A model-railway...life size!

Beautiful weather yesterday, so my daughter and I went for a bike ride in the area. On the way, we stopped at the tiny steam train railway station in the village of Lieren. Railway enthusiasts; here is a short report:

The Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij (VSM) is a steam train company operating a tourist train service on the railway line Dieren - Apeldoorn on the Veluwe in the Dutch province of Gelderland.

Steam train rides are popular with tourists and therefore the VSM organizes them every Sunday from the beginning of April until the end of October. In the summer for seven weeks, the steam train runs six days a week, of which three days a week to Dieren, connecting with a salon boat which travels across the IJssel river to the historic Hanseatic city of Zutphen. The steam whistle is a familiar sound in my home town :blush:

The VSM is a volunteer organization founded in 1975. In 1974, a few people from the local tourist trade came up with the idea of establishing a new tourist attraction in the form of a steam train service. The NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen - Dutch Railways) gave permission to run the service on the old freight railway line between Apeldoorn and Dieren.

The railway line Dieren - Apeldoorn is a railway line in the Dutch province of Gelderland, which was built by the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Lokaalspoorweg-Maatschappij Koning Willem III (KNLS, Royal Dutch Local Railroad Company King William III)) and opened on 2 July 188, connecting Dieren and Apeldoorn. The line was initially part of the KNLS line Dieren - Doesburg - Apeldoorn - Zwolle. After passenger transport was discontinued in 1950, the line was only used for freight transport. Among other things there was a branch line in the form of a narrow-gauge railway to the ‘Alba’ sand-lime brick factory near the hamlet of Oosterhuizen. In the meantime, the line has acquired a new function as a tourist railway. In 1975, the Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij (VSM) was founded for that purpose.

In Beekbergen (or rather in the nearby tiny village of Lieren) there is an old railway station which was still in use as a regular railway station until 1950. It is now a museum depot. It also functions as a workshop for regular maintenance of rolling stock such as locomotives. Carriages used for regular tourist rides are stored here. At the station the VSM has an extensive yard with a railway turntable, where locomotives and carriages are now parked, a moving coal crane, a water supply tower, semaphore signals and manually operated level crossings. The architect was K.H. van Brederode.

Most of the steam locomotives come from Germany, from the Deutsche Bundesbahn and Deutsche Reichsbahn. There are also two locomotives from Poland, one from Austria, and an ex-American locomotive NS 2000, a type that had disappeared from the Netherlands, but of which a counterpart was brought from the United States. The VSM also has a large collection of Dutch diesel locomotives from the 1950s.

If anyone is interested in getting more specific and technical information, check out this website:

Veluwsche Stoomtrein Maatschappij

When my daughter and I arrived at the tiny railway station, the steam train was just leaving again. A nice nostalgic spot! :steam_locomotive: :steam_locomotive: :steam_locomotive:

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Hello @user_not_found , yes locomotives always have a special nostalgic touch. They are a real base for the big transformation in the last century.

I’m not very technic focused, but in the moment a old locomtive is appearing, it is a special feeling and athomsphere. Thank you for sharing!

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Hello @TorM !

My 83-year-old mom tends to be a bit scared of everything ‘digital’. I always jokingly tell her that about 150 years ago, people were also terrified when they saw the first train pass. And eventually they got used to it. But when you see these huge, black, steaming, noisy monsters, I can imagine how small people must have felt then! Nostalgic, but also quite impressive!

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Hello @user_not_found welcome to the connect thanks for sharing this post with us.

All the pictures are good and the trains look just like new :blush:

Nice post @user_not_found ! And I’m also discovering and enjoying your posts on the Netherlands! :blush:

The Manchester Local Guides had a trip to railway station and we boarded a steam train too! You can check out the recap post here. And I know that @PaulPavlinovich is into his trains as well! I wonder if his volunteer work is similar to what goes on at VSM.

And I hope you don’t mind if I offer a few suggestions/comments on your posts:

  • add Google Map links to the places you’re talking about. It helps the reader to quickly find out where it is.
  • add captions to your photos. One reason is to provide accessibility to those with vision impairments when they use screen readers. Another reason is that not all photos are self-explanatory and it helps to provide further context to what we’re looking at.
  • the first image in your post, by default, becomes the ‘cover photo’ i.e. the thumbnail that folks see on the main page or on the category pages. So choose images that are captivating and enticing to catch your readers attention. You could add simple texts like a title. Canva is a great free online tool to do fancy stuff like that. A suitable dimension to use is 1280 x 720 px (the YouTube Thumbnail template matches this).
  • this one is a personal preference of mine but I like to break up a huge chunk of text by adding photos every couple of paragraphs or so. That way, it’s not too ‘intimidating’.
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I am a volunteer on a steam railway @user_not_found they’re fascinating creatures each with their own personality and emotions.

Thanks for sharing about these. The big German locomotives are quite impressive. Interesting to see one of them was from Dresden - I have that route on a Train Simulator game I play you can see some of them at https://www.youtube.com/c/trainsimulatordriver

Paul

Great train museum, @user_not_found . Read the tittle I thought it was made from lego. Lol.

Really nice to see the train station that still looks in great condition, with huge water pipe(?) and turntable. I always curious how heavy it is to turn the train.

Thanks for sharing. Really nice