Società Veneta Ferrovie.

Here it is, for your convenience, one of the picture that I left out of the previous post:



Point 207 with its signal with what should be the only oil lamp in use in a yard (other collectors have working signals with oil lamp, but they are in private collections and not on display). And that was last Friday night. But why all that work on Friday? We had the yearly members meeting in Primolano last Saturday, the day before the first Open Day of the 206 season. But this one was special member meeting. It happened that silently - I confess, I forgot it too - while we were running our last Cabina A Open Day, SVF turn 20 years old and last Saturday meeting was indeed an important one with the celebration of the 20th society birthday.



Here is our team for the society birthday picture, with the 880.001 on the turntable together with several members (your author is the third from the right) .

And now a picture of our water crane with the complete signal light, whit the red side to show where the crane arm protrudes on the rails.



Friday night ...



Saturday morning



lamp detail.

Another steamy picture from Saturday morning:



On Sunday we had our first Open Day event with the usual crowd of happy visitors. And here are a couple of pictures from Sunday:



Early Sunday Morning, the passenger coaches were inside the shed as some volunteer slept inside them on camp bed;



An unusual picture of our 80.001, facing the inside of the shed, taken from one of our eldest member, Francesco, skilled train photographer who delighted me with his shot of the Chinese QJs,

 

Visitors of last Sunday Open Day:



the lady in the picture is a veteran military nurse, an Iraqi veteran, even if the uniform is from WWI.

[Update: the uniform is that of of WWI military pharmacist - woman -. The ribbons, on the other side, are not historically accurate. Those are the ribbons of the wearer herself, mosltly service awards, earned, among the others, in Kosovo and Iraq, where she served as lieutenant with special duties]

Two of my grandmother sister wore the nurse uniform, but on the other side, they were Armee Schwestern in the Royal-Imperial army. One of them enlisted with top quality counterfeit documents (my grand grand father was then Arco di Trento major ) because she was too young. One brother joined the army as military doctor and another was drafted. The rest of the family was displaced/deported (let's say they were under forced residence), a bit too much Italian for the Austrian-Hungarian empire in 1915.

 

@Saint - was that you pedalling a trolley and waving a flag while the Giro went past today?

(Tried to get a screenshot but the technology is not playing ball I’m afraid).

Tom

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CacgXC5dw/

 

YES, these are Nicolò (red station master[1] hat and red flag) and me.
[1] Nicolò is a professional station master serving in RFI station of Portogruaro, is known for always wearing his uniform with pride. In Primolano he uses an heritage uniform not for cosplay but because he is the one managing all the shunting and running in the yard during the Open Days.

We also did the Giro d'Italia Instagram page, with about 50k views and several comments, good for us!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DY4qCrnMlsx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

One thing: yes, when the helicopter got us I was not pedalling (my apologies to Nicolò!). The draisine has fixed gear so, when the left foot lost grip on the pedal - due speed and shoes soles - I was unable to catch back the fast spinning pedal and after a brief attempt to go "single legged" (very uncomfortable and not this effective, I fear) I kept my legs far from the spinning pedals until the draisine stopped for the reverse. Then I resume my pushing work.

A tale of the day

When it was clear that the Giro d'Italia was not going to simply climb the "Scale di Primolano", a 2.4 km road that gains 129 meters in height with 8 hairpin bends, an average slope of 5.% (max 7.8%), but also pass along the museum yard, turn back in front of the railway station and Valsugana hotel, our president contacted the TV providing informations about the museum, and we late discovered that this granted us some minutes of coverage in the comments (see below). The original plan was to just pull some rolling stock out of the shed, lay some banner and hope that the helicopters will catch that for a brief appearance on TV. Then Nicolò had the idea to ride the draisine and I joined gladly, going back and forth. With Luca "The Sentry[2]" in the Sogliola cab on watch to warn us for the arrival of the helicopters, we moved back and forth and then here are the helicopters! Engines full forward, the draisine sprints forward, Nicolò waving the red flag, and we notice that the helicopters starts spinning around, but yet we are unaware of the results. The helicopters leave, all the riders have reached Fastro, first village on the Feltre Upland, we return to the shed and dismount. And Giovanni receives a message on the phone, with a short video of what passed on TV...




and then happines exploded! This is a completely exhausted Nicolò that gathers some strength for the celebration,

And now, the adverstising leaflet for the next Open Day is that:



Full TV coverage of the bicycle race on RaiPlay: https://www.raiplay.it/video/2026/0....html?wt_mc=2.www.cpy.raiplay_vid_GirodItalia. go to 1:06:00 - only Italian language, but the landscape is beautiful, there's a reason why the location is recorded as Rivendell in my car GPS navigator .

But that day something sad happened:



Mr. Resio Salvan died while riding toward the end of the course of that very same stage. And Nicolò took the last image we have of Resio happy. It was sad for Nicolò to discover that, but he gave Resio a bit of happiness built a something that will help remembering that nice old amateur cyclist.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Back to last Open Day.

One of our visitors was Mr. Pietro Bersani, who runs a YouTube channel where he covers old agricultural equipment, included steam tractors end engines. He went to Primolano to create this fine documentary:



And warning, I will appear in it, so you have been warned