[SEL] European Hell On Wheels Tour 2009

[George Best]

In 2007, I took four collectors with me and we joined my friend Harry who
lives in Holland. We had a 10 day tour which included the Nuenen engine show
as well as visited somewhere between 22 to 24 engine collections of which
almost all where private collections. We visited collections in Holland,
Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland.

On the last tour, Lauren Langdon, Wayne Thackery, Buzz Stetler, and Les
Layton went with me. If you've talked to any of these guys after the tour
I'm sure they had nothing but good things to say about the quality of the
engines we saw.

I've been hesitant about offering to lead another tour group as the first
one went so well and would be impossible to ever duplicate. Plus the group
fit so well together as we all knew each other and had traveled together.

Originally I was thinking that this year Harry and I would just attend the
Nuenen show and then travel together and try to visit some new collections.
However, Harry asked me yesterday what I thought about doing a tour group
again.

I'm somewhat open to doing a tour again if we can get 4 guys that travel as
well as the last group.

This is NOT a Wendel's engine tour! This is a hard core hell on wheels tour,
which means a lot of traveling and a lot of collections crammed into a short
period of time. We rented a 9 passenger van which worked out great for 6
guys to travel in, so no big tour bus.

I have no idea which collections we will visit this year. I know that we'll
revisit some of our favorite collections we saw in 2007, plus revisit some
collections from prior trips Harry and I have made, plus try to add some new
collections that none of us has seen yet.

If you're interested in this type of a tour, let me know. No guarantee that
we'll do a tour group, just wondering who would want to go and if there is
enough interest.

George