The International Steam Pages


Railway museums at Grangesberg and Gavle, Sweden, 2012

Chris Yapp's short report covers visits on 17th July 2012 to the railway museum at Grangesberg and Sweden’s National Railway Museum and its Reserve Collection at Gavle. At the end I have appended some extra pictures from Dmitry Kolesnikov who visited earlier in 2012.

Grangesberg Railway Museum

The railway museum at Grangesberg is housed in the semi-roundhouse of the old steam depot that served the Grangesberg-Oxelosunds Railway. It is part of a much larger group of museums and places of interest operated under the umbrella title ‘Ekomuseum Bergslagen’. The web page for the museum can be found on the following link - http://www.ekomuseum.se.(link dead by April 2015).

The most interesting exhibits are kept inside the roundhouse – fortunately, the doors are open during museum opening hours. 71, 72 and 73, the three NOHAB 2-8-0 steam turbine locomotives form the centrepiece of the display and are exhibited on adjacent roads in the roundhouse. 71 and 72 had their front coupling rods removed and there was a pile of tubes next to No.73. The oldest loco on display is No. 8 Sharp Stewart 2597 0-4-2 which shares a track with a Volvo car converted to run on flanged wheels. The other two steam locomotives on display in the roundhouse are 95 ‘Gb’ class 0-8-0 and 49 ‘M3’ NOHAB 0-8-0.

The turntable roads beside the shed contained 1281 ‘B’ 4-6-0, 1180 2-8-0 under sheets awaiting restoration, an electric locomotive and several diesel shunters. The yard next to the museum was crammed with rolling stock awaiting restoration or rusting away. 1103 ‘E’ 0-8-0 and 61 0-8-0 (under sheets) were found amongst the lines of coaches, railcars, multiple units, coaches and wagons.

The museum does not seem to attract many visitors judging by the entries in the visitors’ book and the absence of other visitors until just before my departure for Gavle.

National Railway Museum and Reserve Collection, Gavle http://www.trafikverket.se/Museer/Sveriges-Jarnvagsmuseum-Gavle/.(link dead by 25th October 2016) (Alas it wouldn't win many prizes. RD)

(A list of stock in the museum is available here - http://jvmv.se/arkiv/jvm_forteckning/jvm_forteckning_2005_03.html)

The main part of the museum is contained in a much modified and extended part roundhouse with access retained to the turntable. The well-presented display is organised on a chronological basis with the visitor seeing the oldest rolling stock first and the most modern at the far end of the exhibition. Space is limited making photography difficult. The following steam locomotives were on display together with several coaches and two electric locos:

Novelty 0-4-0. 
Fryckstad 0-6-0. 
No. 3 Prins August Beyer Peacock 2-4-0. 
Thor Beyer Peacock 0-4-2ST. 
75 Gota Beyer Peacock 2-2-2. 
198 ‘Breda’ Borsig 3427 2-4-0. 
1001 Motala 378 4-4-2 (sectioned). 
1200 ‘F’ NOHAB 1020 4-6-2.

There were two locomotives on display on a track next to the main museum building - 900 ‘E’ class 0-8-0 and 1135 ‘B’ class 4-6-0. The leaflet given out with the admission ticket indicated that steam had been working for four days about a week earlier – maybe one of these two locos. The second roundhouse was locked and totally inaccessible; so that there was no way of knowing what was inside.

This summer the Museum’s Reserve Collection was open to the public from mid-June to mid-August. The two sites were linked using vintage railcar 1109 to provide an hourly service in each direction calling at Gavle Central Station.

The stock at the Reserve Collection included nine steam locos, all in good condition – five in the part of the building open to the public and four could be seen in the non-accessible workshop area of the building. They were:

In the public area:

No. 27 Beyer Peacock 0-6-0
93 ‘Jernsida’ Beyer Peacock 0-6-0
347 ‘D’ Motala 82 2-4-0
390 ‘KD’ NOHAB 300 0-6-0.
404 ‘Cc’ NOHAB 323 4-4-0.

In the workshop and only visible through fencing and barriers:

864 ‘TB’ 4-6-0.
1229 ‘W’ NOHAB 1041 0-4-4T.
1923 NOHAB 2224 2-6-4T.
An unidentifiable 0-4-0T

The building is fairly gloomy and the stock is stored on a number of parallel tracks with the space between used to store other small artefacts and boxes of material.


Grangesberg pictures:

8 and 95

Gavle Museum Pictures:

E Class 900

Frykstadt

Gavle Museum Reserve Collection

27

390

404


Earlier in 2012, Dmitry Kolesnikov supplied some pictures from his visit to Gavle which supplement those above:

The handsome plates on 27 in the reserve collection:

Sister Beyer Peacock 93

An unidentified 2-2-0 no doubt used an inspection vehicle:

Dimitry saw two B class locomotives 1108 and 1135. No doubt the former was in the locked shed: 


Rob Dickinson

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