Hellas-Express

One of the most beautiful wagons...

20 escort vehicles, initially built as refrigerator vans by SOCIETA PER AZIONI ANDRIANO CECCHETTI CIVITANOVA MARCHE in Italy, 1951 as part of the 25-wagon series, Ψπτ 18651-18675 (later Ψ1 11 73 804 3 000-024).

Due to the later purchase of the newer, German Ψ1 and Ψ2s, the 20 out of 25 refrigerators were converted to escort vehicles at Ε.Θ. with numbers 42 73 940 0 500-519.




940 0 506-5 at Inoi, photo by M. Kougioumtzoglou




940 0 500, 501 and 518 at Lachanokipi

Good Morning Jason, I might have known you'd beat me to it on these fascinating wagons. I have some good photos of one in its original form which I will post when I've sorted them out - they are huge bitmap files so I'll have to convert them. Christo can decide whether to start a freight wagon thread for them or leave them here. I also have photos of a brake van but the number is different from your sequence - again, I'll need to convert the files before posting, I may not have time for it today. By the way, the builder's name is Adriano Cecchetti and not Andriano. Interestingly, the wagons were built to British loading gauge for use on train ferries and are known to have run in England although no photos are known except for one being loaded on to a train ferry at Zeebrugge in Belgium.

Here's a bad photo of one I took from a passing train near Strimon in 2000, note the ferry anchor marking and the British pattern lever handbrake, better pix to follow.



Regards, Tim.

I would leave the refrigerator info for a future topic about their refrigerator state but anyway...

Initially, as we said, 25.

20 converted to escort wagons 940 0 500-519
4 converted to planked-body vans, 132 7 000-003
1 remained in its initial form, the one at Strimonas, which is still there, 11 73 804 3 010-0 (not 101-0, Tim ), ex- Ψπτ 18651.

Tim, you are right about Adriano

Hey Tim, don't worry, he has beaten me too it seems we all like these really good looking wagons
I'll post Frankie's photos here again and we'll erase the other topic.


March 1994, A459 and an Uks-v escort at Stathmos Larisis, on the way to Agios Ioannis photos:Fr. Elliott

101-0 - too early in the morning, brain not working! Anyway, here are a couple of shots of the brake van I mentioned, both taken by George Handrinos of SFS and his copyright. I'll start a thread on them as fridge vans tomorrow, I also have pictures of another type of old fridge van as well.



I like these wagons very much and there are modelling possibilities using the plastic kits made by TTM in Italy.

Wow!!! I didn't knew about that... anyway that, of course is a maintenance / auxiliary vehicle number, of the numbering sequence 100 7 000-... (I knew about 001 but i dont know, maybe we had 002 too and so on)...

Glad I found something new for you!