Nene Valley Railway

I hope you enjoy it - it's a bit odd, stepping down below platform level when you enter/exit it, but I usually find I can step across the dip between the train's interior and the platform.

 

Well, that looks fantastic.

Swedish themed gala weekend, anyone? Maybe invite these guys: https://volvoenthusiastsclub.co.uk/? Aaaaaand these guys: https://saabclub.co.uk/?

 

There's this:

https://nvr.org.uk/product.php/605/a-bank-holiday-weekend-on-the-continent

 

Looking at that, what’s the Italian connection?

 

Wagons Lits restaurant car 2975. Built in Italy, though spent most of her life on internal Swiss services

Built in Italy

 

Thanks. I didn’t realise she’d been built in Italy.

 

I enjoyed the Swedish railcar enough that I did three round trips from Peterborough instead of the planned two - once in the trailer, twice in the motor coach. Got the front seat for quite a few of the trips. I like the way you walk through the cab to get to the passenger seating.
One of the NVR employees told me there was no toilet on the train, but the toilet in the motor coach was actually available and a number of people used it, although one woman took their child in, presumably saw that the toilet was basically a hole straight through to the track and promptly came back out again with a worried sounding "We'll wait until the station!".

 

Yep, that surprised me the first time I saw it! Glad you enjoyed your rides on Helga and Hagar - I'd sooner see those than that damned P*c*r any day of the week.

 

Glad you enjoyed your trips!

The toilet is basically recommended for emergencies only because of its basicness...

I imagine it would have been draughty at 60mph in a Swedish winter!

 

The first time I took my missus on an railtour in Italy, the toilets were very similar. She was very concerned about a ballast strike when she sat down!

 

ISTR an incident on a UK vintage line some years back where a woman and her child gained access to a toilet that was supposed to have been locked 'out if use' (I forget why), and because of the fault (again, I forget the details) the child almost fell through, but luckily the woman was alert and caught the child. So, her concern here was not wholly unreasonable!

 

It was this, on the South Devon Railway in 2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...gh-a-missing-toilet-floor-south-devon-railway

 

Yes, that's the one. Thanks for finding it for me; I wouldn't have known where to start looking!

 

I'm just amazed I remembered it myself!

 

That was the actual floor missing on the SDR though. Not even the very smallest child could fit down the toilet hole on the NVR - it's perfectly safe! It would just be a little bit alarming if you haven't seen one like that before. Plus I suppose there's a risk of someone dropping their phone down it while taking a picture!

 

I know there are some pretty niche interests out there, but that’s a new one on me!

Tom

 

It is pretty unique though. Nearly all the other heritage stock I've travelled in has both a flush mechanism and an indirect pipe to the track, which means it just looks like a normal toilet, with no view of the trackbed whizzing by below unlike this example.

I seem to remember travelling on exactly one other heritage train in the UK in the last few years with this ultra basic setup but I can't remember where it was.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a specific toilet obsession! The ashtrays, the Swedish notices, the entrance via the cab in the trailer, and all the other quirky little details appeal as well.

 

For a good few years the Middleton Railway had a Norwegian 4wh coach which had a similar open toilet. I think it was one of three that ended up in the UK. From memory one of the other two was on the GCR. Not sure about the third.