A card from the June 2010 RR, from Wesley. The train is part of a museum in the eastern part of the Netherlands. This is the largest museum railway line in the Netherlands. The museum actually *is* the railway line, and you can ride on the train! The national railroad company used this railway line to transport freight up until the 1980s. It was preserved as an industrial monument of the peat moor country through which it runs, opening as a museum in 1992, and carrying passengers from 1994.
The railway operates on a regular schedule for museum visitors, and also hosts special events. For example, on November 26 and 27, St. Nicholas and his assistant Zwarte Piet will be riding the train.
This would not fly in the U.S. Apparently blackface, and Santa having a black slave sidekick, is not considered racist in the Netherlands.
Great stamps! The top two stamps are both from a set issued in 2001 for National Book Week, entitled "Between Two Cultures." The one on the left is a quote from E. du Perron, an influential Dutch poet of Eurasian descent, and the one on the right is a photograph taken by Ulay. That one on the bottom is from 1972 - wow!
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