1504 in Liège Kinkempois Yard with the 'Big Goodbye' railtour. 19/05/2001.
A memorable tour for the catalogue of problems that beset it on the day. The Mercia Charters 'Big Goodbye' is seen in no.4 siding during a loco change and photo stop in Liège Kinkempois Yard. The tour had arrived over two hours late so the branch to Flémalle Espérance was omitted from the trip to recover time as the driver of the final leg back to Bruxelles had refused to make excessive overtime.
The railtour was billed as a farewell to the aging SNCB class 15's. They were a small class of only 5 locomotives built in 1962 to work international TEE (Trans Europe Express) services from Belgium into the Netherlands and France and to permit this they were tri-voltage machines running on 1500v/3000v DC and 25kv AC. By 1988 they had been banned into the Netherlands so their workload tended to be Inter-City and Euro City trains running from Belgium into France. As a small class they were largely made obsolete by the arrival of international TGV services like Thalys and TGV Nord, the final death knell being the new class 13's locomotives built from 1997 onward.
1504 in Liège Kinkempois Yard with the 'Big Goodbye' railtour. 19/05/2001.
A memorable tour for the catalogue of problems that beset it on the day. The Mercia Charters 'Big Goodbye' is seen in no.4 siding during a loco change and photo stop in Liège Kinkempois Yard. The tour had arrived over two hours late so the branch to Flémalle Espérance was omitted from the trip to recover time as the driver of the final leg back to Bruxelles had refused to make excessive overtime.
The railtour was billed as a farewell to the aging SNCB class 15's. They were a small class of only 5 locomotives built in 1962 to work international TEE (Trans Europe Express) services from Belgium into the Netherlands and France and to permit this they were tri-voltage machines running on 1500v/3000v DC and 25kv AC. By 1988 they had been banned into the Netherlands so their workload tended to be Inter-City and Euro City trains running from Belgium into France. As a small class they were largely made obsolete by the arrival of international TGV services like Thalys and TGV Nord, the final death knell being the new class 13's locomotives built from 1997 onward.