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European Railroad Discussion > Finland: GoneDate: 08/03/15 05:21 Finland: Gone Author: McKey Reflecting Stas' well created thread on VR-Yhtymä new ERd restaurant + club coaches: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?17,3801492
here is the other side of the mirror: dozens of older perfectly well working blue-gray painted coaches from 1960s - 1980s going to scrappers torch. The motivation for VR as a monopoly railroad operator is try to keep competition away from rails, something it has achieved incredibly well on. Only Belarus and Finland currently seem to have a railroad monopoly areas. All Finland's neighbors Sweden, Norway, Estonia and Russia have dozens (Russia hundreds) of mostly private operators running on their national networks. Main means for retaining the monopoly are discussions with policy makers and making sure no suitable rolling stock ends up to the hands of possible startup operators or local public operators. This means no bigger diesels, electric locomotives, no freight rolling stock, no older but perfectly good coaches are ever sold out. All these are scrapped, so there is nothing startups could buy cheaply. What a loss of resources this is, though I must say that demands of some wannabe startups getting VR rolling stock for free are not from this world. However, this is just what happened in Sweden in 1996 with extremely good results: Swedish government set up a rolling stock leasing company SSRT through Jernhuset, and any operator can lease or hire their rolling stock, which are now quite numerous. Observing Sweden and Finland, Finns often seem to follow what has happened in Sweden, maybe this development will happen in Finland too, perhaps 30 years late...? In the meantime the Ovako Steel plant in Imatra keeps melting dozens of coaches and freight cars each month (locomotives are scrapped at VR locoworks). Below is a series of pictures on the coaches now gone after being melted to steel again. While visiting area I saw many freight cars and two coaches just being ripped apart with the giant machines working at Ovako. One of the losses will be that there are very few surviving blue-gray coaches for future generations to observe, loss that also the earlier generations caused for today's railfans and rail pros. Look at the shape these coaches are in!    Date: 08/03/15 05:24 Re: Finland: Gone Author: McKey Next, lets take a look at especially what preceded the ERd coaches, types Rkt and Rbkt, with thoudsands of stories told around these restaurant and beer drinking palaces. The Mantsinen owned and operated mobile crane is used to rip apart the coaches at Ovako.
   Date: 08/03/15 05:27 Re: Finland: Gone Author: McKey Class Rkt from 1980s. It is all steel construction with bogie generators, oil heating and relatively modern if small kitchen. Just the floors are of extremely thick plywood made to withstand water and ice, probably used for noise insulation at the time.
 Date: 08/03/15 05:55 Re: Finland: Gone Author: McKey Last week from Kristinehamn (in Sweden): for comparison this is what the Swedish operators can achieve, and some of the worn out scrap metal coaches they have to use.
1) Rebuilt for purpose coaches, nearest to camera class AB3 of TågAB. A=first class, B= second class, 3=series, TågAB=Trains Company (a private operator very good on rebuilding projects)) 2) NSB old Norwegian series 3 warrior on the side track for incoming coaches. Used for rebuilding or spare parts. 3) Some other coaches at the back of the yard. Looks like DB color scheme almost matches the TagAB typical with silver and red stripe...    Date: 08/04/15 10:22 Re: Finland: Gone Author: Latebeans It certainly is shortsighted that this equipment is being scraped. The cars appear to me to be perfectly serviceable rolling stock.
Date: 08/05/15 18:29 Re: Finland: Gone Author: GPutz Thanks for the information, John. I had many enjoyable trips on those cars. Gerry
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