Innholdsfortegnelse for February - March 2023 i Locomotives International

Owners and operators of railway locomotives have long indulged in cannibalisation, often in pursuit of a deliberate policy, often out of sheer necessity. In the first instance, take for example the famous British Stanier Class 5 4-6-0, of which over 800 were constructed. A member of this class might go into Works for a major repair, receive a new set of main frames (spares were always on hand at Crewe), reconditioned boiler from stock, and modifications involving the fitting of new parts. From the paint shop would emerge a locomotive bearing the number of that which a month or so previously had arrived in the reception sidings, externally little if at all different, but was it in reality the same one? How much of the admired Gresley Pacific Flying Scotsman…

Introduction The standard gauge Buckower Kleinbahn is located about 50km east of Berlin in Germany. There is a regular service from Berlin Lichtenberg to Muncheberg (Mark), where a subway connects the main line platforms with the preserved railway. The railway is 4.9km long and is electrified at 800v DC (overhead line). Trains generally run at weekends and on bank holidays between May and October, with a return trip costing 5 euros. There are three stations at Müncheberg (Mark), Waldsieversdorf and Buckow (Märkische Schweiz) and the journey time is fourteen minutes in each direction. Railway History The line was originally built to 750mm gauge and was opened by the Prussian Eastern Railway in 1897. The station at Waldsieversdorf was opened a few years later in 1906. There was some limited midweek…

JORDAN In October I joined the Ffestiniog travel tour to Jordan. In Amman, our train had to be diesel hauled due to track issues, the GE A1A-A1 As have a lighter axle load than the steam locos, but they steamed Nippon Sharyo pacific no 81 for us in the station. A new railway museum is being built at the station (a present from Turkey) and it seems a Saudi contractor is ready to start upgrading the line to the airport to a rapid transit line. It looks like the working steam is doomed. Further south, at Wadi Rum, it was better news: The tourist operation, which includes a re-enactment of an attack by Lawrence of Arabia and his Arab tribesmen on camels & horseback, is normally diesel operated, but for…

Introduction This article is not intended to be a definitive guide to Mongolia or Mongolian Railways, but I hope you will get a sense of this amazing country and its rail operations. After being stuck at home for the best part of two years due to the Coronavirus pandemic, I was itching for adventure and in June 2022 I was pleased to find an organised railway photography tour of Mongolia, to be held over 11 days in August 2022 and centred on the country's capital Ulaanbaatar (UB) with lineside visits north and south of it. The tour I quickly made contact with the organiser, Temuulen Batkhurel of Monrailpic Tours. Monrailpic is the leading (indeed only!) railway-related tour company in Mongolia and Temuulen has vast knowledge and deep personal connections with…

During a cruise that took in the Canary Islands and which docked at Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, the unusual sight of a Spanish broad gauge (5' 6”) locomotive was seen near the cruise ship terminal! The loco in question was ex-RENFE “Cuco” (cuckoo) shunter, number 020-0235, which was being displayed in the window of the café part of the Elder Museum of Science and Technology as loco number 020-207. This 0-4-0T was built by Couillet of Belgium in 1885 as construction number 790. It was one of 10 of its type built and saw use as a ‘terminal/yard switcher' (maniobras), but in 1941 was unusually taken into RENFE stock along with the rest of the class. 0235 worked until the early 1970s and ultimately found its way to the Elder…

News of the unexpected closure of the Jindrichohradecke Mistni Drahy (JHMD) 76cm gauge line brought back to mind an enjoyable two-day visit in Summer 2010. At the time it was the larger of the two surviving public narrow gauge railways in the Czech Republic, its routes providing regular and comfortable passenger services to scattered rural communities as well as handling a modicum of freight traffic. There were two routes radiating from the principal operating centre at the small city of Jindrichuv Hradec, situated in the southern part of the country. They date from 1897 and 1906 and until 1997 formed part of the State Railway CSD (CD after the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia). At that time closure was about to take place, but then something occurred that…

Contributions for this section should be sent to the Editorial Office, with the following exceptions: Southern Africa - John Middleton, c/o Editorial Office. Email: South America - Lionel Price, 9, Liverpool Road West, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY11 1PE. Email: Spain & Portugal - Joan Caries Salmerón, c/o Editorial Office. Email: Contributions which are primarily photographic in nature should all be sent to the Editorial Office to give the best choice of material for covers etc. Similarly historical articles and features should be sent to the Editor. The Editor's contact details are inside the front cover. AFRICA DR CONGO The opening up of the SNCC system to open access operators has gathered pace, by early December it seems that six different operators had signed open access agreements in a process which appears…

NEW ZEALAND Glenbrook Vintage Railway After an absence of 17 years the Glenbrook Vintage Railway and Steam Incorporated on Saturday 15th October 2022 ran four excursions around the Auckland suburban area. Passengers could board the train at either Otahuhu or The Strand stations. The Strand is the former Auckland station which was renamed after the underground Britomart station was opened. Billed as Auckland Steam Supreme the train commenced from The Strand travelling via the waterfront line to Otahuhu to turn on the triangle and then back to The Strand over the hill via Newmarket. The train was hauled by Steam Incorporated's Ja 1271 hauling seven Glenbrook Vintage Railway carriages plus two Steam Incorporated carriages. All four trains were well supported. With major track work commencing late December 2022 in the…

On Sunday 16th October 2022 the Glenbrook Vintage Railway (GVR) celebrated the centenary of the opening of the Waiuku Branch line. The Waiuku Branch line officially opened on the 5th January 1922 and the inaugural train was hauled by two Ww class locomotives hauling sixteen carriages. The re-enactment of the opening of the branch was not held in January as Ww 644 was still under overhaul at the time and was delayed until October when Glenbrook's two W«v tank locomotives would be available. The re-enactment was based on the photograph that appeared in the Auckland Weekly News on the 12th January 1922 taken by E Hay. On Sunday Steam Incorporated's Ja 1271 hauled an eleven total passenger train from The Strand station, Auckland to Glenbrook's Waiuku terminus at Victoria Avenue.…

Kujawy 2000 Railtour, Issue 140 Bob Walters writes: I was interested to see John Cowburn and Andrew Smith's account of this railtour, as I had previously (and since) been on several trips on the Gniezno section, but only as far as Anastazewo. I can vouch for the atmosphere and interesting happenings on these narrow gauge trips. The derailments bring to mind one trip I and six others made from Gniezno on 28th September 1999. We left Gniezno with our train headed by PX48-1754, consisting of a passenger coach, brakevan and two 50 tonne coal wagons on rollwagen transporters. We left the coal wagons at Witkowo and proceeded on to Powidz, where we picked up a pw crew and their equipment. Reaching a level crossing on a sharpish bend near Stare…

Introduction This article, which is split into two parts, deals with the 859km long 1m gauge railway from Haiphong in Vietnam, formerly part of Indochina, to Yunnan-fou, now named Kunming, in China. It starts with the opening of the first section, Haiphong - Hanoi in 1903, and essentially ends with the entry of Japan into WW2 in 1940. At this point in time, the line was split into two sections, Haiphong - Lao-kay and Pi-ché-tchai - Yunnan-fou, with the removal of 178km of track Ho-kéou - Pi-ché-tchai. This is Part 1 which gives a brief history of the building of the line, since it has been well documented elsewhere, details the development of the locomotive rolling stock, and examines the principal station, shed/works, and bridges as if making a journey…

INTERNATIONAL (PERU - CHILE) Following our report on the Tacna-Arica line in the last issue, news is now to hand that the line restarted operations just before Christmas 2022, but with just one return trip from Tacna, and since that is early in the morning, with departure from Tacna at 0600 and return from Arica at 0800 (Peruvian times), there is some doubt whether the trains will be found attractive by local passengers, and the late running of the inaugural working did not bode well for future punctuality! About 40 km of route within Peru has been repaired with military personnel assisting, and within Chile about 20km of route has received selective repairs. Ian Thomson Newman, FC News via Samuel Rachdi and “gestion.pe” ARGENTINA On the regional rail scene in…

GERMANY Very quietly and without any fuss the early morning steam hauled school train on the Radeburg-Radebeul narrow gauge line ended with the timetable change on 10/11 December 2022. The end of an era, but remarkable that it survived until the end of 2022, over 30 years after German reunification. It remained a very “real” train to the end. Latterly it ran out from Radebeul Ost around 05h00 to return departing Radeburg at around 06h10, running on schooldays only. It is outlived by the early morning steam hauled workers train on the Mollibahn at around 06h40 from Kuhlungsborn West to Bad Doberan, which runs on working days Mondays to Fridays. The Mollibahn, meanwhile, has plans to extend at both ends to Warnemunde and Rerik, and to run a railcar service.…

I recently visited Latvia in search of narrow gauge steam. There are two remaining lines which have regular steam hauled passenger trains in the summer months. One is the 600mm gauge “Mazbanitis” line at Ventspils on the west coast which runs in the Seaside Open-Air Museum dedicated to Latvia's fishing heritage. Here there are two coal-burning 0-8-0 Brigadeloks built for the German army during WWI. Ml 611 was made by Henschel (14437/1916, ex-HFB 694) while ML-631 is an Orenstein & Koppel product (7999/1915, ex-HFB 483) but carries the boiler of Maffei 4745/161. Now, after long and complicated histories these locomotives provide daily frequent passenger services on two routes between May and October, one a circle of about 1.4km the other a longer route of about 3.0km. The circular route has…