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On Sunday 12.8. the first ever harvest market was held at Minkiö station. Local farmer were selling their products on a filed next to Minkiö station. There were a lot of people attending the market although the weather was cloudy. The market day was also the last day of the summer when two trains were running simultaneously. The steam train traffic will continue with one train running every Sunday until end of August. The traditional star light train will be on Saturday evening 22.9.
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The 30th aniversary celebration of Jokioinen Museum Railway will be held on Tuesday August 21. At the Bio Kaari cinema in Forssa there will be an invitation only show of the film "Dream Makers" telling the story of early years of the Jokioinen Museum Railway. The celebration will continue at the Jokioinen Museum Railway. At Minkiö station a train reassembling the first official train in 1971 will depart towards Humppila at 15.30 carrying the invited guests. The train will return to Minkiö at 17.00 when the celebration will end.
On 21.8. 1971 the first museum train of Finland was running on then a private common carrier Jokioinen railway. The last narrow gauge railway in Finland was later saved by small but enthusiastic group of volunteers who later on established Museum Railway Forssa-Humppila association which was later renamed as Museum Railway association. This same association is still today running the museum trains of Jokioinen Museum Railway.
The Jokioinen Museum railway is the only private common carrier narrow gauge railway in Finland. It keeps up the memory of Jokioinen railway opened for traffic in 1898. The remaining track length is 14 km and gauge 750 mm.
Museum trains have been running without interruption on summer Sundays since 1978. The whole railway is maintained and run by fully volunteer labor. The Jokioinen Museum Railway also has the oldest steam locomotive in operation condition in Finland. An old 1909 Tampella locomotive from 1909. Currently a 100 year old H.K. Porter locomotive from Äänekoski-Suolhati railway is under renovation and when finnished will be the oldest running steam locomotive in Finland.
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This year the hot and sunny weather favored the Day of the Museum Railway. There was a large number of visitors following work demonstrations and trying to drive a diesel locomotive. Total of 1500 voyages were made on board steam trains. The work demonstrations included eg. replacing railway sleepers, blacksmith demonstrations and possibility to follow the work of a break man in a moving train.
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This year's Minkiö farmers market had large crowds of visiting people. More than 1000 people visited the market and most of the stallholders ran out of the products just after the noon. The day was also the busiest weekend for the steam trains with more than 1100 voyages made during the day. There will be also a second market at Minkiö station this year. On Sunday 12.8. there will be Minkiö harvest market with farmers selling the summers crop.
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The railway travelling development plan prepaired by the Museum railway Associations is going forward. The municipal board of Jokioinen voted for the plan. Now the aim is to complete the plans so Jokioinen could ask for bids for the project.
Jokioinen is seeking for 850 000 Finnish marks of EU money to develop the museum railway related tourism. The total budget of the project is 1.7 million marks. The Tavastia regional board has accepted the project.
The part of Jokioinen municipality is 250 000 marks and of Humppila municipality 100 000 marks in years 2001 - 2003.
The museum railway is one of the two important travel destinations in Jokioinen, this is the reason the municipality is taking care of the project. The main object of the project is to build a new workshop to service and restore the rolling stock of the railway.
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The Jokioinen-Humppila railway tourism development project has been taken as part of the Southern Finland Objective 2 program. There were also three other projects taken by Tavastia co-operation council as part of Objective 2: Vigsberg suburb project in Forssa, MTT (Finnish Agriresearch) project to productize cow embryos and the Tavastia entrepreneurship project by Tavastia centre of labour and economy.
Within the railway tourism development project Jokioinen is seeking for 850 000 Finnish marks of EU funding to develop the Jokioinen Museum Railway. The total budget of the development project is 1.7 million Finnish marks. The project has been classified as an important local project having also importance in preserving the national cultural heritage.
The most important aim of the project is to create possibilities for around the year work at the railway by constructing a machine shop at Minkiö. This will in future enable the railway to hire permanent employees.
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Construction of the tracks to the new Minkiö work shop building started in the beginning of the summer. This spring we received a 100 000 FIM grant of the Ministry of Transportation to construct the tracks.
The work started by dismantling the old tracks built straight on clay field. The new track will be built properly to enable also heavy steam locomotives to run on them.
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The operating season 2001 of Jokioinen Museum Railway will be opened on Sunday 3.6. 2001 at Jokioinen station. At the event the new information and waiting shelter of Jokioinen will be inaugurated. The building will be open on summer Sundays when trains are running. In the shelter tourists will find information of the tourist destinations in Jokioinen and Humppila. You can get to the opening ceremony by a steam train from Humppila and Minkiö. The parking space at jokioinen is limited so please arrive by train. On the opening day you can also try a hand trolley at Jokioinen station. You can find more information and the timetables at the "Events" page.