Società Veneta Ferrovie.

I could have mentioned already that we often use the nickname Piovarolo for Primolano, and Piovarolo cames from this movie and is a name that suggest that the place is very rainy. Indeed there is a reason why Primolano is so green



and is because of the abundant rainfalls. But there's a place where this fluorishing vegetation is not welcomed at all since it spells damage, and that place is our railyard. Sadly we are not enought to battle Mother Nature alone and so we call professional to remove unwanted plants:



(the author of this picture is Sentinella, he is one of the few members that live nearby)



(again a picture by Sentinel, this time cleaning the "military loading platform" of the station)



(here the loader clears the part of the yard that faces the village)


(this wood could cook something goood in the future, who knows)

 

More works today in Primolano. The last seats have been installed in one of the Corbellini coach saloon, that is finally complete. Furthermore works continued on the water crane. This time the swivelling part has been disassembled (not an easy job) and restored, and that keeps one step closer to install it

All the seats are available now ! This is the first picture of the second saloon complete of al the seats.


Gentle means required!


Kindness is the way


Piece ready for overhauling


Big Luke uses all his strenght to clean the piece with a metal brush.

 

More picture for the work in the Corbellini coach

 

What did happen since the last post? Well, first of all, I met a new SVF member, Patrizio (according to hist Italia documents) but feel free to call him Patrick since he's from Glasgow. He has a fine youtube channel with several videos, and this post will have some link to his videos. First of all..



... yes, we'll celebrate Rail 200 in September! I think it's appropriate with our society goals.

Then, at the beginnin of May whe had a "Cabina A" Open Day. "Cabina A" is evolving: the restoration of the ground floor is restored and already in use also during the open days.



Furthermore, Nicolò directed the works than connected some of our preserved signals, exposed in the signal box itself, to the signal levers, so that visitors that operate one of these levers have not only the feedback on the synoptic display, but also from the change of the aspect of a real signal.



And finally the a video from Patrizio giving you an impression of what it is like to visit "Cabina A":



We now can have a full set of "orders from the station master to the signal box" (they appear in the left side of the panel above), for each Station Master order, a light is turnr on and a shord warning signal is played. At this time it is a computer program that replicates the Station Master switchboard, but we already have the real one, it needs to be restored. Our "signaling gang" (Nicolò, Filippo, Angelo and others) is focused now on the signal box and on some other precious item (surprise, stay tuned).



We had our yearly meeting in Primolano, a day when Primolano Depot is our playground and also the members not actively involved in works have a chance to fully enjoy the train with our relatives. The water crane is not up but a surprise awaited all the members:



The first of the switch signals has been installed. The signal turns to show how the point is set, in this case it is in reverse. If you zoom in the picture and go to read the markings on the weight, they say "Ansaldo S.A." amd "1940 XVIII", Italy was going to enter WW II or just entered it.

Further signals will be installed as soon as we source the standing rods and the L cranks. Rumors are that we could go "shopping" following Blake Edwads teaching in the "Operation Pettycoat" teachings... But in a less legally endangering way...

But since "Safety First" are not two empty words we increased the visibility of the stop brackets at the end of the shed tracks.



The member party gave chance to take pictures of the 880 on a track she (IMHO) should have nevev visited before, for shure it was a new location for pictture of our engine.



OK, and now some links to Patrizio's youtube channel.

First, a trip within our beloved 2 axles coach during the members day, where you can meet some of the members:




And this is Patrizio meeting 880.001 for the first time:




And finally Patrizio interviewing some random chap (yep, it's me) about our turntable. I apologize for my English (I should do it more often).



And finally an exceptional pictyure, the last active E636 engine passing in Padua:

 

Another video from a visitor

 

(Please note, this post should have been posted on Augurs 2nd, 2025, but got delayed)

Hello! Long forced pause for me, my pc required hardware mantainance, mantainance worth a DCC sound fitted continental H0 steam engine, but it was worth doing.

So back with the news from the Boot in the Sea. Summer here, hot until recently, so hot that during July Open Door in Primolano we did not start out 880.001 due fire safety concerns. So sogliola hauled the short run on our rails, but the trip was short buy passengers where nevertheless enthusiasts.

First of all, a mandatory memorial:



45 years ago today, at 10:25AM (the hour displayed by the clock) in Bologna Central station, a bomb placed by neo-fascist terrorist in a way to maximize explosion effects killed 85 person and injiuried or mutilated 200 other persons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre). That day bus 4030, running on route 37, acted as makeshift emergency room and casualties evaquation vehicle:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Strage_di_bologna_soccorsi_15.jpg.

That bus is preserved with the headboard still showing the 37 route number. And if you are wondering, our L914 Sogliola wears the very same livery of that honourable bus.

Bach to train preservation!

Here is (another?) cab ride on our 1945 pedal draisine from our member Patrick (featuring Marco cleaning some weed):



Then a picture from the end of the day, whith all shunting performed, depicts our day hero engine, L914, and the newly installed water crane, awaitng the final paintwork (© Giovanni Andretta/SVF, 2025):



Which colour our water crane will be? Most probably cast-iron gray, but some elter members (including that random fat blocke with LSWR green museum T-shirt) would be happy to have it painted according to the Venice Compartment tradition:



The white and blue come from the traditional colours of mooring piles in Venice.

And this is another picture for our member Giovanni, showing both engine 880.001 inactive and the Sogliola L914 awaiting to pull the Primolano Shed Limited



Being inactive, the 880.001 cab was open to visitors, and for many of them it was the first time on a steam locomotive cab (picture above © Giovanni Andretta/SVF, 2025).

What follows is a video from Luca "Sentinella", from the Saturday before the open day. Our Sogliola in an ununsual perspective!



And another picture of the water crane, with her only customer for now:

 

Nice to see progress and to have met you at Verona quite a while ago!
All looking very nice, we also get weeds over our way as well!

 

My fault not mentioning our meeting! It was a real and pleasing surprise!

 

Ongoing works!

Our volunteers continue the works to improve our premises. Not all works have a great appeal to railway enthusiasts. Do you get excited when someone else's wall gets a paint job? That really improves the experience of our Cabina A visitors, but may be boring here. But there are some works worth watching. First, a new device has ben set up in Cabina A signal box, it is a master clock and has connected an event logger. The event logger will record the movement of the levers on our frame.



And now we have a ground signal and a "grounded" (paced on the ground) signal. These two singals are controlled by the appropriate lever on the frame and give a sort of feedback useful bot to raise the interest of our visitors and explain them the signal aspects.



Our volunteers did some nice work in Primolano, too. The water crane got a first paint job. It still lacks the lantern, but it's cool!





and with a better view of DE424



Furthermore, some of the itmes stacked near the turntable and the entrance are now placed in a tidier way

 

September activities. September started with two open days (Primolano Museum and Cabina A) one week apart.

Furthermore the saturday before the Museum Open day we had a special Open Day for a group of members ofthe Fantasilandialab association, all dressed in roarin '20es attire. They spent the day taking photos and enjoyng our train. Below is the final picture of the group and is copyrighted by Marco Bruzzo/SVF. Marco is one of the founding members of SVF and was there when we became 880.001 custodians.


Then it's hard to find something new to show. We had signs recalling both in Primolano and Cabina A sporting the Rail 200 logo, and we duly explained that about 200 years ago something happened that was fundamental for the birth of the world railway system. But there's something new, something worth mentioning. As you know, we offer short trips (some hundred meters) on our train. It' is a little trip but visitors like it a lot. But that's not a merry-go-round, it's a train on a very small railway, and railways have procedures and paperwork. This is the form for the "movement of persons", the trips with people aboard:



The M40 module
keeps track of all the operations performed for a safe transport of the passengers.

For each train this procedure is followed, and for each the time of the operationm is recorded:

- the pedestrian level crossing on the station building side (far from the shed) is closed, no visitor can cross the rails
- the OK from the visitors reception (all passenger wishing to do the trip are aboard - the reception is also the booking office)
- the OK from the engine driver (the engione is ok)
- the OK from the guard (all persons guarding the train door report the proper closing of his door)
- the OK from the shunting operator (the points are correctly set, the operator will guide the train driver through all the trip, technically it is a shunting with passengers on board)
- the all the checks required by the rules are done (the checks are those in Article 17/2 of FS ISD )
- the pedestrian level crossing near the shed is closed (all visitors are requested to move away from the tracks)
- the starting signal is given
- the train departs
- the pedestrian level crossing near the shed is reopened

when the train arrives at the end of the track, it stops and these steps are performed and the execution time recorded:

- the pedestrian level crossing near the shed is closed (as before all visitors are requested to move away from the tracks)
- the all the checks required by the rules are done
- the station master transmits - using a walkie talkie - the OK for the return movement
- the train starts to move backward toward the shed
- Arrival
- end of passengers disembarking
- reopening of the level crossing on the station building side

And this is Luca helping Nicolò in his station master role, keeping track of each event (Nicolò is a real station master, his service station is Portoguraro - Caorle):


I referenced a booking office. We do not charge the visitors for the visit, anyway we recall tat any donation will help . And every visitor is issued a veritable Edmonson ticket - it is a bit more harder than the original ones. It works as a small souvenir and help us to keep a count of the visitors. It may seem strange, but everybody is happy after the short trip.

We have an old electric stamping machine to stamp the date on each ticket:

Closed



with the cover removed



We have separate tickets for the Primolano Museum, the Cabina A and the "Driver for a day" railway modelling events.

Amd below an enthusiast young visitor of Cabina A wearing a station master hat and wielding the green paddle once used to signal the "clear for starting" to the train engineer.



Also visitors of Cabina A leave satisfied of the visit. At this time our set-up is that:

- a softeare simulates B signal box, whose intervention was required for all the train entering Padua station from one of the lines on the west side
- another software program simulates the station master switchboard
- a device simulates the train movements.

This enables an experience that is the more realistic possible, in the future the switchboard simulator will be replaced by the real switchboard.