Farewell 2020 and hello 2021
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The christmas card of The Danish Railway Series2019 was a year with lots of progress on the first book, but how far is the project after 2020?
Another year has passed and what a year it has been. 2020 started like many other years with the flag raised high and the hope of a book kept going. The end of 2019 brought with it the completion of the writing work on Elias the high-speed train and the work of correcting and adapting this continued into 2020. But a Virus had to interfere, and with that I was sent home for a month, which however did not prevent a lot of progress. In addition attending to my education as well as possible, I also saw my chance to get some work done on my projects. In addition to the fact that I had previously completely edited Elias and the high-speed train in March 2020. After this, a collaboration started with a number of volunteer test readers who as some of the first got an insight into the new book that TDRS has been working on since the first edition of the book was withdrawn in 2014.
A work that is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021, after which the last of the story about Dagmar is expected to be written. At the same time, work to illustrate Elias and the highs-speed train is expected to start, a work that is expected to be completed by the end of 2022/23.
In addition, 2020 has proven to be a year full of challenges. Besides a year full of restrictions, several things were going on. Thanks to the extra hours available during the lockdown in March, the drawings for the project "portrait of a danish locomotive" were drawn and made ready for colors, something they did not get in 2020.
 It was the year where there should have been many events, but everything was canceled. However, other things continued under the new restrictions, such as the danish state railways' EA-class from 1984, which in 2020 were taken out of service, after which they were replaced by 3 new Vectron locomotives, which DSB received from Siemens, out of a series on what is to become 42 locomotives.
But there was also time for other things. Due to the closed borders, the holiday had to take place at home this year, and thanks to the government's subsidy for travel passports (special tickets giving unlimited travel for 8 days), a lot of wishes suddenly became possible, which among other things ended in a reunion with Lemvigbanen, which was visited in 2018. A visit to North Zealand to look at regiosprinters and a trip to Gedser to see the railway museum there. Before the visit to Gedser, however, I had been to Struer to see their railway museum there.
After my visit, I was completely amazed at how much the museum had to offer, and it was perhaps not surprising that this year's Christmas greeting/present was given to them.
But not everything went according to plan in 2020. Just as the work progressed on a lot of projects during the fall the computer broke down and soon after my financial situation got worse. When it will come up again is unknown, but the plan is to try to get it up and running again around April. In the meantime, the last work with editing on Elias and the high-speed train will be completed, enabling me to start illustrating once it is up and running again.
2020 was a year that in many ways started out well, but ended in some worse mess. With a new year having just begun, one can only hope that it changes.
From here, at least, a happy new year and a happy 2021 to you all.
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Sebastian Berthelsen |
