Austrian Adventure

The January meeting of the Solent Branch on 18 January began with the branch’s annual general meeting. The Committee elected for the coming year were John Godfrey (Chairman), Denis Horsman (Secretary), Peter Ifiold (Treasurer), Dave Doulton (Internet), and John Goodrich (Ordinary Member).

The AGM was followed by John Godfrey taking us on an Austrian Adventure based on colour slides taken 19 years ago.  We soon learned that electric locomotives were numbered in the 1xxx series, diesels in the 2xxx series, emus in the 4xxx series and diesel multiple units in the 5xxx series with a number of each type being illustrated. Most of the freight trains illustrated conveyed a variety of traffic with few inter modal services being seen.

The main railway operator in Austria is Austrian Federal Railways, abbreviated to OBB, but there are also independent freight operators such as the Rail Cargo group.

Railways require maintenance so it was no surprise to see machines built by the Austrian company Plasser & Theurer.  Other service stock illustrated included a catenary inspection unit, non-powered snow ploughs and a chunky snow plough built on the chassis of a steam locomotive.

Whilst most of the slides were of standard gauge railways visits were made to narrow gauge lines from Jenbach and the tram systems in Vienna and Linz.