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Jokioinen Museum Railway is also celebrating the 150th anniversary of Finnish Railways. The anniversary started officially at Hämeenlinna in January 24. with Rata 2012 (Track 2012) seminar at Verkatehdas conference centre in old fabric factory area. The special programme included live Porter steam locomotive of museum railway. The locomotive was warmed up and it steamed back and forth of 40 metres long temporary narrow gauge track in the next of congress centre's entrance doors.
Porter actually suited very well in the theme of the anniversary opening ceremonies, because it is Finland's oldest steam locomotive in running condition. It is manufactured at H.K. Porter locomotive factory at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 1901. That means the locomotive will meet 111 years this year!
Read more of Porter at locomotive site.
YLE regional radio: Porter-locomotive in Hämeenlinna (in Finnish, includes a video clip)
Photos from Hämeenlinna
(you can open a larger image by clicking a thumbnail)
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Jokioinen Museum Railway volunteers made firewood for steam locomotives during three days in the beginning of January. The firewood were made of wood especially bought for that purpose and also of some trees fallen by huge storms after Christmas.
The firewood weekends are going to be continued during the hearth of winter, because railway has bought enough firewood material for two traffic period. That means approximately 140 cubic meters of wood. The wood material is quite dry already, so it suits perfectly for steam locomotive use.
Three of the five steam locomotives of Jokioinen Museum Railway are completely wood-burners. Firewood will also be needed for two coal-fired locomotives, because pre-heating is done by burning wood. Coal is used only when locomotive is running.
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Huge storm at second Christmas day caused also some damages at Jokioinen Museum Railway. The railway line was inspected at Wednesday and it was found that several large trees has fallen on the railway line or very close of it. However, the track itself has not been damaged, so it was partially cleaned up immediately. The rest of trees and storm trashes will be removed during next weekend.
The strom also cut off electrical power in very large areas in Southwestern Tavastia where the Museum Railway is located. For example, only in Jokioinen almost 700 houses were still without power at Wednesday evening. Luckily the JMR facilities suffered the lack of electricity only from Monday morning to the same day evening.
Museum Railway buildings suffered only small storm damages. The wind broke an air vent of Minkiö locomotive shed and one heavy hatch of workshop building flew down to parking lot. Wind also pushed the gravel wagons in Minkiö yard into motion and they collided with close boxcar. The damages were also only minor ones.
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Jokioinen Museum Railway and Museum Railway Association wishes Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2012 to all its friends!
The artist of Christmas card is PTJ Koskinen, a steam locomotive engineer of Jokioinen Museum Railway. Santa Claus with his little helper is loading steam locomotive number 1 "Porter" in the Christmas gift sledge.
You can also visit our image gallery to view Museum Railway Christmas greetings of past years. All of them are drawn by PTJ Koskinen.
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Operator of Jokioinen Museum Railway, the Museum Railway Association, was present for the first time in traditional miniature railway Christmas Exhibition in Helsinki railway station. The exhibition was arranged by Miniature Railway Club (Pienoisrautatiekerho ry) and it was open in the last weekend of November. The stand of Museum Railway was designed especially for younger railway enthusiasts. Also Santa Claus visited at stand in Saturday.
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The every year end of season cleaning weekend took care of cleaning both indoors and outdoors. In the picture above cleaning of the firewood storage is going on. Smaller pieces of firewood were thrown on the flat car behind to be taken to heat the Minkiö workshop in next winter.
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After traffic season museum railway volunteers are now concentrating for maintenance of the rolling stock. Inside workshop building Tubize steam locomotive has been prepared for boiler renovation and a huge rebuilding project of passenger coach of former Hyvinkää-Karkkila railway is reaching its final phases.
The passenger coach looks even more ready, because its outer walls were painted in the early October. The dark blue color surface was painted by professional painters in very traditional ways. The painting work was funded by Foundation of Finnish Railway Museum.
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The season celebrating 40 years of museum train traffic in Finland ended with the starlight train on Saturday 17.9. 2011. There were lot of people on board trains enjoying the beautiful autumn weather. The day started already in the early afternoon with one train running between Humppila, Minkiö and Jokioinen. When the sun started to set, the evening continued with two trains running and meeting at Minkiö station. The trains were pulled by the coal fired JR 5 "Orion" and the wood fired LWR 6 tender locomotive. When the day turned into a night the trains and stations were lit up with electric lights, oil lamps and candles. The night ended with a fireworks show at Minkiö station ending also the 40th anniversary season of museum traffic at Jokioinen Railway and in Finland.