Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, England

Next is a lovely train card (which whenever I look at, I think it is somewhere in Germany, dont know why)

Damems on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway is the smallest standard gauge station in the UK.

Locomotive 43924, a '4F Class' from 1920, was the first in the UK to be restored to working order, after rescue from a scrapyard.

Well done! Who would put this into a scrapyard? Tsk tsk tsk!! 

Number of lovely stamps of course, and i just figured out that by trying to remove the address I had also ruined that last stamp but Im not gonna be waiting to go home and rescan it, cos then this update will surely not happen...

Ill start with the non-queen stamp (not sure if Ill pinpoint the right Queen ones).

The top right stamp is from a set of 5 Christmas stamps issued in 1983. It is so lovely and I never would have guessed it is a Christmas one!

The stamp below it was issued one year earlier, and is from a set of four commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Charles Darwin.

That ruined one is also from 1982, from a set of 5 stamps representing British Mariners. This one shows Lord Nelson (and it is 24p, face value).

As for the Queen - I gave up on here... I really cannot distinguish among all those shades of purple and blue and brown... I wish they would start putting the year on the stamps, would make things so easier.

Sri Lanka

So after like 3 weeks into the New Year, I thought it was about time to blow off the dust and bring this place back to life after last year's hiatus.

Don't know if that was like my worst year blogging so far, but certainly not the one I would like to brag about. But what's done is done... and who knows, maybe this year will have a better outcome. No promises though, since they never work (there is nothing that works so badly as a New Year's resolution).

And the most proper way to start this year would be of course with cards received in 2019, which may not be much but are just enough for one blog post. :)

 The very first one is this lovely train card that Kiran sent me from his trip in Sri Lanka.
Dont know exactly which line this is, but it says that Taking the train is a great and inexpensive way to get around, the train journeys are real cultural experience and the most scenic routes will be highlights of your visit - in particular the wonderful journey from Colombo to Kandy and up into Tea County, and the coastal train ride from Colombo to Dutch colonial Galle.
British visitors will find the stations, signal boxes and old red semaphore signals very familiar.

Ok, I guess the rest of us will feel completely lost and puzzled then, wondering what kind of objects are those...

Kiran used two lovely stamps to match the card, issued in 2017 as part of the World Post Day.
The actual sheet is really fabulous btw...

Fonds de Gras, Luxembourg

I started with a train card, so lets end it with a train card... and the funny thing is that this train card arrived without the address number as well - Agi couldn't have done it better, even if she had tried :D

The  card shows the "Train 1900" which runs between Pétange and Fond-de-Gras, on the former "Mining Line". The train line was opened in 1874 in order to transport the iron ore extracted from neighbouring mines.
Historically, the Fond-de-Gras was one of the most important mining centres in Luxembourg. A few years after the closure of the last mine at the Fond-de-Gras in 1964, a few volunteers worked to preserve part of the railway line with the aim of operating a tourist train on the line. The first train ran in 1973.

at first I thought this stamp showed a bottle of perfume so I was even trying to sniff it... will just have to add this to my list of nonsense-I-have-done.
It is in fact from a set of 3 stamps issued in 2015 representing the National Museum of History and Art.

So, the storm didn't come after all, but at least I have used the time wisely :D

Aginice, hvala ti na sve ove divne razglednice i markice! Nadam se da se vidimo opet, prije ili kasnije! :*

And thank you all for stopping by. Make sure to check again soon, or not so soon, for another just regular no-fairy update :)

Trains, Alaska

A bit north now, where we have not one, not two, but three train cards from Alaska! I actually have quite some more train cards from here, but will leave those for another post.

First is the McKinley Express, which as like all Alaskan trains, takes you through stunning landscapes and sceneries. (Blogger keeps underlining my 'sceneries' with red. For a while I thought that I must have been dreaming that scenery has its plural, but it probably is blogger in the middle of some kind of nightmare.

as for the stamps, we have 3 copies of the Toleware stamp from 2007 and the se-tenat stamp from 2012, commemorating the 2012 the 100th Anniversary of the Cherry Blossom Festilval, Washington D.C.

The other two cards show trains in Skagway, and on this one the Thunderbird Diesel crosses the  Glacier Bridge.

More toleware stamps here, as well as one from 2012 commemorating the 200th Anniversary of Louisiana Statehood

Skagway is said to be one of the busies, exciting stops along the Inside Passage but it seems that these train lines mainly serve people who are on some kind of a cruise already and if a free seat remains, a regular mortal passenger may as well enjoy the ride.

and here we have an Inverted Jenny stamp (of course, not the very original one, but the one reissued by USPS in 2013 as a commemoration of the 1918 24¢ Jenny Invert airmail stamp error that shows the blue Curtiss “Jenny” airplane flying upside down within the red stamp frame.

Severn Valley Railway, England

A lovely train card sent by dear Anu.

The West Country Class No. 34027 `Taw Valley` was built in Brighton in 1945 and here it can be seen crossing the magnificent Victoria Bridge over the River Severn in the UK.

Anu always uses fantastic stamps! First we have two of the Theater stamps (built during the Shakespearean era) issued in 1995 in a set of 5 - here we have the Hope from 1613 and the Globe from 1614 (the rebuilt version, after being destroyed in a fire in 1613).
The train stamp is from a set of five British Pub Signs, issued in 1995 - this stamp shows 'The Station' by Andrew Davidson. And last of course, you have her Majesty, the Queen.

Thanks a lot lot Anu!

Melaka, Malaysia

Just one more card for today - I don't wanna overwor my rustiness :P

I have been rarely doing swaps for a long while now, partly because I somehow find this whole swap thing has become too demanding and more like a business than something done for pleasure, plus cos of financial reasons too. But sometimes you just spot a card and you know you have to go for it, which was the case with this one.
Sent by Bernard from Malaysia, who says he used to take this train from Ipoh to Singapore, where the journey lasted for almost 8 hours, but now with the new flight services, it takes like an hour. Yep, the planes have ruined it all :D
However, taking the price into consideration too, I'd always prefer a cozy train ride to a flight (trains in Macedonia are exempted from this).

The stamp is from a set of 4, World Post Day stamps issued in 2017. The postcrossing community there even organized a Postcrossing Meeting for the World Post Day.

Thanks a lot to Bernard for this card, and to you all for dropping by.

Till next time ;)

Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe, South Africa

Next comes a fantastic train card that Sandra sent me as part of our swap!

The card shows the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe train which was the last remaining continually-operated passenger steam train in Africa, ending operation in June 2009.
The railway was completed in 1928, linking the towns of George and Knysna in the Western Cape, South Africa. The 3 hour journey also stopped in the towns of Wilderness, Goukamma, and Sedgefield. The scenic 67-kilometre route went along the rugged coastline of the Garden Route before ending by crossing a bridge over the lagoon in Knysna.

In 2007, the train's owners, Transnet Limited, announced that the train was not regarded as part of its core business. Transnet initiated a tender process to dispose of the train to a new owner/operator. However, on August 19, 2010 Transnet announced that, following unsuccessful attempts to find such a new operator, the train would cease operating. Nonetheless, the Western Cape Province's Finance, Economic Development and Tourism Minister, Alan Winde, says he is resolved to keep this heritage tourism asset operational.

well, fingers crossed for that!!

the train card comes with, among else, two fantastic train stamps, issued in 2010 in a set of 10 train stamps, commemorating the 150th Anniversary of South African Railways.
That horse-looking stamp is also from 2010, from a set of 16 Crafts' stamps, while the fish one was issued in 2000 in a set of 11 fish stamps, with this one showing the Blackbar Triggerfish.

Thank you so much Sandra!!

Trains, Czech Republic

well, get ready for a longish post full of train cards from the Czech Republic, all coming with a whole variety of lovely Czech stamps....and you know, it was while selecting the cards for this post that I realized the huge number of Czech train cards I have received...my initial idea was like to post them all but that turned out absolutely inconvenient...so I decided to stick to a small part of it...

and first comes a card I received from Monika last year...
This illustration, showing the 220.1, the oldest locomotive in the Czech Republic, produced in 1858 and it was issued as a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first train to Prague Masaryk Station.

the stamp on the left was issued in 1995 in a set of two 'Homeland' stamps, with this one showing the Panska Skala, also known as the Lord's Rock, while the other stamp was issued in 2013, commemorating th 400th Anniversary of the Bible of Kralice.



Next is a card I received from Katka in 2012...

The modern blue and white one is called Pendolino and is considered as the fastest train in the Czech Republic (well at least it was when this card was mailed). The other one is a regular train (and as Katka says, not very comfortable), bearing the logo of Poštovní spořitelna, one of the banks in the country...so it is something like an advertisement train...

both stamps here were issued in 2011....the one on the left was issued in 2011 for the Children's Day, showing the Little Witch, a feature film by Zdeněk Smetana...the other one is from the Young Animals series and shows the European Hamster.


The title of this one translates into "Full Steam ahead into the New Year"...I don't know if this was meant as a New Year greeting card or what, but I do like the correlation :)

sent by Radana for the Favourites Tag in 2013, this card shows the 354 195, CSD Steam locomotive, manufactured in 1925 by ČKD (Českomoravská Kolben-Daněk).

a beautiful car stamp showing the Mercedes Benz 540, manufactured in 1936. the stamp is from a set of 6 Classic Cars stamps issued in 2012.


This steam engine was sent by Milan on the very last day in 2010 for the Czecho-Slovakia meets the world tag...

it shows the U 46.001 Steam Engine train on one of the few narrow-gauge railways in the Czech Republic, near the town of Jindřichův Hradec in South Bohemia.

3 stamps here (don't be fooled by the big one which came with the...well, I dont know if this is the vignette or the selvage but it comes as a nice addition - the stamp in question was issued in 2010, and it is from a joint issue with Luxembourg, commemorating the 700th Anniversary of the Succession of Luxembourg to the Czech Throne.
The one on the right is from 2000 from the Zodiac series, representing the Virgo, while the flower stamp is from a set of two issued in 2007.
It's been a while since I've seen Milan around, I hope he is doing fine :)



One from Radim for the June-November RR in 2012...

the card shows the IC 141 "Detvan" Praha-Zvolen train, which has just left the Ústí nad Orlicí station on 14 September 2006.
The 151014-8  Locomotovie (the Prague depot) in the Czech Railways was the only locomotive of this series, which had the advertising painting of Poštovní spořitelna in of 2006. Five other locomotives of the series 362/363 propagated also this company, while other vehicles were then given advertising stickers of this financial institution.

a stamp issued for the Olympic Games in London in 2012.




And a train card which I often confuse with the one above since they like bear the same colours and I often get to confuse them, but just now I realized it is because of that famous Poštovní spořitelna that they are advertising...

Sent in 2014 from someone called Erika or something...on behalf of Goran...and now I cant recall if I have ever figured out which Goran was in question here, since I know two who could potentially be involved in such a surprise...so I dont know now if i had ever thanked the right Goran...shame on me =/

from the back of the card:
Six red yellow locomotives (advertising colors of Poštovní spořitelna) were seen in 2006 on the Czech rails. It was three locomotives of the series 362, two locomotives of the series 363 and a locomotive of the series 151. The color scheme came from the Konting advertising studio.
On 13 September 2006, the locomotive 362121-6  Locomotive (from the Brno depot) was seen at the front of the fast train R 878 Brno - Česká Třebová, Praha near the stop Tatce.

and a fantastic Mucha stamp issued in 2010 in a set of two, commemorating 150 years since his birth !!


now comes a card that I dont know what did it actually go through on its journey, to arrive in such a condition in the end..

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This express steam train dates back to 1917, which for that time was considered as the company's largest and most modern machine and had its last journey somewhere in the mid-60s.

at least the stamps didn't suffer some greater damage....three nice ones...starting from the left, issued in 2010, from the "For the Children" series, here we have a stamp commemorating Helena Zmatlíková, one of the leading Czech female illustrators of children's books.
In the middle there is a Chrysantemum stamp issued in 2011, and at the right we have the Christmas stamp from 2011.


Hope you are holding on, since there are three cards left....

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an official card, showing the CD 715 001 (T426 001) rack diesel locomotive.

a nice stamp issued in 2013 commemorating Franz Kafka on a stamp which portrays a realistic-looking beetle. As a symbol of relentless metamorphosis, not always for the better, the beetle is set in austere, even unsympathetic modules.



Another card from Radim...

...where again you can see the Pendolino...

...and two nice stamps on the back..the one on the left is from the EUROPA issue from 1999 on National Parks, and here you can see the Šumava National Park. The other stamp was issued in 2007 and comes from a fantastic sheet on which the White Carpathian Mountains and Orchid Meadows Unesco Biosphere Reservation. On this particular stamp you can see the Ophrys holosericea.



aaaand as promised few cards above, here comes the last one for today..

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an official card sent by the Raab Family, showing the 310 006 Locomotive..

...which came with three lovely stamps (in case you have followed this post from start till end, maybe you noticed that all the stamps shown were different, no repetitions or such :)).
Anyways, the first stamp is from a set of three Old Aeroplanes, issued in 1996. The middle one was issued in 2003, commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the First Electric Railroad Connection, while the last one is from 2000, showing a train from 1900 with a steam locomotive, service coach and carriages for passengers - it is from the set of two stamps for the Transport issue, comparing the Railway of 1900 and 2000.


so, no more trains for today, promise :D

Beaufort Train Station, Malaysia

Well, since we had the "Missent to Malaysia" above, let's show one from Malaysia now that I received just a few days ago...and that is absolutely fantastic!!

an awesome awesome train card showing the Diesel Multiple Unit Train (powered by on-board diesel engine) at the Beaufort Train Station in Sabah, Malaysia.
A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. They may also be referred to as a railcar or railbus/railmotor, depending on the country.

and this beautiful train card comes with a beautiful matching stamp!! ahh, im just in love with this!!
It comes from a set of  3 stamps issued in 2015, showing Trains in Sabah.

Thanks a lot to Anny for this beauty!!!

Trains at the End of the World, Argentina

Ok, one more post for today...and honestly, I cannot believe it to myself that it has taken me THIS long to post these two cards..I just cannot believe it! I was so thrilled when I received them and remembered them the other day and then it dawned on me that I had never ever posted them...well, until now...FINALLY!


What so special about these besides being trains??
Well, these are the so-called trains from the end of the world...just the thought of it gives me shivers!

Ushuaia is that southernmost tip of South America, which has also been nicknamed "End of the World"
I received both of these cards from dear Viviam, who knowing how much I love trains, decided to surprise me...and send two...just in case one of them didn't arrive...but luckily, both of them did!

The trains here are part of the Southern Fuegian Railway or the Train of the End of the World/ El Tren del Fin del Mundo), which is a 500 mm gauge steam railway in the Argentinian province of Tierra del Fuego. It was originally built as a freight line to serve the prison of Ushuaia, specifically to transport timber. It now operates as a heritage railway into the Tierra del Fuego National Park and is considered the southernmost functioning railway in the world.

the first card bears a sticker, and not much I can say about it :)

on the second card you can see three different locomotives, named
1. Camila (I don't know who this one is named after - all I know is that it was built between December 1994 and February 1995 in Daventry, England ;
2. Ing. H.R. Zubieta (after the father of one of FCAF's directors);
3. Ing. L.D.Porta (named in the the honour of Livio Dante Ponta, an Argentinian steam-locomotive engineer)

(FCAF stands for Ferrocaril Austral Feugo)

a fun fact - there is also a song inspired by this :))))

not really my cup of tea...but well, it goes well with this post....I mean how I don't often come across songs that have been inspired by trains :)

two different stamps on this one...both coming from the same set of 9 stamps issued in 2014, under the title 'The Decade Won' slogan with which the ruling party refered to the period inaugurated by Kirchner’s presidency (2003-2007). The stamps commemorate different kinds of progress achieved during the management of the Argentinean presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner between the years 2003 and 2013.


Thanks a million dear Viviam for the most amazing cards! I love them!!

And wishing you all a nice week ahead and a lot of great postcards in the mailbox! :)

Trains, Hungary

For my last post for today...and for this year actually, I reserved a bunch of train cards from Hungary...and when it comes to train cards, Hungary ranks pretty high on my list, along with Germany, The Netherlands and USA...

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The first one is an official, showing the 100th anniversary of the Börgönd (now part of the Székesfehérvár) Tapolca railway line. The picture side of the postcard shows the railway line skirting the northern shore of Lake Balaton together with miniaturised pictures of postcards of the station buildings of the period. In the stamp design of the postcard (featured below) a steam locomotive and Lake Balaton can be seen.
This is a commemorative postcard, issued by the Magyar post, so it i pretty special :)

as I already said before, that is a stamp design on the postcard (at the very right)...as for the other two stamps - the middle one is from a set of two Fruits stamps issued in 2012 (under the theme 'Cultivated flora of Hungary), and this one here shows us a Pándy sour cherry (among the varieties of sour cherry cultivated in the Carpathian Basin). The other stamp is from a set of 6 furniture stamps issued in 2000 (showing antique chairs).

Among all these cards I have a number that are blank...and of course, have no idea now how they have ended up in my mailbox....this is why I dislike blank cards...I know that when I once visited Budapest, I bought a few...but after all these years, and this hundreds and thousdands of train cards I have, I cant recall exactly which ones are those...anyways, the card above shows a Steam Engine No. 424 287 of MÁV (Hungarian State Railways) in Lajosmizse on Sept. 1st 1988.
Even though I'm a train fanatic, I am NOT an expert....so I cant really go into some further elaboration here besides what's written on the back :)

another blank one....it shows the Talent Electric railcar No. 5342 001-4 of MÁV, and diesel locomotive No. 4062 016-0 of MÁV at Hajdu Co. Ltd on May 20th 2007.

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Official card with a cool ID :) 

It shows the Children's Railway (Gyermekvasút or Line 7), a narrow gauge railway line in Budapest, which connects Széchényi-hegy and Hűvösvölgy and is 11.2 km long. The former name of the line was Úttörővasút (Pioneer Railway, in reference to the communist scouts).Except the train driver, all of the posts are operated by children aged 10–14, under adult supervision. and it is the world's largest Children's Railway.
Ok, now I definitely need to go back to Budapest...this is just way too cool!! 

The stamp on the left was issued in 2009 and it is from a set of two Christmas stamps...the other one was issued in 2006, featuring Illona Sasvarine who won the bronze medal in 1992 in Table Tennis at the Summer Paralymics in Barcelona, Spain. She had unfortunately passed away in 1999, at the age of just 45.

Again a card with the Steam engine no. 424 287, this time with a special train in the summer of 2002.

A card that arrived from a swap with Veronika, featuring the Budapest Cog-wheel Railway, officially called Tram line number 60 (BKV No. 61+51), on 24th of February 1997. 

the stamp was issued in 2012 in a set of two "Health Tourism" stamps, featuring spas. (This one shows the Rudas Baths - thermal baths in Budapest).

from a swap with Frank - problem is the text is covered with stamps so I cannot decipher much...except that the image dates from December 22nd 2003 - so just a bit over 12 years old...so sorry....

it is a 2010 stamp from a set of two from a Joint issue with Iran.

blankie......Joseph Haydn named Siemens Taurus electric locomotive no. 1047 504-4 of ROeEE AG at Győr station on August 18th 2009. P-6400 kW, Vmax = 230km/h 

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One more card from the Children's Railway, an official from Katalin (a DM fan! :D - she is my FB friend as well).
This one here shows the narrow-gauge steam engine no. 490 056 in 2007 in Szépjuhászné. 

and look at that stamp on the top!! an F1 one!!! It was issued in 2010, featuring the 25th Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix!! Thanks sooo much Katalin!!!

Steam Engine no. 22.034 (ex. 275 034) of Hungarian State Railways exhibited in the Hungarian Railway Museum on October 20th 2002.

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and juuuust one more...an official one....showing the Stadler electric railcar No. 5341 001-5 near Komarom on September 4th 2008.

Ok, is it just me, or the Hungarians are like fascinated with dates??!!! I havent noticed such a thing in train cards from other countries, stating exact dates! Or this dates-fascination is when it comes to trains only? I find it odd, but also amusing..

and this last stamp was also issued in 2010, commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Frederic Chopin, 1810-1849.

So people, that would be it...thank you for reading, thank you for dropping by, thank you for sending me postcards...thank you for everything! I hope that 2016 will be more fruitful blog-wise and that I will have the chance to proudly present my small little gems :)

Enjoy your New Year's Eve, wherever you are and whatever you do, and I'll see you next year! A big big big hug to you all!!!!