Steam locomotives SEK Εα201 - Εα223 ex-PDS BATIGNOLLES, ST. LEONARD 1903/7

[BarbaPanagos]

it's getting even more interesting! I'll make the obvious guess, it had been thrown down there by the retreating German Army in 1944...


...

[christo]

BarbaPanagos, let us hold back the guesses till the completion of the story.

However, two people expressed an interest and two instalments were delivered. It seems that there is no more interest

christo.

[jsimantov]

Hi everyone,

No, I am not the third spirit in Christo's Christmas story...

I'd just like to add here a story that has widely circulated in the railway enthusiasts' circles in Athens since this locomotive was found...

As most of you know, former Larissa shunter Ea204 is now exposed in the Athens Railway Museum, beautifully restored, but with the cylinders missing. Since it can be assumed that no living OSE driver has seen this locomotive in operation, the whereabouts of its cylinders are completely unknown. Now, when the locomotive was found in Katerini, there came a request from the Railway museum to OSE/Thessaloniki to carry the cylinders of the locomotive to Athens, so that they might be fitted to the museum engine.

The reply was a categorical refusal, for some mysterious reason...

O tempora, o mores...

Joseph

[BarbaPanagos]

thanks Joseph, this is an interesting story. It's hard to believe it, though I'm not surprised by such an attitude... old good Greek bureaucracy...

Hey guys, do something, we're stuck at episode #2


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[golfplus]

So where is the rest of the story. Can you tell what you find next?

[christo]

Welcome to the forum golfplus and yes I have the next instalment ready. Here goes:

I took a few steps and tried to think rationally, since my senses were working in overdrive. I noticed that the locomotive was pushed by the hand of God or some earth moving equipment onto the bank, so only three sides were kind of visible and open to photographing. The front, the back and the right hand side. You could see the left hand side but you couldn’t squeeze in there to take a shot of it. Having taken a photo from the right hand side, I then moved to the front and took my third shot.

Photo Balkanmodels: The front side of the locomotive.

christo.

[christo]

Having decided to explore, I put the camera bags down and climbed on the wreck together with Alex. We started removing the earth and began searching for any signs of identification. Unbeknown to me Bill took the camera and began to take pictures.

Photo Balkanmodels: Searching...

Photo Balkanmodels: ...and searching...

Photo Balkanmodels: ...and more serching for signs.

christo.

[christo]

After a while, I found a small object and started repeatedly calling out the famous Greek phrase “eureka”. Bill enquired about the find and as we looked down towards him, I realised he was using one of my cameras. I took the find with me and began to climb down. It was an unopened and unused purple coloured can of SPAM, best quality American corn beef.

Photo Balkanmodels: Climbing down.

christo.

[christo]

I put the Spam can down, I put the Pentax K1000 with the colour film around my neck and with the Zorki in hand, I moved to the back of the loco. I shot one photo but I was not very happy with the angle so I took a second photo from a subtly different angle.

Photo Balkanmodels: The first recognition

Photo Balkanmodels: The second and much clearer recognition

christo.

[BarbaPanagos]

thanks Christo, it's getting more interesting

... with the Zorki in hand ...

I was wondering WTF is that Zorki, I remembered that famous beef can had some other name so I googled it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorki
at my university time, back in the mid 80's, we were using the Zenith TTL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_TTL#zenit_ttl
All those Pentax, Nikon and Olympus SLRs were overtaxed and way more expensive than our pocket money.

but all this gave me some nice idea

...