Inter Railing for the over 60`s by Dave Hepper
Dave Hepper, from Mistley presented a fascinating and very informative pictorial overview of the ten trips he made in 2023 across Europe using the special 50th Anniversary Inter-Rail First Class pass in “Inter-railing for the Older Crowd”. Recently retired from a lifetime planning trains and rail resource management, concluding with the London’s Cross Rail project, Dave maximised his new travel opportunities,within the Inter Rail limits and EU Schengen rules. He shuttled to/ from the UK to fresh centres of exploration. A great ”back pack” traveller he gave us a taster of over 25 cities, diverse train liveries, modern and older narrow, standard and broad gauge trains. There were modern Siemens locos and EMUs, but also venerable classic locos and trains still in active service, including some Polish sisters of BR Class 83 types and other BR Class 87's exported to Romania to be seen. The Conductors – uniformed - were often smarter than the Loco drivers, reminding us that some places carry on like the UK did in 1950’s. Dave covered 1) UK via France and Spain to Gibraltar. 2). Zurich to Zagreb 3). Norway – Kiruna Sweden 4). Orient Express route to Instanbul' 5).La Tour De Carol 6). Zurich- Venice 7). Prague- Gdansk .8). Vienna -Dubrovnic .9). Baltic States tour 10). Copenhagen – Malmo – Hurtigruten, Norway.