several years ago this country practically didn't exist on the museum-railway map of Europe, and steam-thirsty Czechs visited our locomotives sheds and lines en masse. It's not surprising, as towards the end of the 1970's then-Czechslovakia was one of the first among the so-called „Peoples' Democracies” to completely eliminate steam traction from service. The few locomotives kept as museum exhibition pieces in general weren't fit for operation, and such notions as a „working railway museum” or „plandampf” were for Czech railway enthusiasts the height of abstraction. Today the situation has turned around the proverbial 180 degrees. For several years Czech museum railways have experienced a real boom. Many steam locomotives and pieces of rolling stock have been rebuilt for service. The number and quality of events (most often „plandampfs”) are slowly equalling those in Germany. It's not surprising then, that large groups of fans of old railways are traveling there from the entire world (exactly like they did to Poland in earlier years...). Our editorial colleague Darek Brodowski was also at one of these events, and the results of his visit you may see on pages 18÷25.

We invite our readers to visit the station and closed locomotive depot in Godkow - a place forgotten by God, people, and... railway enthusiasts. Once this was an important junction on the Nadodrzanski Main Line, and the shop then hosted, amongst others, the mighty Ty51 freight machines as well as the handsome Prussian Oi1's. Times of splendour for steam traction passed; times of splendour for the Nadodrzanski Main Line passed; in general, times of splendour for our railway passed. The junction of Godkow became deserted. Brush and grass cover the trackwork, and the empty locomotive shed is haunted by a cemetery-like silence. Hobbyists from Szczecin remembered the forgotten junction when they traveled there in their diesel railcar, SN61-183. Thanks to them we can present you with a view of Godkow as it is today, and use the occasion to recall several historical facts as well as a little data about the steam locomotives once stationed in Godkow.

We present an extensive report on one of the four Upper Silesian sand mines. Though the mines in Szczakowa and Kotlarnia are well-known to railway enthusiasts due to their use of steam locomotives until the 1990's, the two others were until now in a shadow with regard to hobbyist interest. Perhaps this state of things is changing, due to the large number of ET21 electric locomotives still in use there. These locomotives are already a genuine rarity on the PKP. Also deserving merit are the old types of coal wagons still in use, heavy TEM2 diesel locomotives as well as the unique, unrepeatable atmosphere of industrial railways.

We're already at the last part of our series of advice for railway modelers wanting their models and layouts to reflect an appearance extremely close to that of the original. This time we occupy ourselves with methods of weathering miniature rolling stock. At model railway exhibitions and in home display cases, in almost 100 out of 100 cases we can see model rolling stock unblemished and clean as though „fresh from the factory”. With some top-link passenger stock or electric locomotives, or, generally speaking, models isolated in display cases, such a state of affairs can be understood; the case of such models displayed working on a layout, however, stands out as an unnatural appearance. This particularly applies to steam locomotives and freight stock, the prototypes of which are as a rule extremely dirty. And even stock used on top-link services, electric locomotives, and diesel locomotives are also in reality not sterile and clean (due to rust from brake shoes, grease). We make suggestions and methods for bringing models to a realistic appearance on pages 60÷69.