Dave Rodgers wrote:The great Christmas clean-up continues to bear fruit! Forced to move
up boxes of photos and files from the dining room to clear space for
the Christmas lunch years of unseen material is coming to light. This
was from the period when I was taking 35mm colour transparencies as
well as medium format colour negative film for prints. The emphasis
at this period was get good prints and leave the transparencies in
boxes. Soon after the move to digital meant that a couple of thouand
transparencies were never projected or even seen. So some surprises
are coming to light. The recent Ukraine pics are still in the
original plastic wallets straight from the processing lab! I have
scanned... more slides before being consigned to some other dark hole
never to be seen again until being forced to move them!
Syria:
Swiss-built SLM former rack fitted 0-6-2T No. 805 leaves the old
Hedjaz station in Damascus with a schoolchildrens train bound for
Fijeh whilst a Hartmann 2-8-0 stands on freight wagons on one of my
charter trains on 28th September 2001. The whole 1.05m station area
has been abandoned (for redevelopment which I don't think as happened
but at least will provide easy access for tanks to the centre of
Damascus!). The Serghaya line is thus isolated from the rest of the
narrow gauge network...
Pakistan: I operated
a tour to Pakistan in 1996. In addition to the 5ft 6in gauge
charters, we had narrow gauge charters at Changa Manga Forestry
Railway and a couple of charters on the metre gauge system based at
Mirpur Khas. Here an elderly British-built oil burning Class SP 4-6-0
crosses a bridge at Digri on the Pithoro loop line on 19th January
1996. The main line has been converted to broad gauge but as far as
is known the Nawabshah line and the Pithoro loop have been abandoned.
Judging by the state of the engine (which appears to have broken in
two and certainly had no working brakes) the end of the Pakistan metre
gauge was a blessing! Ironically, these engines were still being
'overhauled' at Moghulpura Works (Lahore) at the time of the visit.