www.iberianrailwayssociety.org Issue No. 22 Autumn 2011 he inaugural IRS meeting took place at the Model T Railway Club in London on 22nd February 2006, and was attended by about 20 prospective members from all around the UK. A general discussion took place and introductions, suggestions and proposals were made. At this meeting a small committee was voted on and tasked with setting up the Society on a formal basis. The Committee members are: Chairman David Stevenson Secretary Charles Phillips Journal Editor Michael Guerra Treasurer & Membership Secretary Tony Bowles (post available) Publicity & Exhibitions Myles Munsey (post available) THE BASICS The remit of the Society is to stimulate interest in and disseminate information about railways on the Iberian Peninsular and the Balearic Islands. It was felt at this time that extending this remit to Spanish and Portuguese speaking areas of the world would be too ambitious. It is proposed that a Society Journal be published four times a year and that this would be the main conduit between members. Local meetings and branches were also to be established wherever possible to encourage membership from the widest possible area. A fledgling library could be made available to members as time went on. Consideration would be given to organising trips from the UK, both formal and informal, as a way of enabling members to meet in a very convivial atmosphere and whilst indulging their passion for rail travel! MEMBERSHIP Membership was to be open to all and would entitle the member to receipt of the magazine, use of the Societies’ facilities and attendance and voting rights at an Annual General Meeting. MEMBERSHIP RATES FOR ONE YEAR – APRIL 2011-MARCH 2012 UK £14.50 EUROPE £17.00 REST OF WORLD £18.00 Web Download £5.00 Payment CHEQUE (Payable to: Iberian Railway Society) or Paypal (from website) Send to: Tony Bowles 1 Station Cottages Stow Road Toddington Cheltenham GL54 5DT Those joining during the year pay the Annual Rate and will receive all copies of the journal for that year. Membership of the IRS is subject to the rules and constitution of the IRS. Membership records are held on a computer database in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. 2 Title Page The Society 2 The Chairman’s Page 4 The Editor’s Page 5 Stars In Their Eyes 6 Horario De Trenes 1985 14 Spanish Roamings 18 Porto Pictorial - Part 3 25 An Industrial Line In The Province Of Aragon 28 Warley Model Railway Show 2011 Hall 5 of the N.E.C, Birmingham Saturday 19th November 09.30 to 18.00 Sunday 20th November 09.30 to 17.00 IRS stand number is E04A There are programmed to be 85 working layouts and the continental Selection includes 10 American, 2 Swiss, 1 Australian, 1 German, 1 East German, 2 French, 2 Swedish, 1 Italian (Paul Hannant), 1 Austrian and 1 Dutch. So plenty to enjoy! Contributions for publication should be, if possible, by email or computer disk (to avoid time spent transcribing text). Photos should be of good quality, sharp, well composed or of significant historical interest. Prints, slides, digital photos or good scans can be accommodated. All prints and slides should be sent by recorded delivery, they will be scanned as quickly as possible and returned by recorded delivery. Scans of 6”x4” prints should be scanned at 300dpi, 35mm slides should be scanned at 1600dpi, digital photographs should be 1920x1200 minimum. Articles can be of any length, though generally of between 500 to 800 words for a book review, and up to 4,000 words for a main article. Maps should be of a good clear line, and legible at quarter page size. Submissions should be to: Michael Guerra, 6 Nash Close, Welham Green Hatfield, HERTS AL9 7NN Email (pref): [email protected] Front Cover: Bilbao Abando 1984. Renfe Class 433-560 EMU (SECN/Westinghouse 1944) between turns towards the end of its life. From a postcard. 3 HOLÀ ! irst a huge thank you to all those who have renewed; appreciated. Secondly, we will F be at the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition at the NEC on the 19th-20th November 2011. Please come along and make yourself known to us, we can promise you a warm welcome. Thirdly, many of you will have been to Iberia this year, despite the exchange rate. Please let Mike Guerra have some pictures with some text. I promise to send some from Mallorca for the next edition, make me keep my promise Michael! Speaking generally about the exchange rate, which from the UK point of view has deteriorated dramatically recently, at least it's not as bad as the Swiss rate. This has dropped to about SFr1.23 to £1 for tourists, a drop of about 50% in the past two years. Iberia still offers relatively good value in comparison. The recession in Spain is having an effect on RENFE and in Portugal the news is very worrying with dire predictions of mass railway closures. Whether these actually happen is a matter for conjecture but the NG lines in the Douro now seem doomed. Missing these will be something I am very disappointed about. The other major cause for concern is the lack of impetus in connecting Portugal to the outside railway world. There must be demand for inter- capital travel and it's being ignored in favour of plane travel and/or road. I'm sure the Portuguese will come to regret this in the years to come. Enough from me, enjoy the rest of the magazine. - Adios, David Stevenson, Chairman – Iberian Railways Society 3, Aldersey Road, Worcester, WR5 3BG Tel: 01905 358440 Email: [email protected] IRS MEETING - 2012 With our limited funds finding a free venue is proving very difficult. Ideally a location should be in the SE, preferably to the West or North of London. Does anyone have access to a suitable location which is both close to a railway line and free. An office perhaps, a clubroom? If you do will you please get in touch as soon as possible. I could do this at home in Worcester but the reality is that this is impractical for the majority of members. I look forward to hearing from you. IRS SALES Correo on CD. All previous issues up to the preceding year in PDF format. £5.50 inc P&P. DVDS -The Society now sells the Ticket to Ride DVDs Out & About Barcelona. £25 inc P&P Out & About Lisbon. £25 inc P&P TALGO Cabride - Portbou to Girona £20 inc P&P TALGO Cabride - Girona to Barcelona £20 inc P&P TALGO Cabride - Barcelona to Reus £20 inc P&P Algarve Cabride - Lagos to Tunes (with a Class 1800) £20 inc P&P Algarve Cabride - Tunes. Faro to Vila Real (with a Class 1800) £20 inc P&P COASTERS - 4 scenes from FGV, RENFE & FEVE £6.50 inc P&P For all items please send a cheque to IRS Sales, 3 Aldersey Road, Worcester, WR5 3BG. Overseas members should enquire first about postage costs, send an email to [email protected]. Payment can be made via Paypal for overseas members only. 4 have a secret fetish, well actually it’s not that secret. Ok, well here it is: I like reading I timetables. Not just any timetables, just those of international and long distance trains. If we were to have access to an adequate sufficiency, we would spend our days travelling on long distance trains, reading, eating food from restaurant cars or exotic platform vendors and think geographical, historical, cultural and engineering thoughts. Unfortunately, that pleasant sufficiency is still out of reach, so I content myself on darkening winter evenings reading timetables, making imaginary itineraries and looking through travel guides and maps. My favourite journeys were never less than 4 hours, and I would always try and include a night train or two (1st class sleeper of course!), as I love that delightful meditation that comes from looking out the window at night with the lights off before I drift off to sleep. In this issue we have Myles’ description of a 1980s’ Renfe timetable and Xavier’s article on the more recent incarnation of the Renfe night service Estrella. And here comes my request: should you have any spare Cooks’ Continental Timetables from 1883 to 2000, and you would like a good home for them, then look no further. I would be more than willing to offer something in exchange (though we are pretty broke at the moment - but who isn’t), and if you have one but can’t bear to give it up then perhaps you would allow me to borrow it for scanning. I don’t have a great collection and I am missing references to between the world wars and 1950s’ trains. With the introduction of high speed rail many interesting through services have been replaced with short, speedy trips between hubs (I suppose to match the airlines who they feel are the competition), leaving the seasoned meditative traveller insufficient time to get settled in. And as for Eurostar, 2 hrs is not really enough. While I am in the mood for begging (and predicated by the Chairman’s desire to offload his Today’s Railways Europe collection) if anyone wishes to offload any old European Railways, Rail Passion or any Iberian magazines or postcards that may be gathering dust then please contact me in the usual way. And as usual, if anyone has been on an interesting Iberian trip recently, and they haven’t written anything about it then please do! Michael Guerra Petiet 030+030-T (Gouin 1863) Ferrocarril de Zaragoza a Pamplona y Alsasua.