Train Spotting in Sweden

Getting out in the real world and seeing full scale narrow gauge railways (nowadays mostly preserved) has always been a favourite activity for me. Last weekend I had the opportunity to spend 2 days in Sweden with a handful of good friends from the vintage railway in Denmark where I volunteer. The primary target for the weekend was the 600 mm gauge line between Ohs and Bor.

A forest railway should be enjoyed from a heap of timber. I did just that on the Ohs-Bor line watching Orenstein & Koppel 8338/1917 passing.

I was travelling with a group in two cars and thus we had the possibility to combine train rides with excursions along the line by car. A dense network of narrow gravel roads along the railway makes it quite easy to overtake the train to reach new locations for photographing. I visited the railway during the annual Ohsabanan Days, a weekend when the volunteers at the line run as many trains as possible with a varied stock of locomotives. 

Standing on a tree stump in the forest I caught VEB Lokomotivbau Karl Marx 250572/1974 passing with a passenger train to Bor. 

OBJ loco 14 with the firefighting train. Despite it being rather wet weather, the railway watches the beautiful forests vigilantly to prevent fires.

Sächsische Maschinenfabrik 4183/1919 in dark green with O&K 8338 in black being turned in the background.

The Ohs-Bor railway is a 14.5 km long 600 narrow-gauge railway east of Värnamo in southern Sweden. The track, rolling stock, locomotives and traffic are owned, maintained and run by the Ohs Bruk Järnväg's Museum Association, a non-profit association formed in 1970.

Despite rain in the afternoon the volunteers kept up the good spirit. Steam locomotives in the rain is always something special.

I appreciated the efforts of the volunteers to dress true to the age of the locomotives. The crew on Maschinenbau und Bahnbedarf 13584/1944 had dressed up like a Polish crew from the 1970's at the Ciechanów sugar factory - complete with sideburns!

The Ohs railway was built between 1907 and 1910 to serve a paper mill, connecting it to a standard gauge line in Bor. The first rolling stock was purchased second-hand from the Helsingborg–Råå–Ramlösa Railway (HRRJ). During the 1920's, the fleet of locomotives and carriages was expanded with German built equipment from the Heeresfeldbahnen. Even if the railway was becoming increasingly worn down from mid 1950's the factory retained its railway right up until 1967 when lorries took over. The track was left in place and a few later the volunteers took over preserving the line into the next millenium. It's their investment of time, effort and money that treated me to a memorable day. Lots of inspiration for this winter's modelling!

The line has a range of charming sheds placed next to the track. This weathered red shed begs to be modelled in 1/19 scale!

The OBJ V10C loco is approaching one of the many level crossings.