On this page you will find actual information about the work of FEDECRAIL. Further below you will find the Newsletters of FEDECRAIL for download.
On 17 March FEDECRAIL President David Morgan, MBE, and the two Vice Presidents Heimo Echensperger and Jacques Daffies met with the Vice President of the European Commission Günther Verheugen.
Amongst other tasks, Verheugen is responsible for the activities of the European Union regarding tourism. He explained that the European Commission expects an increased demand for travel services with rising wealth of the outer Western world. The EU tourism policy should therefore aim to open up this potential market for the tourism economy in Europe. A special selling point of Europe was its great cultural and scenic variety on a small space. The interlocutors agreed that the industrial heritage and the history of railways was also part of this. Until the Treaty of Lisbon would come into force, tourism would not be part of the competences of the EU Commission. It was anticipated that this would change by 2010.
It turned out that Verheugen was familiar with heritage railways. Therefore, it was not difficult for the FEDECRAIL representatives to convey how much heritage railways in Europe contribute to the industrial heritage and to the regional tourism, in particular.
The regional development could be particularly well depicted on the example of some railways in the accessing states in Eastern Europe, where some railways destined to decommissioning could be redeveloped into important tourism attractions with the support of Fedecrail and their partners. The importance of heritage railways for tourism beyond European borders could be illustrated with visitors from overseas, who regularly attend larger events.
The interlocutors agreed to include FEDECRAIL into the organisations with consultative status and to schedule a follow-up meeting with the department for tourism in order to inform FEDECRAIL on the current activities of the Commission in the field of tourism.
The Riga Charter was presented to the European Parliament in Brussels at a reception on 9th May 2007. The Charter was
developed by FEDECRAIL and - amongst others - the members of VDMT 2006 have accepted it as guideline for the restoration of historic railway artefacts. 
The President of FEDECRAIL, David Morgan, explained to numerous MEPs the importance of the Riga Charter for FEDECRAIL and its members. The Vice-Presidents Jacques Daffis from France and Heimo Echensperger from Germany outlined, how the objectives of the Riga Charter are going to be met. It refers to the fact that museum trains normally work on the basis of an animated open-air museum, which operates the trains rather than just exhibiting rolling stock. This puts museums into a challenging dilemma: on the one hand they intend to preserve the status quo of the historic exhibits on the other hand they have to face the attrition as consequence of the use. The Charter offers guidelines for the use of historic railway material explaining the basic considerations that are to be followed and documented.
The retired ambassador Rienko Wilton emphasised that the accession of FEDECRAIL to Europa Nostra had been a great enrichment for their organisation. The FEDECRAIL network had added the train traffic to Europa Nostra’s field of work, which previously had focused on buildings and landscapes.
The Riga Charter of FEDECRAIL has made a valuable contribution to the understanding of the attitudes towards movable cultural heritage in their area of expertise.
Following the world wide adoption of its RIGA CHARTER by national umbrella organisations and individual railways as the code of conduct for working with railway artefacts, FEDECRAIL will officially launch the Riga Charter at a reception to be held at the European Parliament in Brussels on May, 9th.
With the Riga Charter the railway heritage movement joins the Architecture and Heritage Shipping movements, which have established similar codes of conduct with the charters of Athens and Barcelona respectively. With the Riga Charter FEDECRAIL sets standards for the care of historic artefacts from the railway industry to foster their preservation for future generations.
The Riga Charter has been widely adopted by FEDECRAIL members and other heritage railway organisations in the European Union, Australia, New Zealand and Russia and is also being discussed in further countries of the world.
Heimo Echensperger (45), FEDECRAIL vice president and chairman of the German umbrella organisation Verband Deutscher Museums- und Touristikbahnen e.V. (VDMT) has been appointed to the advisory council of DB Netz AG, Germany's largest rail network operator, by the Eisenbahn-Bundesamt on 13th Januray 2006. The council has in total 17 members, which are representatives of DB Fernverkehr, DB Regio, private railway companies, umbrella organisations like VDMT and regional transport associations. The advisory council has the task to represent the users of the network against DB Netz AG and influence its business decisions in their interest. Echensperger has been apointed to the council to represent the interest of the heritage and tourist railways.
Echensperger has startet his carrer with heritage railways in 1985. 1988 ha become vice-chairman of BDEF and led the heritage railway section in this umbrella organisation of railway friends. After the heritage railways have founded VDMT in 1993 Echensperger became its chairman. Today he is also chairman of DBK Historische Bahn.e.V., Crailsheim.
FEDECRAIL is involved with the SteamRail.Net (Industrial Heritage of Steam Railways - Cooperation Network) project, supported by funding from the European Union under the Culture 2000 programme.
This unique project aims at the preservation, restoration and promotion of steam-hauled museum and tourist railways as Cultural Heritage with a strong European significance. In this multi-annual agreement, member railways from six European countries are working together on the restoration of steam locomotives, other railway equipment and infrastructure, as well as on the production of multi-lingual publications, multimedia audio-visual products, touring exhibitions and the dissemination of experiences.
FEDECRAIL is a sub- contractor and will host the project during its next Conference, to be held at Volos and Pelion (Greece) from 18th until 24th May 2006, in association with the University of Thessaly, the SteamRail.Net lead partner. This Conference will provide an excellent opportunity for all those interested in museum and tourist railways to meet the SteamRail.Net project partners and many other FEDECRAIL members, but also to learn from their experiences.
The European umbrella organisation FEDECRAIL has adopted the Riga Charter on its Annual General Meeting this year in Lyon. The charter is called the Riga-Charter because it was first proposed in Riga, Latvia, on the conference 2001.
With the Riga-Charter the European Hertigae Railways commit themselves to common rules according to which they will conduct the preservation and operation of the historic objects they care for. In doing so the Heritage Railways follow the area of architecture, where the charter of Athens has been the first of those kind, and the Heritage Shipping, which adopted the Barcelona-Charter in the year 2000.
The Riga-Charter is closely aligned with the two mentioned above, while recongising the particularities of the railways. The charter defines standards accroding to which the preservation of historic objects of the railway heritage shall be conducted. It claims to be a guide, which has to be detailed by each heritage railway to its specific circumstances to be applied. The objective is that all European Heritage Railways will in the long term follow a common standard in their work, which is equivalent to other code of conducts in other areas of industrial heritage.
To achieve this FEDECRAIL proposes that the national umbrella organisation as well as the individual heritage railway shall formally adopt the Riga Charter for their work. That has already been done in Sweden, Great Britain, the Netherlands and also Australia.
There is also a swedish version available.
The Fund
The 'Argentina' Rescue Fund has but one simple aim - to raise the 10,000 GBP required to move, by road, Ing. L.D.Porta's very first locomotive, metre gauge 4 cylinder compound 4-8-0 'Argentina', to a safe storage location in Buenos Aires.
Why Bother?
Put simply 'Argentina' is one of THE most important steam locomotives of the 20th century. How so? At the age of just 27, Argentine engineer L.D.Porta oversaw the design and production of his very first locomotive. In the process he produced one of the most striking and memorable locomotives of all time. On test 'Argentina' matched or bettered just about every efficiency record that stood.
Some facts:
- World record equalling power to weight ratio of 31hp/ton.
- 11.9% recorded thermal efficiency, estimated to be 13% under optimal conditions.
Further informationen here.
This took place from the 27th – 31th March and was hosted by our Dutch member HRN or Historisch Railvervoer Nederland and its own members. The location was the narrow gauge museum or SVM at the Valkenburgse Meer near Leiden, which gave a unique setting with speakers in front of a most interesting square steam tram locomotive. The room was loaned for free to us by the SVM.
On Friday we enjoyed a visit to the well-known SHM steam tram at Hoorn. Once split into groups, we went to the long shed, the steam tramway documentation centre, or by coach/tram to the well-restored Wognum station and the Steam Engine Museum at Medemblik. The brilliant quality of the restoration work was enhanced by the bright sunshine.
On Saturday there were speeches about insurance with speakers from AON and from the firm Charles Taylor, specialist in mutual insurances, Railned (“Railtrack”) about railway safety, Dutch mobile heritage policy – joined forces by rail, water, and air transport heritage organisations for political power on a national level – and the exchange of young railway volunteers between the U.K. and Sweden. The speeches were all very interesting and informative.
Overall, the Conference was the best ever. This was also because of the hospitality of our Dutch colleagues who were so friendly and generous. On Saturday we went around the lake with SVM narrow gauge steam trams, and saw the hidden collection in their “Aladdin’s cave” shed.
On Sunday, a long tour took us by a vintage Mat’24 EMU of the Utrecht national railway museum NSM to Amersfoort where a part of the NSM collection was stabled during the complete refurbishment of that museum. Then on to Apeldoorn for a trip over the VSM steam railway to Eerbeek, with a guided visit to the shed at Beekbergen. From there. Coaches of Syntus took us to the MBS steam railway at Haaksbergen. There a reception followed by a view of the steam locomotive restoration project which makes part of the European SteamRail.net project organised by Manos Vougioukas. In and around the station and workshop there were guided tours, also to the signal box vegetable garden and the modern boiler water treatment plant which makes boiler washouts a job of the past. Some guests wondered where they could find the steam train to Boekelo, as there was an engine under steam with some goods wagons and just a single small coach for our large party… but that had four lines of seats allowing 98 passengers inside. It was just restored and a century old.
From Hengelo, we went for free on a Syntus train to Zutphen where the friendly volunteers of the EMU awaited us with an improvised Chinese dinner on board, eaten at sunset – the spirits were high!
On Monday we went by coaches to the SSN at Rotterdam for a guided tour at their main line steam engine depot also housing electric engines from goods train operators, and then to Zealand with trams on its dikes. First the SGB to Goes through a dike which had to be closed after the passage of the steam train (because of the winter season until April). Much admiration went to the restored old goods shed which was now an impressive restaurant. The SSN had shown an impressive shed as well. The last steam tram was the RTM on the dike Brouwersdam near Ouddorp. As heirs of the former cape gauge RTM steam tram company running over the islands with ferry connections and the first container wagons, they were well aware of their responsibility for the important collection.
On Tuesday, the last day, almost all were still with us for a trip in nice vintage buses of a museum, to the NZH museum at Haarlem with small items and some original NZH electric trams. In Amsterdam, we had a tour of the EMA electric museum tram shed and a ride to the end of the line and back, followed by a vintage city tram tour of the MUSA tram museum collection. The Conference ended at Schiphol Airport, for a drop-off, and in fifteen minutes we were back in Leiden, tired but really satisfied with the Dutch Conference.
FEDECRAIL has commented on the draft of the EU Commission to introduce a system of licensing railway engine drivers. The document sent in by FEDECRAIL is available for download here:
FEDECRAIL Comment of 06.08.2003
Further information and comments on the draft EU licensing directive are available on the website of the Directorate General for Energy and Transport of the European Union.
At this years international heritage railway conference in LLandudno FEDECRAIL's president David Morgan introduced the so called Riga Charter for protection and handling of historic railway objects. As with the areas of architecture and shipping heritage where such a charter already exists, the Riga Charter is aimed to provide guidance as well as self committment for the protection of historic railway objects. The charter is now open for discussion within FEDECRAIL by the Cultural Working Group and will be approved at a future conferences.
The current draft of the Riga Charter can be downloaded here:
Riga Charter (Issue 29.03.2003)
TopFor the information of members and supporters FEDECRAIL regularly issues a newsletter, in which we report about actual developments in FEDECRAIL's work as well as on events from our members. Below we offer the published newsletters for Download. The latest issue is sent only to current members and friends and will not be loaded to this site. Older issues may be available on request.
To read the newsletters requires an Acrobat Reader software on the computer. This may be downloaded here 
free of charge.