Vid for PWSlack & all you Steam Enthusiasts

Nice!

Which line's that on?

London to Norwich, a bit South West of Chelmsford, a rail crossing on a little lane leading to an old church (with a nice wooden steeple) at Mountnessing.

Not the greates pics for detail, but nice and evocative....
Here is a still of it having just come through the South Downs.

Taken by Big Sis a few weeks back.


Del

I used to love the old steam trains..... thanks for sharing....

Ahhhh nostaglia ain't what it used to be..... LOL

That's beautiful Del!

When I was little boy, my grandparents took me on a steam train. I've been hooked ever since! I can still vividly remember walking through the the area where the fireman tends the firebox. I guess the intense heat really got my attention. I do have to confess...I like any kind of train, steam, diesel, elctric...but there's just nothing like a steam engine!

<Drool, dribble.> It's good to know the "Britannia"s can still make a 2h schedule on the Norwich expresses. That one rattled the bothy as it went past. Wow!

There used to be 55 of these engines, and they were much liked in East Anglia (PlbMak's home) where they took over from a motley collection of B1s and B17 4-6-0s, enabling the services to be accelerated. Two Britannias are preserved: 70013 "Oliver Cromwell", which is in Del's video on main line excursions (the maintenance standards imposed for this duty are very strict) and the first of the class no. 70000, named "Britannia" from which the class gets its name.

Main line steam crews are put through rigorous formal training on some of the more substantial heritage railways in the UK before taking charge of a machine like this.

Otherwise, steam's last gasp on regular services in East Anglia was in the year 1962. The Norwich expresses are in 2009 the last bastion of the regular electric-locomotive-hauled express train in the UK. Virtually everything else is a multiple-unit these days, derisively referred to by some as "self-shunting coaches".

That's enough for now!

Cheers for the background info, v interesting.... the stuff I knew as a kid has long since faded from my whatsitcalled?
"self-shunting coaches". <snigger snigger>
As kids at Rugby we witnessed the first DELTIC (diesel electric)...we called it the 'Flying dustbin'

De

The Deltic was the first application of a triangular marine engine (3 cylinders, 6 pistons, times n banks, where n is an integer) to rail use in the 3000hp bracket. The engine was a 2-stroke (other threads on 2-stroke and 4-stroke differences have been posted of late).

The deltics took over from the A1s (see below) on the Edinburgh-London expresses, where they were much revered. All withdrawn from main line use many years ago, several have been retained for preservation and display.

The original prototype Deltic is in the National Railway Museum at York, admission to which is free of charge. If a PWSlack is found in there drooling and gibbering uncontrollably, please place in a warm dark room and send for medical attention......

Del,

thanks a million for that.

I know that lane well! The Steam train is very evocative of years gone by, the film the Railway Children and many, many other things including my first visit to the cinema at goodness how many years ago , more than 60, less than 70.

You or someone else implied that the Oliver Cromwell is an old girl refurbished: someone in the UK has just built a new one - for fun!

Sleepy

Yes, though to be concise the new machine is an A1, not a Britannia like Oliver Cromwell as in Del's video. The wheel arrangement is the same, and the design does the same sort of job. The two machines are roughly the same sort of size and shape, the A1 design preceding the Britannias.

What interesting times to live in.....

Presumably there will be a nice book of 'Building the Tornado' at some point?.... (Santa please note)
It's a great engineering feat, and doubtless an interesting story if they can find a suitable author who can avoid it reading like a list.
Del

<...Presumably there will be a nice book of 'Building the Tornado' at some point?.... >

There are several already. The >£2mGBP construction costs have to be recouped somehow.

What a film. It's classic U-certificate family entertainment.

Near the end is a scene that has been known to reduce grown adults to tears of joy: as the train pulls away the steam clears to reveal...... "Oh, my daddy! My daddy!". _{<Wanders off to blow nose>}

<Hushed aside>

_{At infants school did you used to go along the lines on the playground (for marking out various courst/pitches etc) pretending you were trains moving your hands in true Litte Eva style? I remember doing it}
Del

I like to visit with these guys a couple of times a year.

St. Louis Live Steamers

Or if you would like to see if there is a club in your area.

http://www.railserve.com/Models/Live_Steam/Clubs/North_America/

Thanks Cat

It was great nostalgia for me.

In my childhood, I was staying about a kilometer from a terminal station. Those days, the trains were not with engine on both ends or engine would move in any direction. Thus, they had to turn the engine to go back.

As a child we used to rush to station in the morning, once we hear the whistle of the engine. We used to reach the station, by the time the engine reach the turn table. Then we pushed the engine to turn the turn table. As a prize for helping to turn the turn table, driver used to take us back to station from the engine.

The smell of that coke was also nostalgic, we miss now a days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turntable_(railroad)

Thanks for the clip. I have been a railroad enthusiast all my life and still spend too much of my time building large scale models. I once lived in a house where the Boston and Maine ran through my back yard. Noisy, yes, but that didn't bother me. Posted by Ronald Seto (I can't log in?).

<...building large scale models...>

Ooooh, yum <drool, dribble>! How about doing a CR4 blog on the subject?

Great idea!