European Railroad Discussion > Finland: spotting opportunities in Kotka

On Saturday with Hannu we decided to spend a few hours spotting trains in Kotka. The daylight time in Finland now short and we hoped to see only one passenger and one freight train.
We started from the Kotka railway station. This is an old brick building, opened in 1926. The architecture in somewhat different from the typical Finnish station buildings. In front of it is a big field with what was an array of a railway tracks, only two now used, some abandoned, and most removed. The whole infrastructure is fast and witness that the place has seen a much better days. Depot sheds, different service buildings, squeezed by wildly outgrown trees, all in very classical Finnish railway style. Wooden private houses around the area mostly preserved as they were decades ago, and surely was for people working on the railway or in the harbour. All this is a good place to deep yourself into the nostalgic atmosphere of railways of 40-50s. The place was SO quiet, no any sound, as it can be, probably, only in Finland, that I got haunting feeling of being dropped into a huge model railway layout when players has left.
1. We were greeted by total silence and this bike.
2. Station from the track side.
 

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1. View of the station from the "city" side.
2. In this direction tracks are going outside via fiddle-yard.
Only a lonely Siberian Wolf is waiting for its hour.
3. In the opposite direction, array of tracks use to squeeze themself between pillars of the bridge and continue for some 500-700 meters to the harbour called Kantasatama ("Basic harbour"). Nowadays it's obsolete and closed. This explains abandonsy of station railway. The only real use of this port is a big maritime museum, which has Vr1 steam shunter as gate guard.

 

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1. A bit wider shot of the station area.
2. This is interesting. In the woods I discovered these snowplows. Hannu told that they were used with Dv 16 diesels. Nowadays this kind of work is done by Tka types. There are markings on snowplows: "front end", "rear end". Dv 16 are gone and snowplows are left in the woods.
3. After some waiting came what we were waiting for: train from Kouvola. Slowly crawling from behind the corner appeared Sm2 #6077. A bit unusual for me to see Helsinki commuter EMUs as intercity trains, but distances in Finland are not great for this type of rolling stock.

 

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1. One side of Sm2 was covered by graffiti. Ugly.
2. After a brief stop at station Sm2 left towards the harbour - the last stop.
3. Wolf's hideout. Scared? :-)

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1. So, the harbour. Visitors of museum are greeted by this lovely Vr 1 #667 "Kana" ("hen") with post vagon Po turned into a summer cafe.
2. Harbour's small and cute looking station building. Asking to be immortalised in a scale model :)
3. Railway ends here.

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1-2. The end stop: Kotka harbour.
 

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1. After an old harbour we rushed to spot a freight train going to a new, modern harbour, located in the opposite side of the city, called Mussalo.
This Sr1 was pulling very long train.
After this we waited for about an hour to meet this loc going back, but it didn't happened.
2. While exploring fiddle-yard, we suddenly saw this Dv12 #2738 pulling train to Hietanen harbour. This was bonus in spotting.
Kotka's harbours are not only those two harbours, but the whole coastal area turned into a harbours, and all have a massive railway network grown ovre decades, some abandoned, some in use. But following the rail tracks you can learn the history of this port area.
3. Shunting in Hietanen area.

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Kiitos, Stas, for the nice images and story.  Gerry

Nice pictures Stas.