German rail museum fire
 

A fire at an engine shed in a southern German rail museum seriously damaged or destroyed 24 historic locomotives and carriages, the country's national railroad said Tuesday.

The fire, which broke out Monday evening and raged for several hours, brought down the roof of the shed on the outskirts of Nuremberg, Deutsche Bahn said. The Deutsche Bahn Museum itself, home to much of the railroad's collection of historic vehicles and located in the city center, was unaffected.

The company said the destroyed vehicles included a 70-year-old replica of Germany's first steam engine. Also affected were one of the last steam engines built by the former West German railroad, dating back to 1959, and a Berlin subway car from 1913, the AP reports.

Museum director Juergen Franzke said the railroad had specialists who could try to restore some of the vehicles, "but we don't yet know whether we can do anything with the partly melted steel of the locomotives."

There was no immediate word on the cause of the blaze.

Pravda.RU

How very sad that this should happen after all the efforts made to establish the collection.

Fred

Knock on effects rumoured
 

DB Nostalgia are looking at pulling out of running specials after the current years programme has come to an end.

2 locos that they use, the V80 and V200 002 have been badly damaged in the fire and I would think are unlikley to be repaired.

There are other examples of V200 in traffic and after the financial hit nostalgia took bring the TEE unit back to serviciable condition, finance will be a big problem.

What a shame as some of the tours they run have been excellent, hopefully they can get back on track as soon as possible.

The news of the fire is indeed terrible, but perhaps lessons can be learnt from this to prevent further destruction of heritage. If new measures are put in place it may help the rest of the world but will be too late for the german colletion.

The latest edition of "Steam" Railway magazine has an in depth article on this very sad event.