Who’d have thought it? Over five years after finding his last train, Goobie finds another one! His Great Train Hunt continues.

Goobie’s Great Train Hunt began seven years ago when we moved to Cyprus with our train-obsessed three-year-old son. Our only problem was that we’d moved to an island without a railway. But we soon realised that Cyprus has a rich history and is full of hidden treasures – including locomotives.

After a trip to the Cyprus Railways Museum in Evrychou, we discovered that there did used to be railways in Cyprus. The Cyprus Mining Corporation (CMC) used trains to transport ore and minerals. And there was the Cyprus Government Railway, a passenger service that ran from Famagusta in the east to Evrychou in the west.

Dotted around Cyprus are relics from its locomotive past and Goobie has been finding – and naming – them.

First up was the Alice Express, a mine train that sits on a bridge outside Kalavasos, a village in the Larnaca district. We frequently stop by and say hello on the way to Nicosia or the Mazotos Camel Park.

Next was Mr No. 1 Engine, a Cyprus Government Railway loco that lives outside Famagusta’s old railway station.

Then there was Port-Yet, the mine train who lives in the heart of Lefka village and entertains the children who visit the park next door. He was found after a potentially hazardous day of loco hunting with Goobie’s grandparents.

Goobie found Michelangelo sitting on a little hill along the Nicosia-to-Kyrenia road. He’s Port-Yet’s twin, a fellow CMC mine train.

And lastly there was Hair-Red, named ‘because he’s red, Mummy.’ Goobie found Hair-Red in November 2016 in a park on the northern outskirts of Morphou. He’s a CMC steam train and the biggest engine Goobie had found.

Since November 2016, nothing. But we’d been left with a nagging feeling that there was more to find. 

On the day we found Port-Yet we had actually been in the Germikonagi area (south of Morphou) looking for the larger mine trains that were apparently there. On the internet we’d found old photos of entire trains on an abandoned CMC industrial site. Goobie was desperate to find them. We searched high and low, visited derelict jetties, climbed piles of ore, drove around slag heaps but found nothing. Where had these trains gone?

A few years passed and in September 2019 some readers of this blog messaged me to ask for directions to Hair-Red, the engine in the Morphou park. Like us, they had a train-obsessed child who was keen to see the loco. 

A week later they messaged back to tell me that not only had they found Hair-Red, they’d also found entire trains that we’d never seen! Could these be the trains that had mysteriously disappeared all those years ago? 

Covid happened and we weren’t able to get to the north side of the island for ages. And when we finally could, we rushed back to our favourite haunts, greeting them like missed friends.

Then out of the blue a few weeks ago, Goobie remembered the mysterious trains and we hatched a plan to track them down. 

Gathering together our Covid paperwork, we set off for Troodos, heading up to Trimiklini, over the spine of the mountains and down into the Solea Valley. We drove past Kakopetria and stopped for a brief hello at the Cyprus Railways Museum in Evrychou.

Our plan was to use the Lefka border crossing for the first time. It’s one of the newest crossings and wasn’t open when we last went to Morphou in 2019. It isn’t well signposted but we found it on Google Maps and drove through a hidden valley to reach it. 

A word of warning: don’t use this border crossing if you haven’t got car insurance to go north (you need different insurance for the north). We’d assumed you could buy it there, like at the other crossings, but you can’t. We were turned back and had to drive thirty minutes in the wrong direction to the Astromeritis border crossing instead. 

From the Astromeritis crossing, we drove straight to Morphou, said hello to Hair-Red and then headed south-west along the Morphou Bay coast road. This stretch of coastline has a unique atmosphere. It feels forgotten. There are signs that it used to be an important industrial area but things have been left to crumble. Despite being on the central western side of the island, it feels remote, cut off geographically by the tall mountains, cut off politically by the Green Line. 

In the distance we spotted the old jetty used for loading ore from the Cyprus Mining Corporation trains onto the boats. Now it has been left to slowly fall into the sea. 

We drove closer and parked, walking past an old CMC museum, long since closed. We rounded the corner of a veg shop and there it was. A magnificent diesel train.

We’d found one of the missing trains! And it was massive. Bigger than anything else we’d seen on the island. It wasn’t just long with its three enormous wagons, it was tall. It would have towered over Hair-Red.

This train had definitely not been there when we’d searched for it in 2016. All we’d found back then was Tid, the steam boat, sitting next to the jetty. Where had this train been hiding? 

Goobie was elated and set about exploring the new discovery. And this time he had an extra someone to share his excitement with – his four-year-old brother Herc, who hangs off his every word. 

The diesel engine’s guts were on display and we examined its internal gubbins closely, pretending we knew exactly what we were looking at. The Alice Express has her guts painted red, but there were no obvious signs of any preservation on this train. Like everything else in the area, it was being left to rust. 

Goobie and I climbed up into the engine cab and Matt passed Herc up to me. Beware! The floor is missing in places and there’s a drop to the rails beneath. The perfect place for a four-year-old then.

The control panel was still there, its gauges rusting behind broken glass.

There was a workable lever that allowed Goobie and Herc to take turns driving the train (backwards into the sea, but who cares?).

And while they drove the train, I took photos of Things That Looked Interesting. Like this control box thing, presumably once containing things of a dieselly nature that would have helped this massive engine move. 

I knew what this thing was. It was a light. Gold star for me. 

We all hopped down from the cab (ha!) and walked the length of the train, looking at the three massive wagons that would have carried ore from the nearby mine. 

The train was sitting on a length of rail that jutted out over the edge of a slope that led down to the sea. Next to it was its CMC team mate, the jetty. 

‘What are you going to call this loco, Goobie?’ I asked, walking back to the engine. 

Herc ran up to Goobie and took his hand. ‘Herc can decide,’ Goobie said. It was a gesture of unparalleled generosity.

‘Herc! What are you going to call the train?’

‘Ummm, TORMADO!’ 

We all laughed. ‘Tormado’ is a mispronunciation of ‘Tornado’, the name of a famous UK steam train that Herc had taken his first train journey on. 

But ‘Tormado’ stuck and that is now its name forever. Lucky Tormado.

We said goodbye to Tormado and drove off, wondering what had happened to this train during its missing years and why it had been resurrected. Wondering how many other missing trains there were out there. Left to rot. Left for us to find.