Archive for the ‘Slovenia’ Category
This years Sudbahnmusuem summer open day at Murzzschlag saw the Slovenian’s convinced to send a 644 from Ljubljana and despite fairly late notice a plan was drafted to get out there for it largely thanks to Ryanair having a dirt cheap flight to Linz available the previous day.
Our afternoon was taking Taurus power south from Salzburg on the scenic run via the Tauern south across the Apls. 1116 163 was the power, arriving at Freilassing with the 0818 Frankfurt – Klagenfurt / Zagreb. This is basically the only great international train pair left running north-south between Germany and the Balkans. 1116 163 here would work to Klagenfurt (1116 083 on rear detached at Salzburg), 1216 143 from Villach to Dobova and a HZ 1142 for the final leg to Zagreb.
With a whipped set of traincrew it was a most enjoyable run with 644016 from Ljubljana via Graz enjoying the sounds of the roots blown 12-645 power unit.
There was even some sun as we arrived at Murzzuschlag! The 644 then trundled off to the open day which housed a few bits however it was busy and I didn’t have enough patience to wait for photos when the pub beckoned!
Very orange 1142 635 arrived on the rear of a charter from Budapest (one of three!) with a Nostalgiezug Vienna portion. This is now a privately owned loco registered to whoever “D-PLOK” are and was vice the advertised 1141.
All the bloody way to the top of Austria and this is here! 47375 had worked a continental rail services charter from Budapest which had laid over from the previous night and as the heavens opened is seen getting ready to lead its 1554 Murzzuschlag – Budapest return charter. It was a mega money operation with a coach of brits, fair play to them but for me it was to join 86218 at Keleti in flagging UK locos abroad!
We’d planned to take the 644 back to Graz before heading to the hotel in Vienna but with the weather not fit for bellowing and signalling problems delaying service trains changed our plan to leap on this lash up of M61 001 leading MAV chuff 424 247 and OBB 1142 635 back instead. All three powered up to Semmering, the electric then doing most of the “work” rolling downhill to Wiener Neustadt where we leapt for an IC in as the splitting of the Vienna portion took something daft like two hours to do the last stretch! Having diesel, steam and electric on the front was certainly new for me.
Having failed miserably to plan much for the end of the year but with leave to burn, word of a tour using SIX Hungarian M61s for a dayout was too tempting once I’d made the fatal mistake of even taking a look at covering it. With short notice and the need avoid the worse of the pre-Christmas flight ching it just happened that the Sunday Stansted-Ljubljana was available without breaking the bank – oh well I know how to get from there to Budapest!
My luck was well in with 664116 doing the honors on the Citadella and I really hope I can get back before the wires – now looking as good as complete – are energized. Late Spring/Summer 2016 seems to be the claim, but will it really take them that long?
A winter Tuesday (still in thick fog!) probably isn’t the ideal time for a tour to Tapolca, but (big thanks to Ferenc for sorting tickets out) with no fewer than six – six – M61s on the front it was enjoyable if plain silly.
So that left just one more move, 431 271 taking me to Ferihegy for the flight home. My 284th winner of 2015 over nine trips abroad, here’s to many more in 2016 and a big thanks to everyone who has made this an excellent year.
Part 2: Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria
A much needed full week away! There will be a couple of parts to this as I managed to take quite a few photos, by my standards anyway, and as we did a whistlestop tour there is enough variety to (hopefully) keep it interesting.
So having crossed the Danube at Komarno – Komaron, we were in Hungary for until Monday afternoon, when the tension was mounting as a V43 whisked us east towards Hodos. The week basically hinged on this – we were looking for a possible last blast on the Citadella but with two ‘Tony’ 2016 silent junk out and about, would we be bowled? No, 664106! They even found a 363 to work forward, Thanks Very Much SZ! We then pottered around Croatia on 2044s for a couple of days before going for a three-legged 664 move on the Friday – both Citadella’s and the overnight. Once again we’d pleased the right people as all three dropped ‘biblical volume’ 664s – even got the pen out twice taking me to 11 of the 20. Don’t know if I’ll get another though with the wires well on the way now… After the (good for engines, not much sleep!) overnight we had a leisurely day around Lake Balaton then just a long way home on the Sunday, Gyor-Vienna-Brno-Stansted, just to add an extra pair of countries to the week!
Captions on individual photos.
For the previous few days photos from Slovakia please click ‘ere!
This was only a quick weekend hashed together and hopes of more 664 drag action after last year were dashed as the juice was turned back on a week or so beforehand. However we still had the Citadella 664 and MAV’s 2015 Balaton diesel gala with M61 017 joined by a M62 this year.
Captions on the phots
Weeks Austrian trip harvesting OBB electrics, mainly around Vienna and then Graz to have a day out covering the Citadella and GySev 651 turn in Hungary for a blast of diesels more interesting than 2016s!
Five day bash to this superb part of Europe for loud diesels, great weather, beer and people!
After severe ice wrecked miles of OHL between Ljubljana and Divaca on the mainline from Ljubljana, SZ are having to drag all trains (including the many, many freights) between Borovnica and Prestranek. The week before we arrived however, a timetable change seemed to also bring in far larger numbers of silent OBB 2016 workings rather than SZ 664s. So as we rolled in to Borovnica it was a great sight to see narrow lights piercing the gloom and a 664 backing on – 664107 then provided great entertainment with load 11 and a dead 363 as the bank out of Borovnica was attacked at great volume! After 40 minutes of nearly solid full power it was to Rijeka and back as the timetable is rather limited with just very early and very late out and back moves, but the morning trip missed the afternoon one both times, so we did a few afternoon moves on 363s and 541s. A scorecard of 3×664 and 1×2016 from the 4 drags was certainly acceptable and was well worth the 0500 or so alarms!
After all that we headed over to Croatia for two days getting a selection of 2044s in the book with some electric fill-in moves.
A week on the sunny Adriatic Coast with some very loud GMs…
Straight from enjoying “grumpies” at Tisnov, we headed into Austria and then Slovenia to spend a week enjoying roots-blown Yugoslavian GMs. The Hodos line was our first stop, then a very enjoyable day in Pula doing the hauled train in and back out. The next day saw us head to Riejka with a 2063 for a “bendy” 1061 out as we headed for the Split overnight out of Zagreb. We then spent four days playing around Split with plenty of 2062s out (and a serious deathtrap DMUs shortage!) and with temperatures in the mid 30s and wall to wall sunshine most of that was spent in one of the beach/sea/bar with just morning and evening moves on the Perkovic axis. All too soon though it was time to head back to Zagreb on the eight hour trek that is the IC1522 day train and back home after a quick 2044 leap, naturally.
I was told we’d enjoy the Split line and a summer week there – did we half!! 🙂
Full captions on each individual photo…
Again, a big thanks to Dan, Parker and Doss for their company on a cracking trip
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