Thursday 27th March 2008 ~ FROM TRALEE TO ISTANBUL

Graham Stacey ~ summarised by Chris Hurricks ~ Appeared in Journal 520

In contrast to Graham's previous three visits, when the subjects were from the Ken Nunn collection, this was a journey, admittedly devious at times, viewed through his own slides taken in the 70's and 80's. Allowing for the now separate countries in the former Jugoslavia we visited no less than 17 in the course of the evening.

Starting just west of Tralee at the delightful harbour and station of Fenit, followed by views of various steam specials in Eire, including the famous Irish J15 class of 0-6-0, we had a quick visit to Belfast and some scenic coastal locations in Northern Ireland. By ferry over to Scotland saw the now vintage shots of the class 26 & 27 diesels at work on the Far North line to Wick and Thurso. The much moved town of Berwick upon Tweed saw our entry into England with a lovely shot from the castle at Newcastle of a Deltic hauled train.

Next to continental Europe with some wonderful shots of the 1970 REC steam tour of Denmark, followed by lots of steam in the former East Germany. The famous double deck viaduct at Gotschtal near Plauen was impressive whilst Colditz station brought back different memories. Paddle steamers on the Elbe brought us to Dresden and entry into what was then Czechoslovakia. Various shots here included a rare standard gauge Meyer tank. A Vienna to Berlin train was shown and we were kept on our toes by being asked to identify the border crossings!

Austria's 76 cm gauge steam at Gmund was followed by the daily cross border incursion of the Czech 2.10.0's. Hungary provided some ancient and now preserved Goldsdorf locos whilst a contrast was the USA 2.8.0 war loco (several of which worked in the UK) and the German 52 class Kreigslok seen side by side. This country has a wonderful collection of preserved steam and we saw an armoured 2-6-2T and a fully streamlined 4-4-4T. A brief visit to the scenic and mountainous Slovenia was followed by the famous 62 class USA 0-6-OT's in Croatia, a few of which still operate. Photography in the former Jugoslavia in those days was very restricted and there were many tales of arrests.

A short excursion over the border into Italy at Tarvisio saw a FS electric with pan down being assisted off its train by a 740 class 2-8-0 , having coasted in because of differing OHL voltages. Bulgaria with its Cyrillic script much in evidence was next, home to a curious 0-12-OT whilst a Roumanian electric was our sole connection with that country. Greece, again with its own alphabet, was interesting with excellent shots of the scenic metre gauge systems and a steam special crossing the famed Corinth Canal. The currently very topical station at Olympia was followed by a visit to Athens to see ancient relics both rail and architectural. Volos, where standard, metre and 60 cm gauges met, was fascinating whilst a junction was described as the Templecombe of Greece (!) for obvious operational reasons.

So to our final country and the destination of the trip just reaching Asia by crossing the Bosphorus at Istanbul on the famous ferries. We learnt a lot about European geography and indeed history from Graham's superb commentary, accompanied by many of his humourous asides e.g. 'by 1987 the Iron Curtain was showing signs of rust' and a suggestion that the many wars in the Balkans have been caused by having no vowels in any of the place names.

Steve Worsley gave the vote of thanks for what had been a wonderful evening's entertainment. After the meeting Graham gave me a printout of a journey from Tralee to Istanbul by rail and sea taken from the current DB website which accounted for 83 hours and 9 minutes of travel passing through 11 countries.

Front Cover. Jimmy James' family posing in front of Ipswich Buses 90 after the naming ceremony at the ITS 50 event on 5th April. Photo by Fred Ward.

Rear Cover Top. A group photo taken shortly after the naming ceremony with most of the attendees included. Photo by John Day.

Rear Cover Bottom. After the evening meal, John Day presented Graham & Linda Hardinge with a long service award for their contribution to the ITS. Photo by John Yelverton.