MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom

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culture
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Territorial claim
With such a collection, it is hardly surprising
that Poul Thestrup and his team are doing
everything they can to try and fi nd more
space. A former 12 metre high depot with
a swing bridge would seem ideal for housing
trains and 5,000 m 2 might appear a suffi cient
amount of space. But trains are particularly
greedy when it comes to space…
“If we formed a single convoy with all our
locomotives, wagons and cars, it would
stretch for 3.7 km!” exclaims Poul Thestrup.
“Some of our trainsets are 68 metres long…
It’s an incredible challenge housing them.”
This is why most of the 250 items of rolling
stock are held in different depots scattered
throughout the country. With tenacity,
the museum’s director is deploying his
strategy: “Slowly but surely, the museum
is growing. As a subsidiary of the DSB,
it has gradually occupied the entire depot
at Odense and now extends beyond
the buildings. We were recently successful
in what we have called ‘our last territorial
claim’: an acquisition of land that adjoins
the depot but which does not belong
to the Danish railway company. We have
already laid track which will make it possible
to bring in rolling stock and we are on
the point of obtaining permission to build
a 16 metre high exhibition hall.”
The continuous enrichment of the existing
collection motivates this desire to expand:
when a locomotive or a car is withdrawn
from service, the museum has fi rst refusal,