Newsletter June/July 2001

The pictures shouldn't take long to download so please have patience - I hope you'll think they are worth waiting for !! I will mostly just put smaller versions of the actual pictures on show in this page and you can click on them for a page or pages containing all the larger versions, which will take a while to download. This should enable the "front" page to download more quickly and you can decide for yourself if you want to view the pictures in greater detail.

Another quiet month on the Majorca Railways front but I've had more historic pictures which allow me to continue the theme from last month's Newsletter. On a personal note, however, there's been a lot to do, hence this newsletter covering the two months of June and July. I shall be going for a week to Puerto de Sóller in August and hope to return with LOTS of new photos and also hope to meet up with Toni Sanchis and the AAFB (see below). Now to the business in hand, firstly, a couple of photos from the early nineties, this time from John Godfrey (thanks John) and sent to me just before I uploaded the last Newsletter so quite a coincidence !! Click on one of the pictures below or here to be taken to another page with larger versions of all these photos.

The third picture is from Edith Knight and this is a hand-drawn plan of the layout of the FCM station at Palma around the time that these pictures were taken and I have coloured the carriage shed red to help show you exactly where it was located. By clicking here or on the plan you can access a much larger version

The next picture, also from Edith Knight, is clearly a scan from a book showing a double-page spread photo of the carriage shed with a siding in the background leading to a builder's yard which must have been where the new station building is now. Unfortunately Edith doesn't know the source of this photo so I'd be very grateful if somebody could provide the information for us. (January 2002 - both plan and photo discovered to be by Giles Barnabe - thanks Giles !!)

- thanks Edith for these great pictures !!

Now three pictures from Toni Sanchis of The Associació d'Amics del Ferrocarril de Balears. Firstly, an arial photo showing the FCM station at Palma when the carriage shed was still there (January 2002 - Giles Barnabe points out that the carriage sheds were NOT there and the yellow-roofed DMUs can be seen standing in the three formerly covered shed roads which became short open-air berthing sidings - thanks Giles !!) and then a couple of photos showing the new bus station which is now located in the area marked "PW yard" at the left of the plan above. The arial photo is of particular interest as it shows that the link to the tunnel connecting the railway with the docks has already been lifted.

Thanks for the photos, Toni !!

The last gallery for this particular Newsletter consists of photos taken by one of my co-conspirators, Alan Rolfe, with his Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera (do you detect a note of envy ?) on his visit to Majorca in September of last year. The first one shows the old Hispano-Suiza based tower truck which you can also see in the Newslinks page. It is pictured inside the new shed at Sóller which is where the second photo, which is of one of the new bogie trailers which were being constructed for the Tramway at Sóller, was also taken. The third photo is of the Placa Constitucio in Sóller - no tram, only the tracks, the atmosphere and the memories !!

STOP PRESS

As you probably know the Majorca Daily Bulletin is one of the best sources of information on events in Majorca. They have a daily online distillation of the main items of news on their website which you can reach by clicking on the link in the previous sentence. I don't have their permission to reproduce parts of the site but hope they won't mind if I save a few entries for you each month - click here to be taken to a page containing a number of extracts, including some which refer to the new bus station which now occupies part of what was previously the area of the old FCM station

Thanks again to all my contributors and supporters, any comments on the revised format OR contents will be appreciated.

Watch this site for further developments which will take place whenever new information or pictures come to hand. Any submissions or contributions of information, photos old or new, postcards, books etc., will be very gratefully and enthusiastically received and if used on the site will be suitably acknowledged (as above). The photos, pictures and diagrams used on this site are presented for your information and viewing pleasure only. If any of them should be in copyright violation and the copyright holder would care to notify me I will either remove them or acknowledge the copyright accordingly.