PaxAeternum

Hey uhh, i dont know if you still look here, but do you still have the fighting temeraire story?

The one with the 0-8-10-0 hydraulically braked rotary snowplow that makes mincemeat out of a BMW

Mind organizing your gallery? Like having different sections for drawings & photos?

If you plan to visit Switzerland one day, you should not miss some things!

At several lakes paddle wheel steamers are still at daily service (except winter). There are a total of 15 ships!

The cog wheel railroad to the Brienzer Rothorn is the one of only two not electric public railways. They run mostly modern light oil fired steam locomotives from the 1990s (!) but also some coal fired historic engines. The oldest from 1890! Unfortunately they also have some diesels, but it's marked in the timetable which kind of traction a train normally has. Remarkable is also the gauge of only 80 cm. It's cog only line, which means that the locomotives has only powered cog wheels, the normal, unpowered wheels are only for carrying and guiding.

The other non-electric railway is the Furka Bergstrecke. It's one of the most amazing volunteer project in the world! They restored an abandoned track of the former Furka-Oberalp Bahn. Because it's absolutely impossible to operate that section at winter, a 15 km long tunnel was been built at the 1980s. A group of railroad enthuasists decided to save that not needed part and nearly 30 years later the work was finished! The line has meter gauge and mostly cog wheel. But there are also adhesion sections, so they have dual use locomotives. But there's more! After electrification, most steam locos of that railroad was sold to Vietnam. There's a line with nearly the same technical parameters there. The Vietnam war destroyed many parts of the line which wasn't restored afterwards. The volunteers managed to bring back to Switzerland some of the original locomotives. But after 30 years in the tropical jungle without any maintenance, they were just piles of rusty scrap. Today three of those engines are running again, shining like just delieverd from the factory! Which was the Swiss Locomotive and Machine works in Winterthur btw. One of them, the biggest one, was originally built for the line at Vietnam and never runned at the Furka Pass before.

Another remarkable historic railroad operates near Zurich, Switerzland's biggest town. They have a full railroad licence, so they are allowed to run allover the swiss standard gauge railroad. With the excepions of the high speed lines. In Fall, they work together with the owners of historic busses, so they offer combinated round trips.

The small meter gauge railroad from Blonay to Chamby at the riviera of Lake Geneva (which has 5 paddle wheel steamers btw.) has only about 3 km of track, but a huge collection of steam locomotives, historic electric vehicules and carriages, including freight cars. Most of them are in working condition. The Depot is open to the public when the railroad is running.

There are also many preserved steam locmotives which runs occionasly at the swiss rail network. Unfortunately he dense, but still growing timetable and the installation of a new, electronic signal system makes those runs more and more complicated.

Well, that's a lot of information, isnt'it? I hope I didn't bored with it. If you have further questions or wants more information, don't hesistate to ask for it! It will be my pleasure to help you if I can.