Portugal Alcos July 1995
How I wish this builders plate was in my collection... While visiting the Iberian peninsula (a fancy way of saying Spain and Portugal) my then girlfriend (now wife) and I decided to take an overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon to take in the sights and sounds of that part of the world. In truth my ulterior motive was to see the streetcars in Lisbon and see if in fact the reported existence of RSC-3 in commuter service was correct. The train ride was very comfortable and I slept well on the trip with the train pulled by a 333 class locomotive, basically an export cowl version SD40-2 for Spanish service. The equipment rode on wheels designed to work on both Spanish and Portuguese railways as the two had slightly different gauges. This was a relict of the European approach of every country having different gauged track to slow down their invasion by foreign forces. Somewhere between Madrid and Lisbon we swapped locomotives and we arrived in Lisbon behind a CP...