From a Newspaper

From my stash of old newspaper clippings and documents from the Nystrup Gravel archive I have dug out a photo completly detached from any information. It has been cut from a newspaper or a document printed on the same kind of low quality paper. The picture is stained (with coffee?) in the lower half and has a tear in the upper right corner. This kind of image is often a major challenge to identify and locate - in geography as well as in time. This one was easy, however!

Even without original caption or any other information it is easy for me to locate this image as being from the Nystrup Gravel loading ramp at the company's facilities in Nystrup. The Lister loco was a rare bird (in fact the only one) on Danish rails and the loading ramp is a dead give away with its flimsy walkway. The image is most likely from the beginning of the 1950's.

The Lister was a chance investment at a time when it was extremely difficult to obtain new locomotives in Denmark due to import restrictions and a general post-world war disruption of normal production and trade. The loco was never intended to be used for hauling gravel trains, but rather for light shunting and small permanent way trains. That left the more powerful locomotives, like the Fowler, to do what they did best.