A quick Bank Holiday trip to Belgium and the Koln area to do some scooping…

 

Some photos from 2013 so far involving a few tours and other bits…

With BDZ looking like 2013 may be a year of change, we took a hastily arranged trip to Bulgaria in early March. Due to flight ching issues we flew to Belgrade, picking up my first ZS engines in the process with a couple of ned leaps and then 661152 from Nis to Dimitrovgrad on D293 to Sofia. The couchette reservation for this was easily sorted at Belgrade in no time at all and I was surprised with ZS timekeeping and Serbia in general beating expectations, admittedly only a flying visit though.

We spent three days in the Sofia area picking up winning BDZ electrics, with Cargo sectorisation in full swing we picked up a few things on the wihlist and got lucky falling into a few photos of BZK’s 87007, 87026 & 87029 all working freight trains. The only other ‘seven’ viewed was a quick glance of 87025 on Poduyane Depot still in faded VT livery as it awaits overhaul for Bulmarket.

The last day we went for a spin on the, as ever, superb Narrow Gauge then played the vice-DMU lottery at Plovdiv – as usual luck for winners was out as 07032 declined to come out and play. We then flew back from Plovdiv “Airport” which is barely deserving of the title!

Weekend trip to Paris for some more locos. Nord and San Lazare re-visited and had a go at Montparnasse for the first time which was very productive Plan B after Sunday’s plan fell by the wayside…

22244

15026

15046

17011

27353

27367

17020

15055

15010

67590

67590

17085

27311

7603

7601

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27317

27308 27311

8620

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PKP Bash – February 2012 to whip in some PKP “Roarers” and hit the Katowice area where new private operator KS Koleje Slaskie had taken over lots of local routes from PKP but without any units to run them – clever!

Having travelled on EC249 from Berlin to get a SU46 diesel over the border we spent a night in Wroclaw which despite a Saturday afternoon OHL riot was fairly productive before moving on to Katowice. With gen fairly sketchy but a raft of hired in locos available we were soon in mass scooping mode. Railpool Traxx locos were working the majority of services with PKP Cargo providing EU07 and ET22s for some of the branches so once again some “freight only” ET22 passenger action was available, just like every other time I’ve been in Poland!

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SU46-037

EP07-1027

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EP07-1062

66417

ET22-1054

EP07-1039

EP09-023

EP07-1014

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EU07-173

TEM2-210

ET22-958

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ET22-1007

640025

EP07-198

186275

EP07-1045

ET22-094

ET22-1106

186274

ET22-1063

170016

EU07-123

182005

EU07-138

WordPress has got itself a new sideshow feature – or at least I’ve not noticed it before – so to give it a spin here is a collection of 2012 photos in a random order slideshow. There should be 100 photos if you are bored enough to sit through it all!!

Warning: Some idiots may find loco hauled passenger trains confusing or upsetting. Many are contained here.

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