Newsletter 4th March 2000

The pictures may take a while to download but have patience - they're worth waiting for !!

My co-conspirator, Michael Kaben, has been corresponding with Andreas Pfau from Leipzig who has sent us some photos of the Soller Tramway which he took in 1997. The first one shows tramcar no.4 (which is the only one of the older tramcars which was not actually constructed for Soller - it came from Bilbao in 1959 and the body is all metal. The other three are wooden-bodied, were made for the opening of the tramway in 1913 and are still running today !!) coming up the hill at Soller Station to run around the trailers before going back down the hill to pick up passengers for the journey to Puerto de Soller. The Soller Train can be seen standing at the platform in the background

The second photo is of the station yard at Soller, with the single platform on the left and, on the right, is one of the large trams which were bought from Portugal. I never did find out what happened to them and if anybody can tell me I will be grateful. In all probability they were too big (like the one bought by the Isle of Man Railway) to go round the sharp curves and were used for spares. A number of smaller, 4 wheel, tramcars have subsequently been bought from Carris of Lisbon and have been almost completely rebuilt, outshopped with new livery and are now in daily service click here to see one.

Thanks Andreas for these photos !!

In February I had a message from Derek Spencer of Yorkshire, England who sent me the following report from the Majorca Daily Bulletin:-

Majorca´s railway service is definitely getting there... By the start of the year 2003, the Inca to Manacor railway will hopefully be in operation, according to the manager of the Majorcan railway service (SFM), José Antonio Santos Hierro. The Balearic Government announced yesterday that 4'000 million pesetas is to be invested in the service, which in effect will offer a new lifeline to the Manacor area of the island. The Balearic Minister for Public Works, Josep Antoni Ferrer, said yesterday that work on the Inca to Manacor link will start around the middle of next year and could be completed by the start of 2003. Last week the grounds of the project and operations contract were approved by the SFM administration. While work on the new link gets underway, SFM also announced yesterday that 2'000 million pesetas will be invested on the renovation of the stations at Manacor, Sineu and Petra; work will also be completed on the station at Inca, which will become the hub of the expanding Majorca rail network. February 10. 2000, Edición 39, URL: http://www.majorcadailybulletin.es/first.dba?39+1+213
(URL no longer works)

In addition to this very interesting news he has sent a couple of photos which he took in August 1988. One is at the (then) FEVE station in Palma and the other at the FS station, Palma.

You will see little change on the FS (and I hope it stays that way, unless they re-introduce steam locos) and considerable change on the FEVE. I believe the DMU sets in this picture were sold to Argentina about five years ago. For further pictures of these sets see the http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/pix/es/private/SFM/pix.html section of the Mercurio site and for older pictures of the FS you need to go to http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/pix/es/private/FS/pix.html where you will see a number of photos supplied by my friend and co-conspirator, Mike Kaben whose report on the developments in Majorca can be accessed by clicking on the link below.

Finally, (added 26th February) here's a picture of one of the Nasmyth Wilson steam locomotives which were used on the FCM. I found this picture in a copy of the Narrow Gauge News dated Autumn 1984

We are working on Galleries of Pictures of the Soller Railway, the Soller Tramway and the disused parts of the FCM, which will appear as soon as the pages can be coded and the pictures prepared

That's all for now, folks !! Watch this site for further developments which will take place whenever new information or pictures come to hand. Any submissions of information, photos old or new, postcards, etc., will be gratefully and enthusiastically received and if used on the site will be suitably acknowledged (as above).