Great 3 days at Pithiviers

I've wanted to visit the Pithiviers tramway for some time. They have some very tempting engines in their operating fleet.
I was very keen to film them working. The weekend of 23rd 24th June was shown on their website as the 120th anniversary
of the Pithiviers-Toury Tramway, but they didn't say what was happening or what was running.

I went on Friday 22nd because this was shown as a diesel day, and they have 2 I wanted to film. It turned out that No 10
an 0-6-2T Decauville worked two round trips for schoolchildren, but T11 the Gmeinder HF130 0-6-0 diesel did a full line trip
with a works train. I was lent a bike to chase this train to the Bellebat terminous to video the shunting!

Saturday was even better. The 2 passenger engines were No5 an 0-6-0T Blanc-Misseron and No12 a massive (for 2' gauge)
0-8-0T Franco-Belge. The driver proudly told me his engine weighed 23 tonnes. The passenger service was half- hourly from
14-00 until 17-45 trains crossing at the mid-way loop. Their tram (autorail) AT1 also performed a round trip and gave rides
on the Bellebat inner loop. To my delight both dieselswere working, mostly shunting. T15 is a Gmeinder 2 axle 8 tonne shunter.

Sunday was more of the same with No 10 and No5 being the passenger locos.

So all 3 operational steam engines were used. No9 a very fine 2-6-0T La Meuse was under repair and there were many other
engines scattered about the depot and museum.

Keith