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The regional Häme day of 2006 will be organized with Minkiö steam festival on the 29th and the 30th of July 2006. The Regional Council of Häme selected on Monday the 13th of February Minkiö steam festival as the Häme day of 2006 among 25 applicants.
According to the Regional Council the Minkiö steam festival presents the history of countryside and industry e.g.. with steam train trips and work demonstrations with different kind of portable steam engines.
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The Museum Railway Association elected a new board of members for year 2006. The annual meeting of the association was held on Sunday 27th of November at Minkiö Station in Jokioinen.
Teemu Virtanen (29) from Lahti will continue as the chairman of the board for a second one year period. Tuomas Myllylä (24) from Vantaa is the new secretary of the association and a new board member is Tapani Havia (28) from Vihti. All the other old board members will continue on the board.
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The Minkiö Steam Festival on Sunday 31st of July was a great success! Total of 1800 people visited the one day festival, which makes the festival the biggest selling event at Jokioinen Museum Railway. The steam festival was organized together with Kiipu village association and different steam and gasoline engine groups.
The stars of the festival were five old portable steam engines in operation. The engines were powering e.g. an old Sampo threshing machine (in picture above), a circular saw, a hay pole sharpening machine. I addition there were several running portable gasoline engines in operation.
The festival was also first day of operation in scheduled traffic for the newly renovated ex-Äänekoski-Suolahden railway 1901 H.K.Porter steam locomotive. The H.K. Porter pulled a special train for invited guests from Minkiö to Jokioinen and back. The locomotive had been presented to press the Monday before. All together there were four steam engines running and five on display on that day.
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The ex Äänekoski-Suolahden Railway H.K. Porter steam locomotive made its first moves at Minkiö depot on Saturday evening 18. of June at about 18.30 after standing still almost 40 years. Test runs at Minkiö station continued for about an hour. Also first tests to pull a train were made when the locomotive moved a six carriage long train.
The runs went well and the over 100 years old locomotive worked quite well. There were some minor steam leaks and one of a bearings of a rear wheel set heated up a little bit. However this bearing problem leveled out when test runs continued the following day.
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The ex Ääänekoski-Suolahden Railway H.K. Porter locomotive which has undergone a very long renovation was steamed up for the first time in 39 years on Saturday the 11th of June. The locomotive which has been in steam last time in 1966 had the fire lighted up at 9 o'clock Saturday morning and it was by early afternoon the steam pressure was at maximum of 12 kg/m2.
The heating of a locomotive built in 1901 in the United States went fine according to the Chief Mechanician Juha-Pekka Viitanen. Some difficulties came of the broken o-ring gasket of the right hand side cylinder which made it impossible to make a test run with the locomotive. There were similar problems already more than hundred years ago when the locomotive was first tested at Äänekoski-Suolahden Railway. The new date for the test run will be on the second half of June.
The locomotive will be taken in use at the Minkiö Steam Festival on Sunday 31st of July. Then the public has a possibility to take footplate rides in the locomotive.
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The American made H.K. Porter steam locomotive undergoing a long overhaul and renovation at Jokioinen Museum Railway passed hydro tests on Tuesday 24.5. After this operational tests and tuning of the locomotive can be started. The H.K. Porter locomotive was built in the United States of America in 1901 and it served all its life at Äänekoski-Suolahden Railway. The locomotive will be taken in service during the Minkiö Steam festival on Sunday 31.7. 2005. People will then have a possibility to take footplate rides on board the oldest operational steam locomotive in Finland.
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The Museum Railway Association has elected a board for 2005. The annual autumn meeting of the association was hold at Minkiö on Sunday the November 27th.
Teemu Virtanen (28) from Lahti is continuing as a president of the association. Tuomas Myllylä (24) from Vantaa was elected as a new secretary and Tapani Havia (28) from Vihti as a new board member. Other board members were re-elected.
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The track work started in September to correct and level track in worst places was completed in October. Jokioinen Museum Railway received earlier this year a 30 000 € grant from the Ministry of communications and transport for track maintenance. The track work was contracted to VR-Rata Oy.
At the same time with the track work also few small stone culverts have been renovated. During the years the frost has been moving stones and braking culverts. In the renovation the stones have been put back in their place and structure of culverts has been protected against further humidity and frost damages.
Railway ties on a bridge cross river Jänhijoki were replaced on one volunteer weekend. Old ties from the 1980's started to be at the end of their life span. The brand new ties were donated by Finnish Rail Administration RHK.
In September and October new ballast was added in many places on the Humppila-Jokioinen main line. The work was done using ex-VR broad gage gravel hopper put on top of narrow gage transportation flat.