex has since been replaced by the underground Britomart Station off to the right of the photo, though part of the old platforms survive as Auckland Strand station. The old main buildings also survive, though not in rail use......

 

 

In the afternoon we had a visit to RNZAF Whenuapai - a transport base - where this 727 is seen taking off.......

 

 

A quick wander out from the hotel after breakfast the next morning allowed some bus photos to be taken, including a Mercedes still in the old Auckland "Yellow Buses" livery, though with Stagecoach branding in blue.....

 

 

...a Birkenhead Transport MAN......

 

 

....and the dreaded Stagecoach stripes on this other Auckland single decker, which conveniently displayed an advert for the local Radio Hauraki, which started off as an Offshore Pirate Radio broadcaster in the 1960's, before becoming legally based on land........

 

 

There was a bit more activity visible at the station, with a couple of ex Westrail (Australia) railcars which had been purchased for use in NZ during 1993........

 

[Pacific231G]

On 01/04/2023 at 07:32, eastwestdivide said:

Steam-hauled double decker coaches! Who’d have thought it?

At the risk of going OT from Johann's fascinating thread why not? Double deck railway coaches have been around at least since 1853 when the C.F. de l’Ouest came up with them for its Paris suburban services from St. Lazare! closely followed by the Nord and the Est.

Enclosed  and open double deck carriages at St Germain en Laye around 1900.

The oriignal open upper deck type were absolute deathtraps but survived until the 1930s while the later enclosed type (but stilll with outside stairs) were used  for another twenty or so years

Train loading at Montmorency in about 1950

 

The last user of these four wheel double deck coaches was on the short but very steep independent line from Enghien to Montmorency ,in the northern outer suburbs of Paris, which used them until it closed in 1954. They had though been very widely used on several suburban commuter routes into Paris including into Bastille where they were only replaced by ex DRG single deck bogie coaches in the late 1940s.

In the nineteenth century there had even been double deck steam railcars in France and Germany

One of two steam railcars built by the Etat railway in France in 1880  to make operation of lightly used lines as economical as possible (no photos of them seem to exist I think because the Etat was rather ashamed of them)

 

 

Similar but rather larger double deck steam railcar that could accommodate eighty passengers designed by Georg Thomas of the Hessische Ludwigsbahn in Germany in about 1880 and used by several German railway companies.

 

Though double deck trains are often used now to increase capacity for the same platform lengths, the main reason for introducing them was because their tare weight per passenger was lower so more passengers could be handled withourt needing more powerful locomotives.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Pacific231G
General tidying

[Johann Marsbar]

Continuing the April 2000 trip to NZ, we moved on to Rotorua for one night via various airfields on the way - Rotorua seemingly being on the itinerary of every trip that goes to NZ for the statutory visit to the Maori Hangi and associated concert, not to mention the thermal reserve.

A walk around the town centre the morning before we left there produced these MCW Metroriders of likely secondhand UK origin sandwiching a normal single deck vehicle. At that time there seemed to be a craze for the things in New Zealand and a large number of them were being exported there......

 

 

A more interesting vehicle was seen as we passed through Taupo - a 1951 ex Wilts & Dorset Bristol K (HHR 823) which operates on town tours....

 

 

The Vauxhall Viva behind looked in good condition as well!

 

I was lucky a bit later on that morning as we stopped off at a cafe/rest area at Mangaweka - A place that had a DC3 in use as part of the cafe there.  The rest stop was adjacent to the North Island Main Trunk, so whilst we were there for about 30 mins, I wandered over to the line in the hope of something coming along - which I thought was a rather slim chance.

Needless to say, I was rather surprised when this appeared.......

 

 

The Auckland to Wellington daily passenger train behind a couple of Brush built electrics!

 

Next on the programme was a visit to RNZAF Ohakea, home of their Skyhawk and Aermacchi MB-339 fleet at the time - all of these being withdrawn from service in December 2001 when the Air Force was drastically reduced in size.....

 

 

We stayed overnight at Palmerston North before continuing our journey south towards Wellington with the main port of call that day being the airfield at Masterton. A very enjoyable time was spent there with a selection of historic aircraft types to take flights in for those who wanted, plus the Aero Club had a very well stocked bar!   The flights were ludicrously cheap by UK standards so I availed myself of a flight in a Tiger Moth  (something like the equivalent of £12 from memory) and a Harvard (£15 worth)........

 

 

An arial view of Masterton railway station taken through the closed canopy of the Harvard (hence the reflections that I've attempted to reduce), with the turntable a prominent feature.......

 

 

There are two rakes of coaching stock visible as well - one in the sidings with a loco at one end and another in the platform with 2 locos on it.

 

We then continued to Wellington where we stayed overnight. As we didn't get there until fairly late, no trolleybuses were in evidence as they finished early on Saturdays and didn't run at all on Sundays, which was rather annoying as that was when we had a fair bit of free time in the City before catching the ferry over to Picton in the late afternoon.

We did go and look at the Cable tramway in Wellington when we arrived though.....

 

 

On the Sunday morning I headed straight for the station where this Ganz built EMU is seen......

 

 

......whilst its earlier English Electric built predecsessors were still in use - certainly on Mondays to Fridays............

 

 

...with one branch - to Johnsonville - being operated by some refurbished versions 7 days of the week, as we will see......

 

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Sunday morning in Wellington seemed to be rather quiet, but a wander down to the docks/ferry terminals area did produce some rail interest, such as this DSC shunter marked up as a remote control loco.......

 

 

Buses seemed rather few on the ground, and the only one I photographed was this City Circular vehicle with the NZ Parliament building visible in the background.....

 

 

Some trolleybus overhead can be seen, but they certainly weren't running on Sundays at this time, and I believe they came off on Saturday afternoons as well. They had certainly finished by the time we arrived in the City on the Saturday evening.

 

As mentioned in the previous post, some of the English Electric built EMU's of the late 1940's were still in use and this included some refurbished sets of 1949 built stock which were used on the service to Johnsonville. There was some form of restriction on this route - possibly tunnel related as there are plenty of those - which prevented the more modern units being used at the time.

I took a ride out to Johnsonville and back with the unit seen below at the terminus.....

 

 

A couple of photos from the train on the way back into Wellington - A DX class diesel.....

 

 

and a pair of DFT's.....

 

 

When our group made its way to the ferry terminal area to board a vessel for Picton that afternoon, this DSG was found shunting there......

 

 

Then it was on the ship for a somewhat rougher crossing of the Cook Strait than I'd experienced on the 1993 trip and it actually got quite lively at times.

This was the vessel working the service in the opposite direction to ours.....

 

 

...though by this date, the rather controversial Fast Cat service " The Lynx" had also started up, as seen after we had entered Picton Sound.....

 

[whart57]

On 05/03/2023 at 07:48, Johann Marsbar said:

 

 

 

 

Ah yes the Arnhem trolleybus. The number 3 route went past the top of the road where my grandad lived. The zoo and Openlucht Museum were at one end of the route and the NS station at the other. 

 

Arnhem had a tramway network. It last ran on the morning the First Airborne arrived. 

[Ian Morgan]

The winding, picturesque line up from Wellington to Johnsonville with its many tunnels used to be part of the old main line to the north, before the new tunnel was dug.

 

[Johann Marsbar]

After a spending the first of two nights in Picton, the main visit the following day of the April 2000 tour was to RNZAF Woodbourne - which was like travelling back in a time machine to the early 1970's!

It is the main Air Force training base for non-pilot grades, though certainly at the time of our visit, a limited amount of pilot training was undertaken there on what, even then, were fairly historic types of aircraft, all seemingly kept in immaculate condition, namely the DH Devon.......

 

 

...and the BAC Strikemaster........

 

 

 

There were a few more modern types in evidence though (even if it was a Navy helicopter)........

 

 

I never got anywhere near a railway line throughout the whole of that day, but the following day we departed Picton and headed south to Christchutch, with a long break in the journey being made at Kaikoura where nearly all of the group - apart from me - took up the option of a whale watching cruise, as advertised on this elderly Bedford.....

 

 

I spent the time looking around the rather "tourist trap" Town, before wandering to the station to see what might be happening, not having the slightest clue of likely train frequencies.

I was lucky in seeing two freights and the southbound "Coastal Pacific" passenger train passing through in the hour or so I was there...........

 

 

 

 

 

We then moved on to Christchurch for a couple of nights stay - though I was to opt out of the official programme on the full day we spent there.

 

 

.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Johann Marsbar

[Johann Marsbar]

The weather for the next 2 days was fairly awful and the worst we experienced on the whole trip, with plenty of rain, particularly on the day that I had decided to opt out of the Tours activities whilst we were staying in Christchurch. I'd done things like the Air Force museum at Wigram on the 1993 visit anyway, so I decided to spend most of the day at Ferrymead Museum after having had a look at the heritage tram operation downtown, which had commenced operations a few years previously.

 

Some of the trams that I'd seen at Ferrymead on the previous trip had been moved to run on the heritage route, such as this original Christchurch car seen in front of the cathedral....

 

 

That photo also shows what the weather conditions were like all day!

They had also brought some cars in from elsewhere, such as this former Melbourne example......

 

 

I then caught a bus out to Ferrymead, the place actually being rather deserted that day due to the weather.  They seemed to be having a bit of a shunt-round of a number of the railway exhibits there - mainly English Electric built products at that - and the weather at least ensured that no other visitors were about to get in my photos!

 

The Eo and Ec electric locos........

 

 

A line of the Toshiba built EO locos of 1968. The line through the Otira tunnel had been de-electrified by this date and some, if not all, of these locos were being stored at Ferrymead by 2000.

I believe some did re-enter service in the Wellington area on commuter runs for a while in the early 2000's.......

 

 

The shunter doing all the work that day........

 

 

One of the three Vulcan railcars preserved at Ferrymead......

 

 

A few more views of the shunting operations.......

 

 

 

The tramway on-site was also operating that day, albeit rether bereft of passengers, and they were using this ex-Brisbane car......

 

 

I was having a chat with the driver and commented that it was lovely day to be celebrating a birthday (it was mine that day..) and he asked me if I'd like to have a drive of the tram as there was nobody else about, so that did make a good birthday present, despite the weather!

[Johann Marsbar]

Whilst aircraft were the main purpose of the Tour, the itinerary did include a few "touristy" things, one of which was a rip on the Tranz Alpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth, a route I had also done on the 1993 trip, but this time the starting point was the "new" Christchurch station at Addington rather than the former one in the City Centre.

 

The weather was still faily awful, though by the time we reached the west coast at Greymouth the sun was out.  At the Christchurch end, this DSC brought the stock for our train into the platform.....

 

 

..and our two locos for the trip then backed on to the stock......

 

 

Once west of Arthurs Pass, it started to brighten up a bit so photography was possible from the open sided observation carriage....

 

 

At Greymouth, we boarded a coach to take us to our overnight stop at Franz Josef, stopping at Hokitika for a jewelry shop (for those interested in such things) whilst I found this DBR class loco parked up in the former station area........

 

 

After Franz Josef we headed off to Queenstown where we would be staying for 4 nights which included 2 full days at the Internationally renowned Warbirds over Wanaka airshow.

 

Not surprisingly, there was zero rail interest at the airshow, though it did have a sizeable display of preserved vehicles, including some steam powered ones, and it was a rather civilized event by actually having a brewery on site as well (Wanaka Brewery) !!

 

Dennis Fire Engine - possibly ex Dunedin......

 

 

Garrett steam tractor - a long way from Leiston......

 

 

Another nice Dennis, this time from Ashburton......

 

 

RNZAF Bedford..........

 

 

On the aircraft side there were some very interesting exhibits - some of which were actually giving flights to the Public, so for the equivalent of £45 I availled myself of a trip in this.....

 

 

At that stage, Sir Tim Wallis, through his aircraft restoration business, had just completed restoration of a number of Russian Polikarpov I-16 and I-153 aircraft, recovered as wrecks from Russia, and these were the stars of the 2000 Show, eight of them appearing before being sold off to various museums around the World.

 

One of the I-153's......

 

 

...and an I-16..........

 

[Johann Marsbar]

Last batch of photos from the New Zealand trip today.

 

One of the other aircraft doing pleasure flights at the airshow was this DC3, though how they were making money on it at the equivalent of £5 for a 30 minute flight isn't known......

 

 

New Zealanders seem to take the use of campervans very seriously and there were some rather interesting looking ones in the car park at the event, including this elderly looking "shed on wheels" example.....

 

 

...whilst this Bedford VAL coach conversion looked a bit more mainstream.....

 

 

A lot of them seemed to be conversions of Bedford coaches, though the "shed on wheels" one seems to be based on a chassis (Dodge?) that I can't identify from the badge on the radiator.

 

We actually appear to have had a free day in Queenstown as they had moved our Catalina flight to one of the Airshow days. I had a trip on the Earnslaw  that morning, though I can't remember if this was an extra part of our tour or not.  I did photograph its departure after my trip though.....

 

 

The next day we departed Queenstown and headed off for a visit to the Croydon Aircraft Company at Mandeville - a company which specialise in the operation and restoration of DeHavilland aircraft.  Somehow or other I had found out the departure times for the "Kingston Flyer" so we stopped the coach en route to Mandeville by the rail line to see it......

 

 

The Croydon Aircraft Company are based at adjacent to their own grass airfield, though the weather that day precluded any pleasure flights, but a few of their restored fleet were posed outside....

 

 

The owner of the Company had started to diversify into other preservation fields as the airfield was adjacent to a closed branchline, so the intention was to recreate the old station there as part of a rail preservation scheme. He had aquired a loco for use on this project and I confimed its location as being in the goods shed at Gore, so after leaving Mandeville, we called in to have a look at it.....

 

 

This was one of the Rogers (NJ) built K class locos of 1877 that had been dumped in a river to prevent erosion after they were withdrawn and which have since been exhumed from there - three making it into preservation so far of which 2 have been fully restored to operating condition, including K92 shown here.    Restoration was still under way at the time of our visit in 2000, but it wasn't far off steaming.

 

We carried on for an overnight stop in Dunedin, where this DJ class diesel of the Taieri Gorge Railway is seen at the station there.........

 

 

That was the last train I saw on the trip as the remaining 2 days were spent heading back to Christchurch to start our long series of flights home, though we did travel through the spectacular scenery of the Mt Cook National Park on the way, where we had the opportunity to take one of the ski plane flights that land on one of the glaciers.....

 

 

All in all it was a very interesting trip, though I haven't made it back to NZ again since then, though it is fairly high on the list to go to before I get to the stage I can't put up with the length of the flights!

We will return to Europe for the next 3 years worth of trips before heading off again to the Southern Hemisphere.....

[Johann Marsbar]

November 2000 saw a 3 day trip organised by ADL which visited Luxembourg with a full day spent covering the rail system there, both on a charter train and also using unlimited travel rover tickets for the rest of the day.

Outward travel (on a Friday) was via the Dover-Calais ferry and a coach transfer to Oostende, where this elderly SNCB electric was photographed......

 

 

Luxembourg was reached by taking a loco-hauled IC train to Brussels, and then an EMU (actually a EuroCity service) from there, followed by another coach transfer to our rather smart and modern hotel, where we would be staying for a couple of nights. The most memorable thing about the hotel was the rather bizarre placement of the circular glass shower cubicle in the centre of each room!

 

Dull, November weather was to the fore on the Saturday when we joined our two-coach special, top/tailed by CFL 1604 and 802........

 

 

 

Unfortunately 802 was very quickly deemed a failure when we decended the branch to Mertert Port (shown above) and ended up being replaced by classmate 805 later in the morning.

 

A few more photos of regular CFL trains seen whilst on this tour were 1807 on a freight at Bettembourg......

 

 

...and a then fairly new 3008 at Petange.............

 

 

Our tour finished up at Luxembourg Depot in the early afternoon, where the following photos were taken......

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the Saturday was spent using the day rover ticket to cover the rest of the CFL network, with the return to Dover being made on the Sunday via the reverse of our outward route.