Fête de Vapeur CFBS

Oscar and I are on the 06.20 train out in the morning.Hope to see you there.

Paulus wrote:

Why is traffic in Belgium always that hard?

Two words - Belgian Drivers. Belgians know how to make beer and chocolates, but not how to drive. Must have been really bad for you to decide to try central Antwerpen as an alternate route. Hopefully, the route from Dormagen to Eindhoven won't be so bad when I come to visit.

Must have been a great weekend; nobody had time to post anything!

KleineDicke wrote:

Must have been a great weekend; nobody had time to post anything!

You are so right Bill! It was a fantastic weekend! Unfortunatly I had to leave way too early on sunday to get back in time.
Carl was again a great host and took very good care of us all. Weather was great and sunny on saturday morning (in the afternoon we had rain and even some hail) and all sunday. Beautifull spot between the station and the harbour. Great collection of trains. We could watch them arrive and depart in all directions. Some passing by at less than 2 meters from the layout! Very interested crowd, great to see the children look at the trains and enjoying them so much.

Pictures to follow...

Just back home - literally! HUGE weekend, will take at least a week to unravel all the pics and videos. Huge thanks to Carl, Valerie and Josephine for hosting me Thursday and Sunday nights. Carl for all the driving and as usual putting on a non-stop show. We managed to clear away by 8pm and were back at Carl's for 10.30 last night.

Strange to see Carl in a jacket and tie this morning when he delivered me to Evreux station for the trip back home. He, on his way to teach English to rocket scientists. Great meeting the whole crew, Troy and Oscar, Paul and his "Dutch girls", Phil and Dorothy, with particular thanks to them for taking my locos back rather than lug them through the Paris Metro!

And just to round off, met a couple from Mobile, Alabama, USA on the TGV back from Paris, he into O gauge railways - small world.

I'll continue the thank you theme for all those that came and helped especially Brian without whose efforts and hard work it would have been very difficult.

I have taken quite a lot of video and a few reasonable stills all from our amazing location at St Valéry. I didn't go out on the trains as I have done the journeys before.

But all in all a unique experience and a marvellous never-to-be-repeated weekend.
Sun, steam, rain and music, great hosts care of the CFBS and friendly spectactors. At one time we had the best part of 150 people around the stand and 50+ was quite normal most of the time.

I will gradually post pics and video as time allows.

I'm rather sad it's all over.

.....but according to their website:
"La Fête 2013 est terminée, rendez-vous en 2015 ?!"

In the beginning......
Friday 26 April 17.30 we had waited most of day to get sorted out and the persistant rain had just stopped.



The tent was a metre too small due to an error at the Mayor's office!
But we 'stretched' it a bit!


"WTH does he expect me to put all this stuff?"


Saturday morning at early o'clock, last minute adjustments before the event opened.


The calm before.....


It was never less than this until after Sunday evening.

When they weren't watching us they decided to....

catch a train....

Back to Friday and while we were waiting patiently for our tent arrive we were treated to this:

Count the Corpets!

Not my video (mine is still uploading) but this was typical of the movements on the WET Friday when we arrived...

I have compiled my video clips of the 'big' trains into a short film.



I will do another film of the 'little' trains later.

I was too busy watching the real trains to even notice the garden railway models on display though it's good to see what else was happening via the photos posted here

I'd like to share my photos of the fabulous weekend with you >
http://dudleysphotos.zenfolio.com/p127935451

Best wishes,
Dudley

Welcome to the forum Dudley.

Thanks for posting (Bluebell raillway too) great sets of creative and well taken pictures....err no.58.

Hi Dudley, welcome to the forum - some great pics

Every time I try to post my pics from the Fete, something else intervenes. Here is a random selection but there is more:

CGT at a restaurant (would like to say we had a meal together but there wasn't a big enough table): L-R, Troy, Paul, Carl, Brian, me.



Even in pouring rain, the CGT tent was besieged:



When it didn't rain, the other side could be opened - very convenient for the Harbour Branch:



At Cayeux, 60cm line laid down the main street, with CFCD Decauville:



Not all the historic exhibits behaved perfectly: diesel rescues Cail:



I'm a railcar fan and loved the ex POC, ex Blanc-Argent Verney - Brian rode this back from Cayeux to St Valery:



KESR standard gauge Marcia, plus LSWR coach (and Meuse at the other end) shuttled from Noyelles to the Harbour branch:



I must find time to process the video...

I have put all my videos on You Tube.

To find them, go to www.youtube.com and search for Philkelly56w (no spaces). They are mixed with earlier ones right back to the illfated (?) gathering at Geoff's three years ago....

Happy viewing!

Phil

And I've just noticed that there's a whole lot of other stuff that's not mine. One day I will work out how all this works.