Wife and I are thinking about retiring to mainland Europe in a few years. Make our money last longer than here in the U. S.

Where could I find a list of places that would welcome a semi-knowledgeable helper? Mechanical engineer, built a live steamer, decent machinist.

Not interested in the British Isles; their taxes are too high there too.

Any and all replies and re-directs most welcome. Thanks in advance, Kimball

You might try the narrow gauges in Germany, especially the state of Saxonia. (If you speak any foreign languages, that could influence your choice.)
Some of the better known ones : Die Harzer Schmalspurbahnen (see RyPN articles section), Lossnitzgrundbahn, Weiseritztalbahn, Fichtelburgbahn, Dolnitzbahn, and Pressnitztalbahn. In Austria you might try the roundhouse museum in Amflwang. Best of luck to you.

Language is a major factor. If you don't speak the language, you may be limited in your involvement. You can't be train crew if you don't speak the language. Meetings will be held in the native language, member newsletters, etc. There may be insurance issues in the workshop if you don't understand safety instructions.

Moving to a country with high English skills at first seems like a solution, but the burden for you to learn the language is then even higher, because it is so easy for folks to speak to you in English, you will not get any practice.

There are active railway preservation groups in all the EU lands, many of them located near beach land. Mallorca has an active preservation group and a slow effort to return a tank engine to steam - all their material is in Spanish.

You will not find many of these with a Google search, because most do not have English websites.

If you can consider elsewhere besides mainland Europe, let me suggest India. They have a large number of RR museums there and most of the population really like their train history.

English is an official language there and nearly everyone you meet will speak English fairly fluently. Many expats have located in India for retirement. Watch the 2011 movie "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" for a take on how British retirees move to places that are warm and friendly and less expensive.

Stream Good Karma Hospital also..... some local railway footage included (but shot in Sri Lanka to save a few quid..)

Kimball,

you may better look beyond the EU.

Some EU countries do not make your money last longer, and worse - EU environmental regulations may soon hinder or stop any steam trains, even if the number of active steam museum railways now seems like a paradise compared to the US. "Steam-wise", England may be the better place, as their railways still have a good reputation in the British society, and nowhere on Earth you will find so many railway associations as in England.

Financially, south-east European countries may be some good places to live, but you absolutely need to speak the national languages nearly anywhere you go.

The German narrow-gauge lines cited here are running professionally on a daily basis and have fully paid staff. Yet not sure if they still be allowed to run in, say, five or six years. Hope to be wrong. Nothing is sure nowadays, but if you want to have steam in the future, from today's perspective it may be better to stay out of the over-regulated EU. They seem to be eager to hinder all white man's pleasures where they can.

Mike

Holy racism in the above post...

So I found many railroad groups very welcoming to foreigners. I have lived in Germany and Italy and TDY for long stays in Poland, Spain, Greece, and Romania.
Speaking the national language is important, but if you're working on it, I found most groups amenable to the language learning foreigner who shows up. I would say unless your B or C in language skill you'll never run the equipment in revenue service, but I've put on plenty of coats of paint, run a weed whacker, gave my opinion on track conditions (I was certified on 213 rules, the leaders of the museum wanted a comparative study of track conditions).

I got a lot of fellowship in this, told rail stories in a mix of English, German and Spanish. I learned a lot of local language through this as well.

If it was me for long term I think I would head to Poland, lots of steam, families love taking their kids to it and there is excellent knowledge of English.

Poland might have bigger fish to fry than accommodating American retirees…

If you want to go to an English-speaking country where there are a number of train museums and active preservation movements, why not Australia? (Not Austria)

On a positive note, foreign income is not taxed there. Your Social Security and other pension sources are safe from that. No winter weather to deal with.

Downer: Australia is a very expensive place in which to live, much more so than the USA. you will need at least $5000 a month in disposable income to ensure a modest lifestyle there.

You might consider Holland, where English is taught in all their schools, because, as they say, Dutch isn't widely spoken elsewhere.

There are certainly preservation opportunities Down Under, such as Steam Ranger, the National Railway Museum in Adelaide and others.

Unfortunately, it pains me to say that COVID-19 brought out the worst in Australian society. I would not move there.

BH

As an alternative to Australia, what about New Zealand? An interesting version of English spoken there and they seem to have controlled COVID pretty well. Not sure about their immigration policies, nor do I know about railroad preservation organizations. I seem to recall that they had some narrow gauge 4-8-2's and 4-8-4's in service there at one time. Not sure about other stuff.

Les

New Zealand is the "upper class" version of Australia. They do indeed have quite a steam program. A few years ago I met one of the gentlemen who manages the Kingston Flyer, and he gave me a small book about it --- at that time they had FOURTEEN operable engines of many types 4-8-4, 4-8-2, 2-8-4, 4-6-2, 4-6-0, and a Bagnalls 0-6-0T. This is in a country of 2 million, while Denver, Colorado has about two million population, but NOT ONE operable main line steam locomotive. I couldn't honestly say how welcome an American would be there. All you can do is go check it out for yourself.

English is pretty much the universal second language of most EU countries, and I would think that any of the preserved lines there would have some folks who are more or less English speaking. If you try to learn their local language, they would most likely help you, and you could help them with English.

You can search foreign RRs on the net using their (foreign language) name. This will bring up results in that language, but many of these RRs have an English translation button on their webpage. Those lines would probably be better places to try if you only speak English.

Of course, there will be a different path to follow, depending on if you seek paid employment, or volunteer opportunities. In either case, you'll just have to talk to the locals. Anybody who can't directly assist you might very possibly know of someplace else you could try, but the only way to really know is go there and explore for yourself.

Once again, best of luck to you, and please report on your experiences here.

.

I can endorse both Australia and New Zealand in terms of quantity and variety of programming and being more like the Brits than us Yanks - still very interested in history and steam. Between the two, Australia is more likely to feel comfortable to us. Don't forget, you won't have health care expenses or insurance to contend with and the safety net is larger and more robust. They do make you stay and qualify for citizenship before taking you in..... New Zealand being another smaller island nation has a more British feel than Australia, which the Kiwis refer to as the West Island.