How the Mighty have Fallen - a photo on Flickriver

            Once a familiar active locomotive and star performer on the passenger services working from Wolsztyn depot was Ol49-7, with its distinctive green cab and cylinder outer casings. On 6th December 2017, it was found unceremoniously dumped in the yard at Leszno depot, sandwiched between a ‘Ty’ freight locomotive tender and a long line of redundant diesel locomotives awaiting scrapping. The 1951-built 2-6-2 had seen service in south and east Poland between 1951 and 1984, before moving to the west of the country and, eventually in 1988, on to its final depot at Wolsztyn. Despite several works visits to Gniezno and Leszno since then to keep it going, the decision was taken to withdraw it from service at the end of 2011, suffering from leaks in the firebox stays and with cracks in its frame. As such and with insufficient funds likely to be available for the extensive repairs required, it was determined as a ‘no hope case’ and condemned by the PKP depot authorities at Leszno. Between 1951 and 1954, 116 examples of the Ol49 Class were built by the Chrzanów factory and interestingly an additional three were supplied to North Korea. The Ol49 ‘Prairies’ proved to be very useful mixed traffic locos and were still in traffic towards the end of regular PKP steam duties, with 81 of the class still on the PKP books in 1990. In more recent times, seven have been allocated to Wolsztyn depot, Ol49-7 ‘Bob Wyatt’, Ol49-23, Ol49-69 (in fact Ol49-99 renumbered in 2001) and Ol49-111, and they have worked local trains at various times over the last 25 years. A further three, Ol49-60, Ol49-81 and Ol49-85 were retained for static display at Wolsztyn. By 2022, only Ol49-69 was still operational and working regular passenger services, offering ‘footplate experience’ courses between Wolsztyn and Poznan and Wolsztyn and Leszno. 

© Gordon Edgar - All rights reserved. Please do not use my images without my explicit permission

Taken in: Poland / Greater Poland / Leszno (show map)

Taken on: December 6, 2017

Tags:

Ol49-7

Wolsztyn Experience

Leszno

loco shed

Poland « less

Sets appears in: • Abandoned, Ruins & Rust • Steam in Poland more » • Scrapyards and Dumped Locos and Vehicles « less

Groups appears in: • Abandoned, Neglected, Weathered, or Rusty • Abandoned and Disused Trains

Stats: 5,126 views / 6 comments

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