Myanmar - Railcar & Steam Pacific on Passenger. December 2018
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- čas přidán 7. 01. 2019
- Myanmar has an extensive metre gauge railway network, these days, entirely diesel operated. However, the railway has kept a large stock of steam locomotives, although only a handful are steamable.
The short branch line from Pyuntaza to Ma Dauk is operated by a single unit Japanese built railcar. In between this regular passenger service, we took over the line to recreate days gone by. We chartered the only steamable Pacific locomotive, YC629, and a train of passenger coaches with a couple of open freight wagons. Our "blast from the past" also recreated what used to be a regular occurrence on this line, a brief stop to collect terracotta bowls from the local pottery. When this was a frequent event, the train was never timetabled to make this stop and the loading had to be done at top speed. We recreated this scene beautifully, as you will see.
The Pacific locomotive, sadly, was not in best condition and, during our charter, struggled to drag itself along the line, let alone its train of passenger coaches. However, the branch offers some spectacular photographic opportunities which we took advantage of.
Recorded in December 2018.
Steam locomotive is very high on maintenance. Pure mechanical beauty but it's days of glory are long gone. Even in UK it's mostly volunteers who maintain the steam locomotives there.
Steam power is an important piece of our industrial heritage and we should keep the last few examples for generations to appreciate ...... Andy
@@AndyDandanFisherSteam rightly said..... romance of the steam locomotives is pure bliss....
The scenery is gorgeous!👍🙏🏼🚂🚂🚂
It certainly is photogenic. The country away from the camera is, sadly, becoming a landfill site. There's little effort from the authorities to clear away people's rubbish, so there are piles of plastic waste building up everywhere. Very sad. Andy
Nice
မင်္ဂလာပါ
Hi.
Nice scenery
Fastforwarding to 2020, does 629 still operate?
Myanmar Railways don't operate any steam locos. The ones featured in my videos were only steamed in exchange for a payment. 629, itself, was barely running in this video. It struggled to pull itself along the track! I think it's fairly certain that it'll not be seen running again ....... Andy
Can you ask if they could give the engines to some railroad museums in Europe
I don't think they'd do that but, in any case, they're metre gauge and can't be run in many places in Europe. There's a small matter of shipping and restoration too. Getting these locos steaming in Myanmar would be a lot cheaper than doing it in Europe!
Andy
Not only That but then you would have to spend quite a bit to upgrade some track to run them on!!!
@@frankdavidsonjr9050 Absolutely ! Andy
Why would they want to give their steam locomotives to Europeans? Running steam locomotives are a source of tourist dollars for the host country!