InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "YEAH! OKAAAY!"

gingertart50 (gingertart50) wrote,
@ 2008-12-14 20:00:00

Current mood:

enthralled

Call me a soppy old romantic....
..... but I think she's beautiful. She's big, she's magnificent and very powerful (and very young) and I am determined to see her one day, and if I'm feeling rich enough, travel in her wake. She's an A1 Peppercorn called 'Tornado' and she is proof that people can have a dream and make it come true. She's here, taking the evening commuters at Durham station totally by surprise.

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	inamac 2008-12-14 03:11 pm UTC (link)
	Oh isn't she lovely! Real trains are steam driven (like real cars have running boards), never mind when they were built. (Reply to this) (Thread)

gingertart50
2008-12-14 03:21 pm UTC (link)

I couldn't agree more! This clip here almost makes me cry. I remember standing on that footbridge with my mother and brother, watching the Bristol to Paddington express charging along the through line, in the 1960s. I love the doppler effect of the whistle and the station announcer getting it wrong - far too late with his warning - and the exclamations of surprise at the end in the local accent.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	inamac 2008-12-14 03:33 pm UTC (link)
	You would think, woudn't you, that having had to hand-clean the inside of a steam engine tank with wire brushes (I once had a boyfriend who collected steam engines and vintage buses) the romance would have worn off? But I still treasure my steam-drawn Pullman journey to Bath. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

gingertart50
2008-12-14 04:36 pm UTC (link)

He he! My husband helped to build the deviation on the Ffestiniog railway, and he now runs a website about the Welsh Highland Railway. Every single holiday for the last - oh 15 years? - has been to Beddgelert to video/photograph/walk over/discuss/write about the railway. Lucky for me I like Welsh forests....

(Somewhere in here are old pictures of me crossing/walking alongside/lurking on railways. *nods*)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

\O/ steam power!

slashpine
2008-12-14 07:45 pm UTC (link)

Good lord, we should have an HP railfans comm. My love for all things train - especially but not just steam - comes from my brother, who never lost the love that began with the HO model train for Christmas. He's ended by, at various times, writing railroad books and articles, owning a RR, editing Trains magazine, and managing rail construction projects here in the US and overseas.

(Also interestingly, he's one of the rail-fanboys who began doing early vids back in the early 80's, much like media-fandom vids - innumerable shots of trains as lovingly cut and timed to music as any fandom vid of Kirk/Spock or Snape/Harry. Which makes him about the only one of my family who groks my fandom love!)

I'm sending him this link. I'll bet he replies by scoffing at steam lurve -- being a SRS BZNS rail guy for a living. But then watches the video along with all the others on Youtube, and tells me he's already seen even more about it online...

Oh, if the U.S. could have steam locomotives again! At least our gasoline crisis has got Americans advocating for passenger lines again. And not a moment too soon.

Of course, I'd even more happily move to England to enjoy the trains there ... and everything else. :D

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: \O/ steam power! gingertart50 2008-12-15 02:59 pm UTC (link)
	HP railfans rule! (Could one slash the Hogwarts Express? With a dragon, perhaps?) For me, trains are ok. Narrow guage steam trains are pretty good, but those big, noisy, smelly, sooty mainline monsters, belching smoke and sparks, are just fantastic and bring a lump to my throat every time. Come from being old, I suspect, reliving my childhood. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	carpet_diemon 2008-12-14 07:51 pm UTC (link)
	Hot damn. Hot old skool damn. Very pretty. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	gingertart50 2008-12-15 03:00 pm UTC (link)
	Isn't she glorious? vbg (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aunty_marion 2008-12-15 04:49 am UTC (link)
	There was a programme on TV last week about the building of that. I watched it, of course! When I was at junior school (back in the 60s), our headmaster insisted that any school trip we went on had to have a steam train - no nasty modern diesels for him! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	gingertart50 2008-12-15 03:02 pm UTC (link)
	I missed it but I think it is going to be repeated and I'll keep an eye open for it. I'm totally with your ex-headmaster. nods Getting soot in your eyes and smelling like a kipper was all part of the experience. (Reply to this) (Parent)