NEWSLETTER Number 23 Summer 2006
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European Federation of Museum & Tourist Railways Fédération Européenne des Chemins de Fer Touristiques et Historiques Europäische Föderation der Museums- und Touristikbahnen NEWSLET TER Number 23 Summer 2006 Editor - Rédacteur - Redakteur John Fuller, 261 Lower Higham Road, Chalk, Gravesend, Kent, DA12 2NP, UK Telephone + Facsimile: +44 (0)1474 362208 ; Mobile: +44 (0)7785 250571 Email: [email protected] Editorial Board John Fuller (English) - details above Bruno Rebbelmund (German) - Westerwaldstraße 7 - D-46145 Oberhausen Telephone: +49-208-6351569 Facsimile: +49-208-667443 Email: [email protected]. Olivier Jaubert (French) – Tel :+33146910969 Mobile : +33 6 73 87 66 64 Email [email protected] FEDECRAIL Contacts: Our website can be found at www.fedecrail.org Council Members and Officers can be contacted by email in the format »name »@fedecrail.org (as shown for the editor at the top of this page) Postal Contact should be to the FEDECRAIL Secretary :- Livius Kooy, De Akker 25, 7481 GA Haaksbergen, The Netherlands. Telephone (and Facsimile by request only) : +31 53 5727357 Email : [email protected] Contact details for the Conference Organiser and Treasurer are included in booking forms and renewal forms, as necessary. Council Members David MORGAN (UK) President, Heimo ECHENSPERGER (D) Vice President, Jacques DAFFIS (F) Vice President, Guido ROSSI (I), Sten ERSON-WESTER (S), Livius KOOY (NL) Secretary, Rik DEGRUYTER (B) Treasurer. Officers Peter OVENSTONE (UK) Conference Organiser. John FULLER (UK), Editor, Bruno REBBELMUND (D), Olivier JAUBERT(F) The FEDECRAIL Newsletter is published by and is the copyright © of the European Federation of Tourist Railways and Museums. We thank photographers for permission to publish their work without fee. The views expressed within the FEDECRAIL Newsletter are not necessarily those of the FEDECRAIL Council or Officers. All contributions are of a voluntary nature. Translations are by the School of Language and European Studies, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Banking: Fortis Bank (Belgium), Warandeberg 3, B-1000 Bruxelles, Belgium (IBAN: BE58 0012 0468 9779: BIC: GEBABEBB) (Quote name as reference please). NO CHEQUES OR MONEY ORDERS Correspondence to FEDECRAIL Treasurer, Stationsplein, B-9990 Maldegem. (Front cover photograph: Fedecrail / SteamRail.Net Conference special en route to Milies:19 May 2006: Photo: John Fuller) INDEX Editorial 1 The President’s Report 2 Heimo Echensperger - Vice President 3 Our Future Newsletter 4 SteamRail.Net brings European steam railways together 4 FEDECRAIL & SteamRail.Net Conference 2006, Volos and Athens, Greece 5 FEDECRAIL Conference 2007, Odense, Denmark 7 Conference 2006 - In the footsteps of the Gods (Part 1 - Volos) 8 IATM Conference, 9-17 June 2007, Yorkshire, United Kingdom 9 Correspondence 9 World Steam and Tourist Train Conference, Argentina 10 Conferences in Estonia and Poland 10 Ramshackle Narrow Gauge Railway as Lifeline 10 The "Black Companions" 11 EDITORIAL I originally wrote this editorial just before the 2006 Conference when I was expecting to publish it on my return to the UK. Regrettably my return marked a major panic with work that was unexpectedly sprung on me and one thing led to another until summer holidays arrived. I find myself publishing in September 2006 what should have been sent out many months ago for which I can only again apologise to you all. We are all volunteers and the duties of our Fedecrail responsibilities have to take second place to our business commitments and often third place to national roles as we are all involved in the Tourist and Museum Railway businesses in our home countries. As mentioned in NL22, the problems caused to Members who receive the Newsletter electronically and want to print it on their PCs mean that we need to change back to an A4 portrait format as the standard publication. This is a disappointment to me as I feel that it reduces the quality of the publication as a Newsletter rather than a Magazine, but it does mean that it can be printed in colour. Because only a few Members and Friends now ask for a copy by post, the economics of producing the magazine format will have to be considered again. The A4 format can be printed “in house” instead of sending the file to a printer. Turning to more pleasant topics, our congratulations are due to Heimo Echensperger on his appointment to the Board of DB Netz. A real statement of the importance and status of Museum and Tourist Railways in Germany and recognition from the highest level of the key role of VDMT in the transport structure of his home country! At the time of writing, the arrangements for the launch of the Riga Charter are in hand. We hope that this event will firmly establish the status of the Charter as an international statement of our dedication to the principles of conservation of the Heritage that is entrusted to our care. I hope to report fully with the next Newsletter. With the acceptance of Fedecrail as a member of Europa Nostra, we join one of the leading players in heritage conservation across Europe. Members of Council plan to meet with Europa Nostra to discuss how we can take our 1 new relationship forward. In many respects we have been following a parallel path for a number of years and in the battle for the limited funds available to our industry, working together can only strengthen our chances. I did not expect to be looking back on the 2006 Conference when writing this, but I think that it is fair to say after all the problems caused by the change of dates that the conference was enjoyable for those who were able to participate. A full report appears in this Newsletter. I had hoped to be able to include at least one of the key speeches in the Newsletter, but unfortunately so far the promised CD of the speeches has not been received from the SteamRail.Net project. It is to be hoped that we will soon be able to report on the successful conclusion of the SteamRail.Net project. It has been an interesting challenge for us and our Members who are Partners in the project. I think that we will all be wiser after surviving this experience. Without the project we would not have achieved the restorations and other work that has been expedited by the EU funding. It has been painful, but it is vital that we all learn from this experience and go forward to take advantage of future international funding opportunities. Your Council in particular will be taking on board all the lessons we have learnt and will be considering how we can best take advantage of new EU Funding opportunities such as Culture 2007, as well as the ongoing programmes such as Interreg. We need to make sure that our Members safely get their fair share of the money that is made available from the EU. John Fuller Editor Email Messages We are always happy to receive email messages, especially those with news for this publication! However, with the world-wide spam problems, can I ask for you to take a few simple precautions to try and prevent important messages being mistaken for spam and being deleted before they are read. Apart from having a current virus checker on your PC, please make sure that the Title of your message is completed with something meaningful that tells us it is about Fedecrail or is from a member. “Document”, “Hi”, or “Urgent Message” are candidates for immediate deletion as they are widely used by spammers. Remember the recipient may not recognise your name and the first rule has to be “If you do not recognise it, delete it before opening” THE PRESIDENT’S REPORT (Editor’s Note: This was written for the original hoped publication date in the Spring which is why there is no reference to the Conference having taken place. The message is timeless and so is as relevant to us today as when originally written.) The last few months have been largely taken up with internal matters, such as the promulgation of the Riga Charter and the changes to FEDECRAIL’s constitution. Most of our activities over the past year have already been covered in the recently published Annual Report. From a personal point of view, I seem to have been travelling the globe (literally), acting in my role as FEDECRAIL President. Some of these acts have been entirely ceremonial, as in the planting of trees on BANITIS day in Aluksene, Latvia, last September, when I also witnessed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation between Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. I was also wearing a SteamRail.net hat (my top hat) as two of the trees were planted by me deputising for Manos Vougioukas. Earlier last year (June), I had attended the SteamRail.net partners’ meeting in Latvia, when progress on the six restoration projects was monitored and updates on the presentations were given – these presentations take various forms, i.e. brochures, exhibitions, documentary records, photographs, videos, etc. I also attended meetings with John Fuller, your newsletter editor, with the promoters and operator of the narrow gauge railway in Panevezys, Lithuania. In Moscow, I was able to visit an exhibition of historic transport featuring our member, the narrow gauge railway museum in Pereslavl, and to have further discussions with Sergei Dorozhkov assisted by Vadim and Artur. Although much of their track had to be lifted and stored within the museum compound after the theft of some track, the museum itself seems to be thriving and, despite rumours to the contrary, continues to perform its primary role as railway museum, although it contains half a dozen military items in its collection, albeit transport related. Later in the same month, I was invited to address a railway heritage meeting in Australia and was surprised to find the RIGA CHARTER projected onto the screen when I entered the conference room.