FUNDACION DE LOS FERROCARRILES DE GALICIA

(GALICIA RAILWAYS FOUNDATION)

From Carmelo Parredo - "Galicia is an autonomic region in Spain located on NW. The Galician climate is quite similar than English one with all year greeen landscapes. The Galician Heritage is the Celtic one with pipe music and celtic traditions. We founded a year ago as a Public Foundation in order to preserve and to restore railway historic vehicles.The foundation is a non profit organsation,but we must reach the costs of the daily work by exploding comercially our railway vehicles. The initial inventary of our cars and locos is:

-An 1958 Diesel Alco 1800

-North British steam loco Mikado 141-F 2111 of 1952

-A workshop wagon auxiliar to steam loco

-A video saloon car with two video screens from where you can see seated the wiew that thhe loco pilot can see by several video cameras installed on Loco cabin and at the sides of the train.

-A 1970 Sleeping Car from Wlits.

-A generator car with a small dinidng cab.This generator provides all conditioned air to the convoy with its 210.000 wats. of power.

We now are restoring:

-Two dining cars

-Two 1952 electric locomotives 7700 (Voulcan Foundry,England)

-A Staff wooden car from the President of (Compañìa de los Ferrocarriles del Norte de España) with meeting room,sleeping room and toalet. (Nicely wooden decorated).

-two more sleeping cars

-And our most strong compromise with National Spanish Railway Museum is the restoring of the Royal Train of Alfonso XIII.

We are triying to reach our costs by , Industry Incentive Tryps,By Rail Cruises, Gastronomic Trips, Trips of Product Presentation and Charter Cruises to Rail Enthusiasts.

One of the thoughts was to made a packet: In 2002 will be opened to tourism the Parador Nacional of Monforte de Lemos situated in a XVII th Century Monastery and at the side of the moyen aged fortress of the Lemos County.There are a beautiful rail line along the Sil river called Ribera Sacra that has a Mediterranean typical climate with orange trees, olive trees and a plasent wine called Amandi wine that the romans take away from here to Rome in roman anphoras as you can see on British Museum. This climate is only effective at the sides of the river in a 400 stripe. The train will go to the San Esteban de Ribas de Sil Station and from where the passengers wil go to San Esteban Monastery a Romanic Monastery S XIIth from the Station ond on a Telepheric cabin,to visit several Romanic Monasteries and to visit the Sil Cannions on a Catamaran Ship. This is out thought,but charter trips only for rail enthusiasts in order to going on train only is perfectly possible. Unfortunately we have not old lines for freight trains,and we must adjust our trips to RENFE circulation timetables."

Here are a couple of shots of their wonderfully restored DL500 1812.

No - even an Alco doesn't smoke this bad. Their steam locomotive is making all the smoke in this view...

Ever wondered what it is like to be in the cab of a DL500? Well - this coach is full of video stuff to show you just what the engineer is seeing. There are cameras on the Alco and steamer and let the passengers see a great view of the line.

Thanks to Carmelo Parrado for all the info and shots!

Last Update 23 Feb 02