December 10. There are two weeks until Christmas and our journey from Humppila continues. We are now at the old station in Jokioinen next to the current Jokioinen town hall where Asematie road currently runs. The houses behind the locomotive's smokebox will help to locate the exact place where the photo was taken. The day is February 27, 1968 and and the temperautre is almost 4 degrees above freezing point. There is more than half a meter of snow on the ground, exactly 51 cm, according to Jokioinen weather statistics.

There are only a few wagons on the freight train standing at Jokioinen station. Behind the JR4 Tubize steam locomotive there are two long Loviisa open goods wagons, which seem to have a load of rolled plastic pipe and also straight pipes. Behind the open wagons there is apparently a heated boxcar number JR67 and aanother boxcar. Those boxcars are probably reserved for the transport of parcels.

In the 1960s, freight trains were usually hauled by Move21 diesel locomotives, but now the JR4 steam locomotive is pulling the train. At the time it was the only running steam locomotive on the Jokioinen railway. It may have been that diesel locomotives were damaged in a level crossing accident at Highway 2 crossing less than a couple of weeks earlier and this forced the firing up of a steam locomotive.

During the previous week there was about 5 cm of new snow, so it may be that a steam-powered plowing train had been run on the line. There is no exact information on this, as plowing data for 1968 is missing from the Forssa snow plow. It may also be that in 1968 a plow stored in Humppila was used instead of the Forssa plow.

A freight train pulled by a steam locomotive sits next to a snow-covered station platform.Freight train pulled by Tubze JR4 steam locomotive at Jokioinen station in winter. Photo: Pekka Viitamäki, 27.2.1968.