Where did those days go?

Phew, where did the last few days go!!  We're now home from our fabulous holiday, and it's time to catch up on things.  The National Railway Museum in York was at least as good as expected, and York was fun generally.  A really beautiful town, if somewhat busy with tourists.  The lighting in the NRM made it quite difficult for photography, but I'll include some of my pretty ordinary ones.  They really don't capture how good this place is though.

The Museum is basically divided into two parts- the Station Hall- part of which is seen above, and the Great Hall which is a new building constructed around a turntable from when the area was an important engine shed.  My favourite part was the Station Hall as it captured the atmosphere of an old station in the steam days very well.  The Great Hall has many amazing exhibits, but less overall atmosphere.

I particularly like the earlier items- locos and rolling stock- of the pre-Grouping era, ie before 1923, which are mostly authentically painted in beautiful reds and greens.

One really amazing area, off the Great Hall, is their Storage Area, housing some of the several million items that they have which aren't on display, as such.  This is either a collector's dream, or a collector's nightmare, depending on how much you would like to have even one of these items in your own collection!  Absolutely incredible pieces, and a privilege to be able to see them.  

Being the big kid that I am I couldn't resist the miniature train ride, which is in a nice park-like area out the back of the Station Hall.

I always get good ideas for my own hoped-for railway when I visit someone else's line, and this one was no exception.  Well, that's my excuse, anyway!

One interesting item in the stored collection was a wheel from a Micheline Railcar, which were made by the Michelin tyre company.  I had never seen one before, and couldn't picture how a rubber tyre could be used in a railway context (although the Paris Metro uses them, but in a different way), so it was really interesting to see one in the flesh.

Fundamentally the pneumatic rubber tyre forms the coned tread of the wheel, with a normal flange as part of the metal wheel.  This one was deflated, but I wonder what pressure they ran on in service?  There is one of these railcars in the French Railway museum, but apparently one is still in service in Madagascar, though I doubt it still uses the Michelin wheel.

By the way, the scones with jam and clotted cream at the cafe in the Station Hall are highly recommended!

The Raceway

Sadly, our time visiting our daughter and son-in-law in Budapest came to an end yesterday, but we certainly did a lot together in that magnificent city and had a fantastic time.  I would have no hesitation in recommending Budapest as a really interesting European holiday destination.  We flew from Budapest to London yesterday, so that we can spend the last few days of our holiday doing some 'training' in England.

(photo courtesy of Business Traveller online magazine)

Today we caught a Virgin East Coast train from Kings Cross to York along what was the Great Northern then LNER's mainline 'raceway' up to Edinburgh.  I was like a 'tin of worms going fishing' this morning, looking forward so much to the journey, and most certainly I wasn't disappointed.  I can't help compare today's trip with yesterday's flight, which was about the same length of time.  Chalk and cheese, utterly boring and tedious to really exciting!

More than 30 years ago we visited the UK with a Britrail pass and several times rode on trains called Inter City 125s, which were then fairly new, the 125 indicating the train's maximum operating speed in miles per hour- pretty impressive!!  I was surprised today that our train was a refurbished IC125, still performing superbly and extremely clean and comfortable.  As we blasted up the grade out of Kings Cross, through Gasworks tunnel and soon out of the suburbs of London, I was really rather overwhelmed and impressed by the fact that we were hurtling along the very line that I've read so much about in the past.  The line that saw the absolute pinnacle of steam traction where Mallard set her world speed record, and which was the domain of the A1s/A3s with names such as Flying Scotsman, and the magnificent A4 Gresley Pacifics, followed by the equally impressive Deltic diesel locos.  How incredible would it have been to operate any of those superb locos and trains at speeds up to 100mph (160km/h) on a daily basis.  I found the incredibly rich heritage of this line really overwhelming.  Not to mention extremely enjoyable!!  The IC125s have certainly given excellent service, and are very much the modern day equivalent of their classic forebears.  Interesting that although the East Coast Main Line has been electrified for quite a few years, that a large proportion of passenger trains are still diesel powered.

Anyway, we're now in the beautiful city of York and looking forward very much to visiting the National Railway Museum tomorrow!!

Hungarian Railway Museum

The highlight of the last week, amongst many high points, has been a visit to the Hungarian Railway Museum, here in Budapest.  

The weather was pretty gloomy and being mid-week there weren't many other visitors, which made the large complex feel a bit lonely, despite the extensive exhibits.  There was something going on, however, with an MAV TV bus all set up to record something, which also seemed to be the catalyst for lots of goings-on with the Heritage fleet of trains.  I never did discover exactly what it was all about though!

The park is nicely maintained, with lots of grass, trees and gardens, and would make a very pleasant place indeed for a family picnic/outing.  There were various rides available, including a miniature railway, turntable (!), handcars and full size loco.

I arrived to find this ALCO-built loco raising steam within the roundhouse, which was incredibly atmospheric!  Although there are many preserved locos etc here, this is still a very active heritage fleet and the impression of it being a real railway was very strong.  

The freedom to wander around was unexpected, and very welcome.  There was plenty of activity, the feeling being that it was like an oversize train-set with many locos and vehicles starting up and moving around the yard, although for what purpose I'm not sure.  Maybe it was just to have fun!!  These cool rail inspection cars were driving around.

An interesting aspect of my visit was that the wind was blowing from the 'right' direction in that the coal smoke from the Alco loco was blowing all over the site creating just the right steam-railway atmosphere!!  It was so satisfying to be able to be so close to this loco in full steam, which was swirling everywhere on this cool day.

I enjoyed seeing the many static locos, numbering about 20, all of which were quite unusual to 'western' eyes.  Most of the locos had steps up into the cabs, certainly no 'don't touch' signs in this museum!!  One loco I was in had a really unusual arrangement of what I guess was the steam dome, in the cab.  Never seen this before anywhere.

When I had just about had my fill of steam (never thought I'd say that) a beautifully restored diesel arrived in the museum's yard, and eventually coupled up to the heritage carriages in the low platform.

This is one of the highly acclaimed NOHAB-built diesels, only 16 of which made it to Hungary before the Soviets required MAV to order only Russian-built diesels.  This loco was absolutely superbly restored, and a great example of a heritage diesel.

I took lots more photos of course, but these give a general idea of how good this museum is.  I caught a local bus (30, 30A) to the museum, although there are no signs from the bus stop towards the museum.  It is pretty obvious though, the railway line is to the east of the bus route.  Highly recommended!!

Children's Railway

It's not often that I get to spend Australian Father's Day with any of my three daughters, as they're usually travelling or living in diverse parts of our planet, but yesterday was the exception!  We decided to ride the Children's Railway located in beautiful forest on the outskirts of Budapest.  The Children's Railway movement seems to have been common in Eastern European countries in times past and consisted of railways, either large miniature, or narrow gauge, effectively run by a sort of children's club under the mentorship of qualified adults, with the aim of teaching good railway practice to young people.  To say I was impressed by this railway and concept would be a understatement!!

But first things first.  There is an extremely good public transport system around Budapest, and we have a weekly pass so can simply hop-on and hop-off as required.  We travelled to the Children's Railway by two of the four Metro lines, then a tram, and finally a cog railway, all included in our weekly ticket.  Here is the cog railway.

The Children's Railway is usually run by several Romanian built, Cat-powered diesels, but apparently steam is available on special occasions, although I didn't see any steam yesterday.  It is 2'6" gauge (or close metric equivalent).  Each train has one open and one closed carriage, and there are at least three trains in use at any one time.  It's a journey of about 45 minutes one way through beautiful forest, with lots of walking tracks evident.  A one way ticket cost 700 Forint, which is about A$3.50, so really excellent value!!  The stations are all a somewhat dated style, but everything is maintained quite well.

It was a really enjoyable journey and would be quite a demanding line to operate through this hilly forest, but the aspect that really impressed me was the Children running it!  They were all in immaculate uniforms, about equal numbers of boys and girls about 10 to 15 years old, and they performed all the operating functions of running the railway under adult supervision, except actually driving the locos.  They even stood at attention and saluted as the train left the station!  In the various hobbies of which I'm a part, it is often mentioned that young people are just not interested in the things that we oldies are, and are largely not taking part.  Perhaps we need to look at why this Children's Railway concept is so successful, and take a leaf out of their book.  Certainly the children were given responsible duties, under the mentorship of the adults, who all seemed to be having a great time too!  

At the end of the line there is a small museum where I bought some postcards, and then we caught a normal tram back to Buda.  Although the language is a small difficulty, overall Budapest is very easy to travel around as a tourist, and I have found the people to be very welcoming and friendly.

Underground

Budapest is a very beautiful, vibrant city, and we're having a fantastic time getting to know it.  So far we've travelled on several lines of the Metro (underground), and several different tram lines.  Everywhere you look there's something new and interesting!  As well as riding on the Metro, there is a small but really interesting Museum of the Underground located near us at Deák tér station.

Budapest was the first city on the European Continent to complete an Underground line, in 1896, although there had been an Underground in London slightly earlier.  It is totally straight and built using the cut and cover method, under Andrássy Avenue.  Today it is called Line 1 and is declared a World Heritage site.

Like most older underground systems it still retains many characteristic features.  Here is one of the station name signs.

The 'Blue' line 3 is completely different, having been built with Soviet assistance, but is also very 'characteristic'!  The original rolling stock is very much Soviet-style, and really interesting.  They have amazing acceleration!!

The small Museum is very well done indeed and contains three original 'cars', which are of a style that I have never seen before, using German chassis.  Innocently I took a photo, but found out very quickly that photos are not allowed!  In fairness, you can apparently buy a special 'photo' pass.

Here is an old photo of one of these 'cars'.  I was particularly intrigued by the shape and massiveness of the chassis!

All in all an excellent day and everything is very good value, given the Forint exchange rate.  My daughter and son-in-law live above a very dynamic 'food' street with many sidewalk cafés and I can testify that the food is excellent!!

Hungary for more trains

We're currently travelling in Europe, specifically, visiting our daughter and son-in-law who live in Budapest, Hungary.  I really enjoy visiting Europe of course, and fascinated by the history in general, and railway history in particular.  After two nights in Paris, staying at a hotel which is actually part of the impressive Gare de Lyon (station), we caught a TGV Lyria train to Zurich for an overnight stop.  Although this was good, my comment would be that the seats are not well placed relative to the windows and we had a bit of trouble seeing outside.  Incidentally, we passed through Mulhouse, France, which is home to the incredible Cité du Train- the French Railway Museum.  Next time!!

The following day a longer journey with Austrian Railways (ÖBB) which was very impressive indeed!!  Absolutely incredible scenery, as you can well imagine, travelling between Zurich and Innsbruck via the Arlberg Pass, and everything about the train was absolutely first class!!  Could not recommend ÖBB more highly!!  The train is branded as Rail Jet but is fundamentally a 'normal' loco hauled train running on the normal track network.  This varied from barrelling along at really high speed, sometimes through long tunnels, to crawling along single track sections.  I was very impressed that we were often doing 160km/h (100mph) as seen on the TV monitors, however later on we got up to 220 km/h for some quite long sections!

My only slightly negative comment about this train was that the Rail Jet branding extended to some writing on the windows which made photographing the magnificent scenery a little difficult, although there were some windows without any writing on them.

The section of the trip from Vienna to Budapest at the end of the day is best left unmentioned due to extensive disruptions as a result of the current Migrant Crisis here in Hungary, but again ÖBB certainly did their best.  Anyway we arrived without too much delay, and great to be met by our daughter and son-in-law, who we haven't seen for a year.

Exploring fascinating Budapest tomorrow!!