Winter steam in the Tyrol
Zillertalbahn
© Geoff’s Rail Diaries 2022
Geoff’s Rail Diaries
19 February 1970
"Trans-Europe Express" set (I think this may have
been a gas-turbine powered train - anyone out
there able to confirm this?). Transferring my
attentions to the narrow gauge, a diesel loco and
some standard gauge wagons on narrow gauge
transporters caught my attention, before a
familiar steamy aroma took me to the running
shed - where a rather nice (if somewhat foreign-
looking - it was my first non-British steam loco!)
0-6-2T was clearly being prepared for service. 18
months after the end of steam on British Rail, I
had expected the passenger service to be diesel
powered - but no, I was really in luck. No 2, built
in 1900, would haul me up to Mayrhofen, some 25 miles away, and
back. Wonderful!
I returned that evening to my schoolmates feeling very pleased
with myself. And I have a sneaking suspicion that, had I made a
similar request today (as a 17-year-old schoolboy) it would have
been turned down without hesitation or question...
I managed to persuade my parents that I needed to go on the
school skiing trip to Austria, planned for the half-term week
in February 1970 - and, on studying the maps, discovered we
weren't very far from Jenbach, in the Inn valley, home of the
760mm gauge Zillertalbahn. So once we were installed in our
hostel in Niederau, I began the comparatively simple task of
persuading our teachers to let me disappear for a day...
I joined the post bus for the short run down to Wörgl, and
puchased a rückfahrkarte to Mayrhofen, travelling on the main line
personenzug to Jenbach...
..where I had a little time to spend before departure of the narrow
gauge service. I began by snapping a loco-hauled passenger and a
