In May 2012 the author, David Dunton, joined a railway enthusiast tour to Latvia. In Latvian Railways Recalled he documents the trip, which involved more than a hundred rail enthusiasts enjoying a week of good fun and friendship on the railways of Latvia.
The tour was based first in Riga, then Ventspils, Liepāja and Daugavpils, before returning to Riga. Each day the tour party travelled in a four-coach train chartered from the Latvian Railways (LDZ) and over the days the chartered train was hauled by a variety of locomotives. Highlights of the tour included visits to the private narrow gauge railway, Aluksne Banitis, and its depot at Gulbene; the Mazbanitis narrow gauge railway at Ventspils; a visit to the LDZ Locomotive Depot at Daugavpils; as well as a brief trip over the border into Lithuania. As the train travelled over the railway system there were plenty of photo and service stops, resulting in an interesting selection of photographs showcasing the various traction seen. The presence of the tour party and their chartered train aroused plenty of interest from the locals as they travelled around the country; not many Latvians being used to rail enthusiasts and not often used to seeing passenger trains on the freight lines the tour covered.
118 colour photographs and 6 maps. 80 pages