European Federation of Museum & Tourist Railways Fédération Européenne des Chemins de Fer Touristiques et Historiques Europäische Föderation der Museums- und Touristikbahnen N E W S L E T T E R Number 24 Winter 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 : +33 1 46 91 09 69 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/ Conference Finance Manager; Bruno REBBELMUND (D), Editor(German), Olivier JAUBERT(F), (Editor(French); Keith TWYMAN (UK), Membership Secretary 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 Finance Correspondence to FEDECRAIL Treasurer, Stationsplein, B-9990 Maldegem. (Front cover photograph: Fedecrail / SteamRail.Net Conference special en route to Kalavyrta:23 May 2006: Photo: Gordon Rushton) INDEX Editorial 1 The President’s Report 2 Fedecrail Conference 2007 – Odense & Copenhagen, Denmark 3 Denmark – A Preview 5 And A Look Back To Last Year - Conference 2006 In The Footsteps Of The Gods (Part 2 Athens & Peleponnese) 6 New Guidelines For Tourist And Historic Railways In Italy 7 Notes From The Secretary After 46 Council Meetings 7 Visit From The Island Of Sodor In Krefeld 8 The 2nd World Steam and Tourist Train Congress – Business Sessions 9 In Search Of Fray Bentos - The World Steam And Tourist Train Congress 2006 9 Switching Between The Two Centuries 13 Andrij Bassarab 1972-2006 13 Gulbene - Aluksne Banitis (Latvia) Celebrates Fifth Anniversary 14 EDITORIAL As I write this in the last days before Christmas at this season of goodwill, I look back on a busy year for your Volunteer Council Members and Officers. This leads me on to thoughts of what a volunteer really is? Is it someone who wants to help others, or perhaps someone who is bored with nothing to do in their spare time, or perhaps there is something in their lives that makes them "volunteer" because not to do so risks losing benefits of some kind. For myself, I think that it was something that was instilled in me by my parents when I was a child. The idea of doing activities to help has always been there, whether it be people less fortunate than oneself, or things that would not happen unless there was volunteer input. Looking around at friends throughout Europe and further afield that I have made across our diverse mobile heritage movement, I recognise a common feeling that crosses borders, races and creeds, joining us in a love and dedication to "make a difference" for railway heritage. Sometimes those of us in this category look down on others that perhaps we think of as being "less dedicated". How many times have we thought that there is a league table of volunteering based on how many times a person turns up to help on our railway, or museum? When we say "Oh! I have not seen you around for a while" do we ever stop to think perhaps that person has very little spare time and is actually giving a much greater proportion of it than we are? Perhaps they have to work every hour that they can to earn enough money to live and the occasional hour is all they have for themselves to do things they want. This comes home to me each time I visit projects in the former iron curtain countries where the few volunteers give so much, but are existing in an economy where many people are having difficulty earning enough to keep themselves and their families. What then about the third category; those who are persuaded into helping our projects by a legislative framework that seeks to punish them for some misdemeanour, or to make their work with us a condition of receiving state benefits of some kind? Are these volunteers, giving freely of their time, or a form of press gang? Do we treat them as volunteers or do we perhaps seek to punish them ourselves by giving them the worst jobs that the rest of our volunteers do not want? It was a recent suggestion from our own UK government that students were to be "persuaded" to volunteer by making part of their grant payment conditional on having undertaken so many hours of "volunteer work" that also made me wonder about the "volunteer". Having said that, on my railway at Sittingbourne in Kent, we have had the benefit of 1 community service "volunteers" for many years. All come because they are forced to as part of their punishment for some transgression, but we try to made them welcome and to treat them as part of the rest of our volunteer team. Some think that we are mad to enjoy working for nothing and do not want to know, some are surprised to be treated as colleagues and some even come to enjoy being part of our team and stay on with us after their "forced labour" period is ended. Some time back we had some problems with vandalism, but it soon ended and we heard that some of our community service "volunteers" had deal with the vandals who had damaged work that our "volunteers" had done while serving their time with us! Fortunately, the police did not become involved that time! So what is the answer to the question of what a volunteer really is? I think the answer is probably as diverse as our worldwide heritage industry, or as diverse as the people we meet every time we come to our railway, or our museum. The one unalterable fact is that without volunteers of every sort, whatever continent they live in, we would lose an inestimable part of our culture. Let us all at this time of the year look forward to 2007 in the spirit of friendship, recognising fellow volunteers of all sorts as well as our colleagues who are lucky enough to get paid to work to conserve our mobile cultural heritage. Build bridges to link with those who we have fallen out with in the past year; make tracks forward to bring new people in and steam onward to conserve the culture and international social history that makes railways a world network. From Azerbaijan to Zambia railways are a common language across peoples. With best wishes to you all for 2007. 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 Our trips to Greece and the AGM in Volos now seem long ago but we still await the transcriptions of the papers presented in May. The student occupation of Thessaly University has not helped, although Manos Vougiakos very loyally defends it against all criticism. Despite all the aggravation caused by the change of dates and the University’s reluctance (or inability) to confirm arrangements in writing, I think that our Greek trip has some magical quality about it. Helped by Manos’ light-touch humour and ready smile, the conference and visit programme developed into an instructive and thoroughly enjoyable experience. In particular, the arrangements with OSE the Greek railway operator, were perfectly organised by George Nathanas, who also acted as our guide throughout our tour of the Peleponnese. George is a larger than life character who is a fund of knowledge and he has written an excellent book about the Pelion Railway, now translated into English. Yet, had it not been for this visit, I doubt whether I would have been aware of the diverse nature of Greek railway history and preservation.