ÖSlJ, Mariefred, Sweden

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Östra_Södermanlands_Järnväg
http://www.oslj.nu/
The prime steam locomotive news for our little railway during 2017, was that we finally after 6 months work, in December could sign a new agreement with the Swedish National Railway Museum for a renewal of the loan of the world’s only surviving original Decauville type 8 Mallet; Kosta Lessebo Jernväg No. 2, Lessebo. We have had this locomotive since 2003 and the new agreement will let us have it for another 25 years and thereafter with 10 years termination notice.

This long time horizon will let us plan the investments needed to get this unique locomotive in good order. So far we have only been able to use it to a very limited extent. We have examined the boiler and it is basically sound although parts of it are original from 1891. Currently the loco is out of service waiting for a new set of tubes. Further, the running gear and machinery is quite run down, thus a large amount of work is needed to get it into shape.

None of these Decauville Mallets were actually built by Decauville. Most of them were built by Tubize in Belgium, some with Tubize’s own plates attached. Four were built under licence in Sweden and Lessebo was built in 1891 by Munktells in Eskilstuna, nowadays Volvo Construction Equipment. There is a good reason why this is the only surviving loco of the type, the design is a bit old-fashioned and very “French”. Not robust or service friendly.

Second news for another unique locomotive was that we got No. 10 Avesta / Hunneberg back in service. This is to the best of our knowledge, the only surviving of the once numerous small Orenstein & Koppel, 20 hp, six-coupler. This type was specifically designed for long forest railway built with very light rails of only 7 kg/m (15 lb/yd). The loco has undergone boiler repair, including new tubes, smokebox etc. Chimeny, boiler saddle and handbrake had been replaced by the previous owner with ugly welded designs. We have now been able to replace them with original O&K cast iron pieces of the correct types. The loco has been out of service since 2003 and was now reintroduced last September. The loco performed excellently, but needs replenishing of the limited water supplies on the 23 km roundtrip of our line. It is too small for our regular service, but is a very nice supplement on our steam galas.

Recently we got our workshop and PW blog up and running again. It was lost during the renewal of our home page. There you may find lots of pictures, but text only in Swedish. Please feel free to ask if you want to know more about any of the jobs.
http://museijarnvagenimariefred.se

Coming May we will start our sixtieth traffic season, when we started in 1959 we were one of the first amateur operated railways (at least outside Wales).

 

That's a lovely line you've got there and one to be very proud of. I'm guessing your crews need good knees to oil round some of that little loco!

Have to say, the website is not only attractive and very well laid out, but fantastically responsive too. The switch to English was instantaneous on my Android .... which makes a pleasant change. (sorry, but my knowledge of all the Scandanavian languages is nil)

 

Thank you for kind comments.
The English version of our website was launched only two days ago, I will forward your appreciation to the guys responsible for the job.
... and yes, we have slightly elevated tracks in the loco running shed to facilitate the oiling around.

 

Some updates from the last month progress in the work shop, now with summaries in English:
http://museijarnvagenimariefred.se/category/oslj/

 

Thanks for the info. I visited Mariefred in 2015 and my photos may be of interest:

https://andrewstransport.smugmug.com/Other-2/Ostra-Sodermansland-Railway-2015/

Cheers

Andrew Naylor

 

Thanks for nice pictures, all those steam ships in and around Stockholm are rather unique and well worth seeing.
Just checked the records, I was the driver of No. 4, K.M. Nelsson that day (best loco on the roster).
I am standing with my fireman next to the loco in pic. No. 31.

If you visit us, please feel free to ask if you can have a guided tour in the workshop etc. If we have someone available we try to arrange it.

 

It has been a long, hot and dry summer in Sweden so far. Almost no rain and long periods of 30+ degrees.
Most preserved railways in Sweden have not been able to run much steam service, some rain the last week has eased up the situation in some places.

Due to a combination of lucky circumstances, we have in Mariefred been able to run steam every traffic day so far. Since 20th July we have had to run diesel on the longer section Läggesta - Taxinge (longer grades and more adjacent woodland), but we keep running steam between Mariefred and Läggesta. Thus most passengers have the opportunity to ride behind steam the whole or part of the journey.


First train of the day leaves Mariefred at 10 a.m. Sunday 22nd July heading for Taxing, 11 km away. Powered by the Russian diesel TU4, ÖSlJ No. 21 Gaivoron.


Second train of the day leaves at 11 .a.m. heading for Läggesta, where it will meet the returning diesel train from Taxinge. ÖSlJ No. 2 Virå will run 6 return trips during the day.


Last year some of our younger members ran one of the trains one day in August, the average age of the driver, firewoman, guard and breakwoman was under 23 years.
This year they take it one step further and on Friday 3rd August a team aged 16-26 will run the whole show on the railway for the whole day, and they are all well qualified to do it.
This is very positive as the general problem for many volunteer organisations is the increasing average age of the members.

 

Some news from Mariefred, updated blog with photos from the End of Season Gala, Track work, Day of young members, Youth camp etc., with summaries in English.
http://museijarnvagenimariefred.se/

Even better photos from our long time supporter Tommi:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rotonen/sets/72157698652554022

 

Thanks for these updates, great stuff from Tommi, must revisit to ride the Taxinge which wasn't open when I rode.

 

Yea, the Taxinge line is kind of spectacular. Running along the south shore of the Gripsholm bay, with good views of Mariefred and the Gripsholm castle.
But, although built as std. gauge, it has has hardly a flat, straight stretch. All curves and grades, the private company that built it in 1895 was very poor.
Great fun to drive and fire.
Could anyone guess from the last picture that this was a std. gauge , electrified line 20 years ago?

 

Long time since I flagged for our workshop blog from ÖSlJ, Mariefred, Sweden, two more winter seasons have passed.
A year ago we finished the full running gear overhaul of our Mallet No. 5, O&K 930. Quite complicated job, but she ran as a sewing machine!
We also started up our first locomotive No 1, O&K 6620 after an almost 30 year standstill.
In this way we could celebrate our 60 year anniversary with 6 locos in steam.

This winter we have concentrated our efforts on the overhaul our superheater 2-6-2 No. 9, a big job. But this time we concentrate our efforts on everything above the running board.
A lot below the running board is instead done on our unique little sixcoupled, 20 hp loco No. 10, O&K 10549.
Se overview our our roster:
https://www.oslj.nu/en-GB/engines-39017076

Also a lot of work on wagons, carriages and motor vehicles.

Right now all of us old-timers have to stay away from Mariefred, leaving plenty of space for the few younger that continue the work in hope of a better future.

Read more:
https://museijarnvagenimariefred.se/

 

Thanks Monkey Magic, after eight years on the forum I finally have got enough likes to go from New Member to just Member.

 

Many thanks for the update. When I went to the home page of the above web-site:

https://www.oslj.nu/en-GB

- I was very surprised to look at the picture and see in the foreground what we call a "double-slip point" - sort of 4-way switch. That is rare enough on main lines, and surely must be extremely rare on 600mm gauge?

 

Very good question, by the way we call them "Englishmen", no offence.
No, they have not been common on 600 mm gauge. There are examples on the continent and overseas, but not to my knowledge previously in Sweden.
The fundamental problem is that the space available for our yard in Mariefred is too short and rather wide. When we were lucky enough to be able to take over the old just closed down std. gauge branch line from Läggesta to Mariefred in 1964, a good cooperation with the town of Mariefred was crucial. The town wanted to build a new street across the end of the yard, we were able to push it a bit away, but still we were not able to have the full length yard.
The standard gauge yard was just 3 tracks wide, our yard today is 17 tracks wide!
In the plan below the incoming line from Läggesta is to the left, the line to the harbour (steam boat pier for the s/s Mariefred running daily from Stockholm every summer since 1903!) is to the lower right. The buildings to the left are bottom to top: old and new workshop, running shed, carriage shed and stores. To complicate things further, the tracks 12-13 and 22-44 we have built on soft marsh ground (10-15 m to solid ground). The S-curve from the main track to track 43 is built with as tight radii as possible, making shunting operation of long rakes of carriages a challenge.
Further problem is that the platform tracks 1 and 3 are long enough only for 6 carriage trains, OK for normal operation but leaves no margin for long trains.
Thus, the only solution we could find for the more model railway like layout was to use the double slip points 2/3 and 4/5 to make everything meet in the centre of the yard. First we used double slip points rebuilt from 891 mm gauge, but they were worn and very difficult to make fully reliable. As you may imagine, their reliability is crucial for the whole operation! To achieve this we had parts for two new double slip points made for us (expensive) and built a third as No. 12/11 from the best parts of the old ones. The points in the incoming direction of the double slip points (2 and 4) are locked with keys interlocked in the signalling frame for the Mariefred home and distant signals, while points Nos. 1 and 11 are fitted with electric locks.
In recent years we have expanded our facilities in Läggesta, relieving some pressure from the cramped situation in Mariefred.


Here you may see what it looks like in reality:
https://www.google.com/maps/@59.2589877,17.2177731,169m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

Many thanks for your most interesting post. I suspected that "double slip" might not translate literally into other languages. It seems that Germany and the Netherlands also saw them as "English":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_switch#Slip_switches

Complex points/switches/turnouts - single & double slips and 3-way points - were commonly used in the past on British main-line railways to save space in station and yard layouts. But they are of course expensive to construct and maintain, so the tendency in recent decades has been to avoid them (and diamond crossings) wherever possible on the national network. Double-slips do survive in the yards of at least 2 heritage lines - Didcot Railway Centre and at Kidderminster on the Severn Valley Railway. I don't know whether we have any on British narrow gauge lines.

 

Italy as well, "Inglese" over there.

 

I always thought that it was single slips that were known in Europe as "English slips", because they were very characteristic of British p/way where a single slip could give a trailing connection to a goods yard without creating a facing connection; by contrast these were unusual on the continent.

(I might be wrong, of course).

Tom

 

In Swedish the formal designation is "English cross over slip", and it can be either single sided or double. But as "double English cross over slip" is rather awkward to say "Englishman" is just much more convenient.

 

The single variant has been very rare in Sweden.
As contrast this is a "German cross over slip point", where the movable parts are outside the diamond. This gives larger radii, and thus allows higher speeds (or steeper angle between the tracks):
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Järnvägsväxel#/media/Fil:2001-07-19.0004.DKW-Baeseler.jpg

It may be recognized from German model railway catalogues. Known as double outside slips in UK.

 

I think that is what in Britain would be called a "Semi outside double slip". (A full outside slip would have all the curved rails outside the diamond, and is topologically essentially a scissors crossover).

There's another variant called a "Barry slip" which is really two points overlapped, in such a way that one of the straight routes no longer exists. There is an example in Ropely loco yard on the Mid Hants:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_07_2017/post-13142-0-66284900-1500995001.jpg (Not my photo)

Tom