Meet your tour leaders:
Werner Schorn & Gunnar Holmqvist
Werner Schorn
Gunnar Holmqvist"Werner, you are special. You were spectacular. Everything was wonderful. So many trains. So much culture that was offered on this trip. I wouldn't change a thing."
- A. Cain of California, Harz Mountains, 2001 with Werner SchornThe Society of International Railway Travelers' is proud to welcome back to our tour-leading staff two professionals who are handling our European tours. Each serves a very important role on our tours, and together, they provide a dynamite combination of incredible knowledge about rail and the culture - and professional, friendly service. This is what makes our tours stand out from all the rest. They are designed for the railfan traveling alone or traveling with a non-railran. Every detail has been considered. Join us! They will be leading both the Austria and the Swiss tours.
Our rail specialist is Werner Schorn, of Bonn, Germany. Mr. Schorn, 49, has been involved with railroad tourism for 30 years. He is director of a private railway company in Germany, which takes hundreds of railfans on great trips throughout the region. He has extensive experience leading group railroad trips through Europe, especially in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, as well as in the U.S. He enjoys many contacts in the Swiss and German rail bureaucracies, which have been of major help in pulling off our complicated itineraries and in making arrangements with special speakers and rail officials in all the countries we visit. He is a long-time railfan and also has had an interesting media career. Besides working in radio, he once served as host for the German version of "The Price is Right," training in Hollywood with Bob Barker!
Mr. Schorn knows the areas we will be traveling to like the back of his hand and is gracious, kind and fun to talk to. He is married and the father of a 16-year-old daughter, Stephanie, who has enjoyed joining her father on several of his rail trips to America. As he says, "I know what the railfans want." He stands 6 feet, 4 inches tall; you won't miss him when he meets you at the airport with our IRT sign! He speaks English, as well as his native German.
Mr. Schorn will be joined by another popular tour leader, Gunnar Holmqvist, of Stockholm, Sweden. Mr. Holmqvist, who works with American Express travel in Sweden, has led tours all over Europe. On past IRT tours, our members have praised his gracious, unflappable nature, no matter what the problem to be solved or the wonderful city to explore. He knows everything from the history of the town you're visiting to the trees you're flying by on the train.
Mr. Holmqvist is our cultural and natural specialist. He is knowledgeable about all aspects of history, geography and culture of all the regions our European tours cover. He will be of special interest to the non-railfans who might be on our journeys, as he will be taking anyone who wishes on optional excursions to explore cultural and shopping delights of the regions we visit. For example, we have planned for Mr. Holmqvist to take a group to the Picasso Museum in Lucerne while the railfans take in the Swiss Transportation Museum.
Mr. Holmqvist holds a masters degree in French both from the Swedish University of Lund and from Besancon, where he spent a year at the Institute of Linguistics. He is fluent in French, German and English. He also speaks Italian.
"I cannot say too much in praise of Werner and Gunnar; two very special guys! They had us, and the trip, covered like a blanket."
- C. Mount of Pennsylvania, who traveled with Schorn and Holmqvist to Switzerland in 2001
Please call us with questions, bookings:
800-IRT-4881
www.irtsociety.com
Send us e-mail with comments or questions
