A big thank you to Sasha for indulging me with this trip, which was a bit more of an endurance than even I expected and we were both solidly worn out at the end of it. But it was quite a trip and quite an event, I finally got to visit Wolsztyn and not only that, when there was steam trains running there. I'm glad I got to go - who knows when I might next see 8 working steam locomotives all coupled up together in a parade? It could very well be never...
Ever since we moved to Berlin, I've been keeping the occasional eye on the website of the local steam train group who run excursions on the main lines. Some are interesting, some are not, some happen when we are already away. One though for this year piqued my interest - a trip to Wolsztyn for the Steam Train Parade. Long time ago, way back in New Zealand the name Wolsztyn was very familiar to me - it was quite legendary in train circles that you could go to Wolsztyn in Poland and spend a week driving steam trains pulling real freight or passenger trains on the main line as part of something called The Wolsztyn Experience. My friend Dion and I even made tentative plans to do this during January 2016, when it would be cheapest (because it would be bitterly cold, in the middle of winter) and we were drumming up interest for the two other places - because you had to book it as a group of 4. But around the time I left NZ for the UK, Wolsztyn changed and instead of being a week it was now 4 days; it still cost the same or thereabouts, and they were dictating when it could be done on rather than you book any given week that you chose. This was much less appealing and then probably 6 months after I arrived in the UK you could no longer do it in any shape or form. This was because not enough had been spent on keeping the steam engines in working condition, so they became unreliable or needed major work, until all of them one by one fell into both of these categories and there was no money with which to fix them up. The passenger train services were replaced by modern railcars, and many doubted despite noises that they were working on trying to salvage the operation whether it would ever happen again. The operation was being underpinned by a British organisation, who somehow managed to let it go to pot but they dug in and got to work fixing it up. They announced that they were getting two steam engines fixed up and would be holding the Steam Train parade at the end of May. I was skeptical, but as time went on it seemed that it might just be true and certainly this excursion was running. Not only that, other excursions were going there too - and by going on this excursion it would tick a few boxes for me at once - namely a steam excursion from Berlin; an excursion that travels across an international border; and getting to visit Wolsztyn, the place and see this parade. So, we went. This was our steed - locomotive 03 2155, which was designed to pull fast passenger trains and this was one of the few excursions booked for this year to use this locomotive over the slower freight locomotive the train group also had. This is our train pulling into Berlin's Lichtenberg station, where we were hopping on the train - at a fairly early 6am in the morning! After blasting our way out of Berlin in the rising sun and with fogged up windows due to the rather effective steam heating, The train had a fairly long stop in Frankfurt - not Frankfurt am Main, the "main Frankfurt" that everyone knows about but Frankfurt Oder, the "other Frankfurt" on the Polish border. It stopped here to take on extra water. We wandered out of the station to get a look at the town, but got sidetracked by finding the locomotive taking water nearby and we were able to wander up to it and get photos with it without any trouble! After Frankfurt Oder we crossed the Oder River, which spans the border between Germany and Poland. This is the view of the train coming off the bridge, so the front half of the train is in Poland and the back half is in Germany - that stripey pole in the photo demarcates the border! As we got closer to Wolsztyn, there were a lot of lineside photographers taking photos of our train although the scenes they were taking must have been pretty average and most were going to places I would not have, and few were going to places I would have. At Wolsztyn there was a lot of action - a few local trips coming and going, and the arrival of another excursion from Cottbus in Germany headed by the world's fastest working steam locomotive 18 201 and a slower locomotive 35 1019. At Wolsztyn, there were a lot of market and festival tents - it was interesting to see that lots of people were clustered around some tents and very few at others, and it turns out all the ones people were clustered around were selling model trains or train-related items while the ones that few people were at were your candyfloss or slushie type food vendors! All of these tents were alongside or among a long line of derelict locomotives in various states - some had run in the recent past but were laid up, some were stored awaiting potential future overhaul and others are probably destined to be sources of spare parts. This one was a bit rusty - most were a bit better kept than this one. Just as the name of the event says, there was a parade - first of all the locomotives went past one by one or in groups of two, then they coupled into groups of 4, before lastly they all did a run-past together. The runpasts were quite a sight - and also sound, as the video's surely attest to! By now it was raining and it was not quite so much fun standing in the rain, with a cold breeze blowing as we waited for all of this to happen - and it all happened about 30mins late, which meant 03 2155 and 18 201 did not partake in the final parade runpast - they had to go off somewhere to turn I think, as the turntable at Wolsztyn was not big enough to take engines of their length and they couldn't afford to hang around. After the parade we got a hearty lunch, with a beer to go along with it and then wandered more around the festival market tents and around the Wolsztyn yard. There was quite a bit going on in the yard area - engines in the shed or on display out in the yard, including the locomotive in the bottom-left photo above which is called "Beautiful Helena" but in my opinion, that name is rather ironic as its not a very aesthetically pleasing loco! There had been no real guide to how many locomotives were going to attend nor where they were coming from - apparently the previous year's parade had a grand total of 3, but in the past it has been as many as 14. I had done some research and estimated at least 7 or 8 working locomotives would attend, but the actual number was 10. I didn't expect this Czech loco to be in attendance though, but was rather glad it was! Of the engines in attendance, there was this Czech loco, 3 German locos and the rest were Polish. This Polish loco was one of Sasha's favourites - there was a smaller green loco who's whistle went "Pip" and this one had a bit of a shrill to it, so we called the little green one Pip and this one Squeak. It was running shuttle excursions to a nearby town and back throughout the day. This is Wolsytyn Station nearer the end of the day - from right to left, one of the Shuttle Train excursions from Wolszytn; a Polish excursion train that was preparing to head back to its home town which I think might have been Poznan; and there are two rakes of carriages on the left, both belonging to the different German excursions including our one. We were due to depart about a half an hour after this photo was taken, but there was no sign of our locomotive nor 18 201 which was to head the other excursion back to Cottbus alone (35 1019 was staying the night at Wolsztyn). About an hour later they showed up, by which time Sasha and I had already hopped on our carriage in the yard (as had many others) since it was warmer taking shelter in there than being outside. The lone photo I have of our return trip - after 03 2155 and 18 201 arrived back in Wolsztyn facing the right way, they both needed water and coal (or oil in 18 201's case) and 18 201 was the first to depart with its excursion, ours being the last away some 2 hours behind time. When our loco coupled up to our carriage (we had been at the back of the last carriage on the way there, so now we were at the front of the first carriage on the way back), there was a collective sigh of appreciation when they coupled up the steam heating to the carriages from the locomotive! So as we headed across Poland we enjoyed a rather nice sunset, and then it was pitch black the rest of the way. There was also a stop at Frankfurt Oder again for water, but we didn't leave the train and our arrival back at Berlin's Lichtenberg station was just on midnight - it had been quite a long day to say the least!
A big thank you to Sasha for indulging me with this trip, which was a bit more of an endurance than even I expected and we were both solidly worn out at the end of it. But it was quite a trip and quite an event, I finally got to visit Wolsztyn and not only that, when there was steam trains running there. I'm glad I got to go - who knows when I might next see 8 working steam locomotives all coupled up together in a parade? It could very well be never...
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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