Another recovery from the archives, for which I have no notes - this was a short outing again, I think, though certainly preceded by a minor foray in France and I think we might have stayed on for a day or two doing ordinary track.
Friday 2 May 1997
We (at least two, possibly three of us) must have travelled over by car on this occasion, as we took in a DMU trip on the then-threatened SNCF branch from Lille to Comines (it lasted another 22 years), at one time a cross border line into Belgium but closed to passengers in 1955 beyond Comines (France) station. It wouldn't surprise me if we also visited Les Trois Brasseurs pub opposite Lille Flandres, then something of a pioneering operation but now one of a multi national chain of nearly 100 franchised pub-restaurant-microbreweries.
Saturday 3 May 1997
This was the 'main event' for the trip; a steam special starting from Leuven and going to Eeklo and through to Stoomcentrum Maldegem, the preservation operation on the remaining portion of line 58 between Eeklo and Maldegem (and continuing for 1.3 km towards Donk and Brugge with a 600mm gauge line on the line 58 alignment). I'd done their line before but the very short stretch from their 'terminus' just north of the level crossing and the NMBS station just across the road wasn't normally doable at the time. With the main line steam haulage thrown in, 'nuff said. These little links between lines I've done niggle me out of all proportion.
The haulage for the outward journey was Pacific 1002, which is the only survivor of 35 locos of class 1, built by built by Société Anonyme la Métallurgique at Tubize in the late 1930s. It's been preserved by SNCB as part of the national collection since withdrawal in 1960. Perhaps because it was designed in the pre-war 'streamline' era it's got quite smooth lines without as much of the usual outside pipes and assorted devices common on European locos and to me it has a quite 'British' look, though heftier than anything to be seen in the UK, which surprised me on first sight.
Apart from the 100 metres at Eeklo I don't recall much of the route but I can't think it did much out of the ordinary. There are a number of possibilities - the only event en route that sticks in my mind is that on the outward journey we were looped for a service train to pass. Whether this particularly annoyed our driver I'll never know, but 1002 certainly made an impressively quick and noisy exit from the loop when given the road.
At Maldegem their gala day was in full swing, with various locos operational, including ex-PKP 2-6-2 Ol49-12 (Fablok, Chrzanów 2614/1951), which was a surprise to me although it had been there since the previous year and was in operational condition though I don't think working that day. A visitor from the UK was Kerr Stuart 0-4-0ST 'Pixie' from the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway, which was working the narrow gauge line.
By the time we returned in the afternoon we'd acquired 2-10-0 26101. Whether that was already at Maldegem or we collected it at Gent, I don't recall, but the pair double headed us, tender first, back to Gent. My photo of the train back at Leuven shows only 1002 so it could well be that 26101 had joined us at Gent St Pieters on the outward journey and was removed there on the way back. 26101 is in a very small way an impostor in that it's not one of the 100 Kriegslok 2-10-0s ordered from Belgian manufacturers during WWII for SNCB and numbered as class 26. They were all scrapped, and 101 was acquired from Poland by PFT, modified to class 26 spec and, presumably, assigned 101 as being the next member of the class.
We (at least two, possibly three of us) must have travelled over by car on this occasion, as we took in a DMU trip on the then-threatened SNCF branch from Lille to Comines (it lasted another 22 years), at one time a cross border line into Belgium but closed to passengers in 1955 beyond Comines (France) station. It wouldn't surprise me if we also visited Les Trois Brasseurs pub opposite Lille Flandres, then something of a pioneering operation but now one of a multi national chain of nearly 100 franchised pub-restaurant-microbreweries.
Saturday 3 May 1997
This was the 'main event' for the trip; a steam special starting from Leuven and going to Eeklo and through to Stoomcentrum Maldegem, the preservation operation on the remaining portion of line 58 between Eeklo and Maldegem (and continuing for 1.3 km towards Donk and Brugge with a 600mm gauge line on the line 58 alignment). I'd done their line before but the very short stretch from their 'terminus' just north of the level crossing and the NMBS station just across the road wasn't normally doable at the time. With the main line steam haulage thrown in, 'nuff said. These little links between lines I've done niggle me out of all proportion.
The haulage for the outward journey was Pacific 1002, which is the only survivor of 35 locos of class 1, built by built by Société Anonyme la Métallurgique at Tubize in the late 1930s. It's been preserved by SNCB as part of the national collection since withdrawal in 1960. Perhaps because it was designed in the pre-war 'streamline' era it's got quite smooth lines without as much of the usual outside pipes and assorted devices common on European locos and to me it has a quite 'British' look, though heftier than anything to be seen in the UK, which surprised me on first sight.
Apart from the 100 metres at Eeklo I don't recall much of the route but I can't think it did much out of the ordinary. There are a number of possibilities - the only event en route that sticks in my mind is that on the outward journey we were looped for a service train to pass. Whether this particularly annoyed our driver I'll never know, but 1002 certainly made an impressively quick and noisy exit from the loop when given the road.
At Maldegem their gala day was in full swing, with various locos operational, including ex-PKP 2-6-2 Ol49-12 (Fablok, Chrzanów 2614/1951), which was a surprise to me although it had been there since the previous year and was in operational condition though I don't think working that day. A visitor from the UK was Kerr Stuart 0-4-0ST 'Pixie' from the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway, which was working the narrow gauge line.
By the time we returned in the afternoon we'd acquired 2-10-0 26101. Whether that was already at Maldegem or we collected it at Gent, I don't recall, but the pair double headed us, tender first, back to Gent. My photo of the train back at Leuven shows only 1002 so it could well be that 26101 had joined us at Gent St Pieters on the outward journey and was removed there on the way back. 26101 is in a very small way an impostor in that it's not one of the 100 Kriegslok 2-10-0s ordered from Belgian manufacturers during WWII for SNCB and numbered as class 26. They were all scrapped, and 101 was acquired from Poland by PFT, modified to class 26 spec and, presumably, assigned 101 as being the next member of the class.
An SNCF diesel unit at Comines (FR) on 2.5.97 |
SNCB/NMBS Pacific 1002 at Leuven with the tour train on 3.5.97 |
Ex-PKP 2-6-2 Ol49-12 at Maldegem on 3.5.97 |
PFT's Kriegslok 26101 at Maldegem |
Guest loco, Kerr Stuart 0-4-0ST 'Pixie' from the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway, was looking after the 600mm narrow gauge service |
After working tender first from Eeklo, 26101 and 1002 were facing the right way for the return to Leuven but had to run round the train at Gent St Pieters. |
For the moment (pending further revelations from my dusty cupboards and spreadsheets) the story can continue later in May 1997 when I set off to Belgium and the Netherlands to do some branch lines on service trains, an ADL tour in Belgium and a local event in Belgium involving a much-sought after branch in the Meuse valley.
