Veluwse Spoorwegmaatschappij

In case you like vintage trains and are visiting the Netherlands, you should go to Apeldoorn and take the steam train to the depot of Beekbergen. This is the home of the VSM. The VSM has a fleet of running vintage steam engines and diesels and runs regular with steam trains between Apeldoorn, Eerbeek and sometimes even Dieren. The amount of engines, passenger cars and rolling stock is above average for a heritage branch line. Here are some pictures to share the experience. These pictures were taken on a humid overcast day early June 2012.

Steam engine approaches slowly to couple

VSM is about old running steamers and diesels

All signals on red

Trail of steam vapourises in the humid air as seen from the balcony of the rear passenger car.

Musée du rail in Dinan

In the old town of Dinan (Northern Brittany) there is a nice rail museum with many old toy trains. Since, many of you will probably not be able to visit this place, I took some pictures. The museum itself is located in the station of Dinan, in what used to be the luggage department.

Entrance of Musee du rail

The hosts are friendly and offered visitors from abroad an English language leaflet which explains the highlights of the collection, which is quiet wide; European railway men caps, old posters, model trains, the interior of a switch tower, metal warning signs, etc. But the best for me are the many old toy trains of JEP, Hornby and others pre-war European scale zero, Hi rail toy train brands. Almost at the end of the circular route there is large layout of JEP and Hornby trains and that is the kind of place where I can spend hours.... This museum is a true JEP hot spot.
The museum shop was a nice surprise; it is a second hand toy train shop and in case you are looking for old French toy trains, spare parts, books, scenery stuff, there is a good chance of finding something useful there.

First exhibition room with rail road caps etc.

Large HO layout with many trains running simultaneously.

In case of switching please keep eye contact with the switch controllers

Either you can't read French or you are deaf, when you are on the middle of the crossing when the train approaches

Interior of the switch tower

Yep it is JEP!

As usual the best items are behind glass

Plenty of shelves with toy train treasures

The JEP layout in the final exhibition room

Beauty of an JEP engine on the layout

So, in case you are in Western France and want to see vintage toy trains, you will have to go to Dinan.

Back on old tracks

In the Museé du Rail in Dinan I found some old 042 radius pre-war tracks of Hornby-Meccano, that felt correctly compatible with Lionel pre-war high rails. And yes they are. I just needed to clean and place the pins different. These Hornby-Meccano rails have two pins upward and one downwards. So, I removed most of the pins, re-inserted them in the right direction and made them full compatible with my old Lionel tracks. The old Lionel tracks had been stored in a box since 1994, so it was time for a good thorough wash. That took me half a day. Afterwards all the tracks handled nicely. I laid a small oval and measured the resistance between the inner rail and the outer rail, it was more than 1800 kOhm, so although not perfect, still sufficient. These tracks date from the 30's and they have that special tin-plate feeling. The sound of a train passing on these tracks, is just fine for me.

Pre-war Lionel and Hornby Meccano rails do couple nicely

These old tracks run fine