The following stop on my tour of Finland was Liperi. It was early afternoon, we were hungover as hell and slowly making our way back towards Helsinki through all possible places in Northern Karelia. It was scorching hot, so we stopped to buy some cold drinks in the local store.
The whole village smelled of smoke. At first we were concerned, that my summer car had caught fire. But then I remembered a news item I had read just last week.
Nine days earlier the mill of Liperi had burned down. The building had caught fire in the middle of the night and was pretty much destroyed. The owners were wondering, whether to continue or not.
This hadn’t been the first time. The mill had originally been founded in 1906 and burned down in 1927. They built a new mill, which grew larger and larger until another fire destroyed it in 1961.
A new mill was quickly built. It served local farmers for 59 years before being destroyed. Of course we took a detour to have a look.
We didn’t go closer, but it was evident from this far out, that the destruction was total. The mill was demolished and closed down for good. New plans to build housing on the lot are currently emerging.
And actually my April fools day joke this year was, that I’m taking part in an auction to buy an old locomotive, have it transported on this lot and start a summer café in it. Several of my friends believed that I was dead serious.
“[…] buy an old locomotive, have it transported on this lot and start a summer café in it. […]
When I was a young girl, I wanted to have my very own locomotive. Now as an adult, I own an old farm in the middle of nowhere and have enough room to conceivably keep a locomotive on rails here on my property. The problem is that although non-functional locomotives can be had for the cost of scrap metal here in the United States, the cost transporting them makes acquiring them cost prohibitive.
My wife and I have settled on having G-scale model trains instead, though nothing can possibly compare to the real thing. A girl can dream, right??? 😉
The state railway operator actually sells 10 decommissioned locomotives this spring in an auction. Starting prize is around 9000 euros each, but the transport costs quickly multiply that.
I personally have a rather large collection of airplanes. In a 1/600 scale, of course!