Newsletter - December 2005

There are a lot of large photos in the newsletter and I have had to locate them on another site so they will be a little slow to load. Please have patience, they are worth waiting for !!

Following on from the previous newsletter, I have received a number of photos from Roger Bryen (thanks, Roger) of the actual demolition of the Gaspar Benassar bridge and here they are, together with recent photos of Enllac/Empalme, Arta and the viaduct at Arenal:

Roger was an extremely busy bunny last month because not only did he record the demolition of the Gaspar Benassar bridge, he also spotted something rather unusual as he sped through the Santa Maria halt on the Sóller Railway. The train was going too fast for him to get a photo but, from his description, we determined that it was the body of the "crocodile" loco which was loaned to the Sóller Railway by the Museo Vasco del Ferrocarril of Azpeitia in the Basque region of northern Spain in 2001. Unfortunately the Sóller Railway didn't have the necessary equipment to reunite the loco body with its bogies - see my May 2001 newsletter - but how on earth the loco body comes to be resting at a halt in the middle of nowhere I'd love to know. Our friend Toni Sanchis at AAFB has pictures of the forlorn item and here are a couple (more on their website):

Thanks to Toni Sanchis and AAFB for these pictures.

Pete Kilby was about to leave for a short holiday in Majorca when this story first broke and, armed with Roger Bryen's information, he was able to take this photo from the train

Pete also took a couple of non-railway pictures which will interest those who, like me, are aficionados of Puerto de Sóller - they show the demolition of the old building which used to house the fishermen's equipment and nets and the Fish Restaurant. Thanks for these photos Pete.

The final one, is picture of my own, taken in September this year

The following report by Mike Bent appeared in the November issue of Today's Railways

Though extremely interesting, there are some inaccuracies inasmuch as not one but three underground carparks now intersect the old tunnel - see
http://www.majorcarailways.com/page3.htm . They are at Plaça Mayor, Plaça Olivar and the new one - see
http://www.majorcarailways.com/newsletter_aug2001.htm) at Plaça d'Espanya. I wonder whether there will be a terminus at the new underground station or whether the line might continue out to the northern suburbs somewhere. It will also be interesting to see what happens at Parque del Mar where the tunnel debouches within metres of the ornamental lake which was built over the old port railway yard. Watch this space !!

A video of the Sóller Railway was recently transmitted on the Travel Channel on Sky. It was an extremely good 45 minute program with a great deal of information given in the commentary. A DVD of the program plus a driver's cabview of the line is available at
http://www.travelchannel.co.uk/ontv/programmeAtoZ/soller_railway.htm
I've already got mine !! Second person in the list of acknowledgments was Miguel Galmés Schwarz who was, until recently, Director of the Sóller Railway.The new Director is Miquel Socías. I wish him the very best in his new job and I hope we will be able to establish the same good relations that we had with his predecessor.

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A Thumbnail Gallery of my early Pictures of the Sóller Railway and Tramway is now available by clicking here.

Watch this site for further developments which will take place whenever new information or pictures come to hand. Any submissions or contributions of information, photos old or new, postcards, books etc., will be very gratefully and enthusiastically received and if used on the site will be suitably acknowledged (as above). The photos, pictures and diagrams used on this site are presented for your information and viewing pleasure only. If any of them should be in copyright violation and the copyright holder would care to notify me I will either remove them or acknowledge the copyright accordingly.

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