A web log, an æthereal scrap-book if you will, with a somewhat vintage flavour. News items, occurrences, experiences, thoughts and opinions related to Victoriana through to Fifties Americana can all be found here.
Another welcome return to this blog for one of my favourite sort of happenings - the "vintage machinery comes to the rescue" story. We have seen it before, mainly with steam traction engines and road rollers but sometimes with steam trains and here is another instance of the latter.
On this occasion the engine in question is Lilla, a feisty mid-sized 0-4-0 quarry locomotive originally built in 1891 for hauling slate from the Nantile Valley near Gwynedd in North Wales. This she continued to do for the next sixty-four years, moving a few miles northeast to the Penrhyn quarry at Bethesda in 1928, before finally being retired in 1955 following a failed boiler test. Purchased by a private individual in 1963 Lilla spent the following 9 years undergoing restoration before returning to the heritage railway network in 1972. Moving around the country she finally found herself in her current home at the Ffestiniog & West Highland Railway in 1993 where she has been well cared-for over the intervening three decades. This has included numerous overhauls and replacement of worn parts, with a brand new boiler being fitted in 2004.
It is no doubt this high level of preservation that allowed Lilla to step up and come to the aid of the National Trust when recent flooding caused part of a nearby tourist trail to be washed away. Already a common sight on the F&WHR line pulling everything from quarry wagons to carriages full of children, Lilla seemed the obvious choice to haul the 30 tons of aggregate needed to repair the damaged path and I am delighted to see that she performed the task as though she'd never been away, proving once again how - provided they are maintained in good condition - vintage machines can still fulfil their original purpose. Kudos must also go to the National Trust Cymru for approaching the F&WHR with the idea of using Lilla to help out - the sort of thinking one is glad to see in a heritage (or indeed any) organisation and one which I hope we will continue to see more of, as people realise that machines like Lilla still have a lot left to give.
It's not very often that we're prepared to wait ten years for a train to arrive, but when that train is pulled by a world-famous record-breaking steam locomotive then it becomes another matter entirely!
Yes, this is the welcome news of the much-anticipated return of the LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman steam engine to mainline passenger-carrying service following a ten-year, £4.2 million restoration.
Such rebuilds (and new builds) are always gratifying but in the case of the Scotsman there is an extra level of excitement at its return, due no doubt to the way it has captured the nation's imagination ever since its unveiling in 1924 at the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley, London. In the intervening 92 years it has cemented its reputation as one of the most well-known steam engines in the world and is rightly celebrated as an ultimate example of British engineering at its best. Having been the first locomotive to travel non-stop from London to Edinburgh in 1928 (hauling the service from which it took its name) and the first to break the 100mph barrier in 1934 the Scotsman earned a place in our island story from almost the beginning of its career.
It was this fame and affection that saved it from the scrapheap in 1963 when it was bought by businessman and railway enthusiast Alan Pegler, restored at Doncaster and then sent on an international tour to the United States and Australia. Subsequent owners William McAlpine and Tony Marchington did their bit to keep the Scotsman in steam and in the hearts and minds of people around the world until 2004 when it was finally acquired by the National Railway Museum in York.
Complete restoration followed in 2006 with the aim of returning Scotsman
to as near original condition as possible and at the same time renewing
its boiler certification, but unforeseen problems pushed the initial
2010 completion date back to late 2015. Complete with a new boiler - the only original A3 Class boiler in existence, in fact, replacing the later A4 Class type that Scotsman had used since an early 1980s refit - the famous engine finally moved under its own power for the first time in ten years for test runs on the East Lancashire Railway on the 8th January.
Barring a few small issues with the brakes these tests have been largely successful and the Flying Scotsman is due to make its triumphant return to the main line in early February on an inaugural run from London to York, following a spiffing new British Rail green paint job. Understandably tickets for these initial runs have all been snapped up within hours of going on sale but there will of course be the chance to see the Scotsman in all its glory at the NRM and hopefully any later London runs will not be booked up. With any luck she may even embark on another national tour - either way it would certainly be something to travel on such an historic train. Here's hoping, and in the meantime a hearty "welcome back!" to this much-loved engine.
Here I am again, then, saying "What ho!" after another long dry spell at Eclectic Ephemera. I seem to spend half my (few) posts lately apologising for my absence, and can only do so again. I dislike constantly using work as an excuse, since I know so many bloggers who successfully juggle a good working/writing balance - it just seems I'm not one of them! Having said that, it seems that a few of my favourite bloggers have gone quiet as the new year got underway, or have just emerged from the woodwork after months of silence, so perhaps I am not alone after all.
Anyway, enough navel-gazing, for a quite remarkable milestone was reached by this blog at the start of 2015 and it is this that I intend to celebrate in this post (for lack of anything really newsworthy!). Quite appropriately, the start of my sixth year as a vintage blogger saw Eclectic Ephemera pass 400,000 pageviews. Now of course that doesn't mean that 400,000 individual people have viewed this blog - some of those will have been me looking at the thing to see how it's doing (and forgetting to select "Don't track my own pageviews"!) and many, many more were probably spammers, bots, bits and other assorted members of the æthereal interweb - but the majority would have been fellow bloggers, followers and interested parties. You, in other words. And that deserves celebrating. What I thought I'd do to mark the occasion, therefore, is to "run down" (to use the modern parlance) the Top 10 posts from Eclectic Ephemera's 6-year history - a sort of "best of", as it were, chosen by you the readers.
From November 2010, the news that Apley House in Shropshire had been completely restored and was up for sale for the princely sum of £1¾ million. I found it to be of particular interest because it is generally agreed among scholars to be the inspiration behind P.G. Wodehouse's Blandings Castle, which was the setting for one of his other book series. With Plum being one of my favourite authors and creator of that arch-chap Bertie Wooster, even though it was not directly related to the Jeeves stories I fancied including it here. Eclectic Ephemera was barely a year old at this point and still evolving into the blog we know today, so at this point the stories I featured were sometimes more wide-ranging than they are today. Still this one had a vintage bent about it and has obviously proved popular, for whatever reason (perhaps the Wodehouse connexion, or just its magnificence as an English stately home).
Jumping forward two years to November 2012, this blog received its second Liebster Blog Award. Having largely given way to other blog awards (probably due to the demise of Google Friends) the Liebster nevertheless contained most of the things we recognise in today's examples. Given to me by Lil of the now defunct Little Lil of London blog, it contained the usual x number of questions about myself to answer and I obviously made a decent fist of it since it is the most popular award-based post on the blog!
November 2010 again and one of my many vintage motoring posts - this time featuring a one-off wood-bodied 1932 Talbot. This car had an interesting history, which is why the story appealed to me (and everybody else too, it seems!), having started out in 1932 as just an ordinary 14/65 saloon before some time in the 1960s acquiring a fantastic roadster body fashioned entirely from boat-grade mahogany! Despite this it was only valued at £20,000 to £30,000, eventually being sold for almost smack dab in the middle at £25,300. As I said at the time, I hope the new owner enjoys varnishing!
February 2012 and number 2 in my personal Style Icon series is obviously number 1 in your books - Mr Cary Grant. Proof of the man's popularity even today, my thoughts on his impeccable dress sense - and more importantly the pictures that illustrate this - have gone towards making this everyone's favourite Style Icon post from a list that included David Niven and Fred Astaire!
The classic [red] AEC Routemaster bus has come to symbolise the city of London, not just for those of us in Britain but more especially for people living around the world for whom this simple, long-lived vehicle is part of their own external view of our capital. Therefore it should perhaps come as little surprise, given the international nature of the internet (and thus, this blog), that the unveiling of its spiritual successor should prove to be so popular. The idea of modern technology meeting classic, tried-and-tested design was much in evidence throughout the story of the NB4L (or New Routemaster, as it has become known) and this has always been the most appealing aspect of things to me, as I hope it has been to all who have followed the journey of the NB4L from drawing board to now, five years later, actually carrying passengers around the streets of London. Having since seen one or two up close I can confirm it more than lives up to the hype and it's been fascinating to see its progress all the way from inception to now.
As if to reinforce its position as "Best Car in the World" this 2011 post about the centenary of Rolls-Royce's mascot, the famous Spirit of Ecstasy, makes it into the top 5. As well the story about the anniversary celebrations featuring myriad Royce models from down the years, I took the opportunity to throw in a bit about some of my favourite examples and it has obviously struck a chord with many people for whom the Rolls-Royce is still the very epitome of luxury motoring.
The third of the Film Friday: Gangsters series that I began back in 2010 with Little Caesar (and which sadly I've rather let slide since) this post focussed on the plot - and, more importantly the fashions - of Howard Hughes' and Howard Hawk's classic 1932 gangster drama Scarface, starring Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak and George Raft. This post has proven to be popular with both vintage film and fashion fans alike, which are who I hoped would be the target audience and which has made me think that maybe it's about time I brought this series back!
This is the most recently-written post to make the top 10, containing a selection of railway-related tunes to celebrate (if that's the word I want!) my first foray back into the world of full-time work and commuting by train. While that job didn't last and I now commute to the latest office by bus, this post really seemed to build up a good head of steam(!) and powered its way into the "most popular" list. I suspect this is just through people searching for the phrase "song train", but then I live in hopes that there are several thousand visitors with a liking for the music of Glenn Miller, Paul Whiteman and Bob Crosby among others!
Proof of the enduring popularity of two of the funniest comic actors to have ever lived, this story regarding the auction of rare photographs of (mainly) Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy proved inordinately popular (again probably just through people Googling "photos of Stan Laurel", I reckon). Including some very rare images dating back to 1897 and showing a young Arthur Stanley Jefferson playing with his siblings these photographs came from a family collection owned by a great-niece of Stan's living in Sunderland, near to North Shields where he grew up. The 54 lots eventually sold for a total of £8,000.
This would certainly be in my top 10 favourite vintage news items that this blog has covered since 2009, so I'm delighted to see it make the number one slot with my readers too. And why should it not? Here is an almost perfect example of traditional, vintage design being married to modern technology and - even better - one that has been an unqualified success for the Morgan Motor Company. For it is now the company's best-selling model, having sold more than 600 in the first few months after it went on sale and over 1,000 in the four years it has been on sale. While that may not sound like much, for a niche manufacturer like Morgan - who still use the same construction methods and work out of the same factory in Malvern, Worcestershire that they have done since the company's inception in 1909 - it is a very big deal. In 2014 a whole raft of updates were applied to the car in response to customer feedback and I see no reason why the 3-wheeler, having taken its rightful place back in the very heart of the Morgan range, should not endure for decades just as the other models have done.
There we have it, then - the 10 most popular Eclectic Ephemera posts from the past 6 years and 400,000 pageviews. I hope you've all enjoyed this little reminiscence as much as I have writing it and I look forward to seeing what the future brings for this blog amid the hope of many more readers and followers to come.
As I'm so excited about this particular news item I can't leave you - or me! - in suspense any more; here's that first promised post. This news is hot off the press today!
Some readers will doubtless be aware of Tornado (or to give it its full designation, LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado), which in 2008 became the first new-build steam locomotive to be constructed in this country since 1960 and the only existing example of its type. It has appeared on this blog several times before (in news items here, here and here) and in the intervening 6 years has become a roaring success - breaking records, making innumerable heritage railway & mainline appearances (where it is allowed to travel at speeds commensurate with modern trains) and generally winning the hearts of all who see it.
So successful has Tornado been, in both construction and service, that the people responsible for creating it - the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, based at Darlington Locomotive Works - began seriously contemplating the building of another engine. Now I'm delighted to see that - under the name P2 Steam Locomotive Company - they're going "full steam ahead" with their plan to construct a Gresley Class P2 locomotive, to be named 2007 Prince Of Wales in honour of HRH's 65th birthday.
Gresley Class P2 2001 Cock O' the North, c.1934source
Like Tornado's original Peppercorn Class none of the Gresley P2s (which numbered six) have survived, meaning that the Prince Of Wales will again be the sole example when it is completed (although it takes the 2007 number in deference to the original six). The P2s, designed by famous railway engineer Sir Nigel Gresley, were the most powerful engines in the country when they were introduced in 1934. Built to be able to pull over 600 tons of railway carriages on the London-Aberdeen route they, like so many locomotives from the early '30s, were soon eclipsed by the more glamorous A1s (Mallard et al). Sidelined by the Second World War they were extensively rebuilt between 1943-44 and eventually scrapped in the switch to electrification during the Sixties.
Thanks to modern computing and design technologies, as used and refined in the building of Tornado, the construction of the Prince Of Wales should go ahead well - provided the funds can continue to be found (see here and here, or e-mail enquiries@p2steam.com to find out how to contribute). This latest news shows that work is already underway at the Tata Steel Scunthorpe facility to create the engine frames, with many more parts set to be produced by this valued partner. It is also fortunate (although doubtless intentional) that P2s shared around 70% of their design with A1s, so the majority of parts will be easily replicated with the equipment to do so now very much in place. Even so, the project is estimated to take 7 years - still a vast improvement on the 14 years it took to bring Tornado to fruition. As much as I hardly can, I'm sure it will be well worth the wait nonetheless. One of the most powerful express locomotives ever once again running full chat along our national rail network? And maybe yet more new steam engines after that? Yes please with knobs on!
This coming Wednesday, the 3rd of July, sees the 75th anniversary of a landmark event in steam locomotion - the world record-breaking 126mph run of the streamlined A4 Pacific steam locomotive Mallard. On that date in 1938 this beautiful engine left London Kings Cross for Grantham in Lincolnshire, without fanfare, ostensibly for a braking test run. However during the return journey, on a section of track just south of Grantham, Mallard topped out at a remarkable 126 miles per hour (203kph). No other steam-powered locomotive has exceeded that speed since and so to this very day Mallard still holds the World Speed Record for steam. Alas, although it has since been restored and has pride of place at the National Railway Museum in York, it can no longer move under its own power.
However, to commemorate this long-standing achievement, one of Mallard's sister engines - Bittern - was yesterday permitted to exceed the usual 75mph limit for steam trains on a British main line while undertaking a special London-York jaunt, "The Ebor Streak". Its highest speed was recorded at 92.8mph (149kph), allowing the passengers (and the rest of us, thanks to footage of the event) the chance to experience high speed steam travel - even if it was still 30mph slower than that day three-quarters of a century ago. Gad, wouldn't I like to have been on that train all the same!
This special run is just one of a series of events planned to commemorate Mallard's record, with further derestricted journeys by Bittern on the 19th ("The Tyne-Tees Streak) and 27th ("The Capital Streak") of July. The highlight of the celebrations (if 90 mile-an-hour steam trains aren't highlight enough for you!) will be the gathering at the NRM in York of the six surviving A4 Pacific engines (from the original 35) - Mallard, Bittern, Sir Nigel Gresley, Union of South Africa, Dominion of Canada and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first time all of them will have been seen together! (Four of them can be seen here in this film from 2008). Dominion of Canada and Dwight D. Eisenhower have even been specially shipped over from the Canadian Railway Museum in Montreal and the National Railroad Museum in Wisconsin, respectively, to be restored and take part in it all!
Much work has been done to make the marking of this anniversary a rightly special one and the list of events looks truly spectacular. I'll look forward to seeing more footage of the high speed runs and the six A4s over the next month or so and will maybe feature them on here again (if I can overcome the disappointment of not being there in person!). All in all, some stunning celebrations for a truly stunning piece of British engineering.
From New York subways to Welsh mountain railways now, in what is fast becoming a rail-themed weekend here at Eclectic Ephemera.
While Lily the Heritage Carriage may look several decades older than the New York Transit Authority's 1930s stock, its main body is in fact brand new - only recently completed by a group of highly-skilled workers who have pulled out all the stops to ensure a truly accurate replica of a carriage that would have travelled along the picturesque Snowdon Mountain Railway back in the 1890s. That it is mounted on an original 1920s chassis is, as the accompanying report says, a splendid amalgamation of old and new.
Looking every inch the true Victorian carriage, with details to die for all beautifully crafted by expert engineers, Lily is now ready to take passengers on the equally beautiful journey to the top of Wales' highest mountain. It certainly looks absolutely glorious and one can just imagine the same trip being undertaken 120 years ago, although the idea of there originally being no windows is less appealing!
Congratulations to Snowdon Mountain Railway and their associates in getting this wonderful carriage designed, built and running on the line. The beauty of the Welsh mountains, which I can certainly attest to having been there myself, has only been enhanced with the introduction of this 19th century replica and I hope one day to return to Snowdonia and experience a trip up the mountain in it myself.
Following on from the New York Transit Authority's tie-up with HBO in 2011, when an original 1920s subway car was taken out of mothballs to mark the beginning of Boardwalk Empire's second season, a vintage New York underground train has once again made an appearance on one of the city's lines.
This time the eight carriages were of a slightly later 1930s vintage, but are no less æsthetically pleasing to look at! What is more, it sounds as though their return to the tracks was something of a surprise treat - particularly for the commuters - as the New York TA took the opportunity to celebrate the reopening of a section of line previously damaged by Hurricane Sandy last year. Quite a way to mark the occasion, I think you'll agree. Well done to the Transit Authority for coming up with such a wizard idea, for anyone who just happened to be on that line at the time to enjoy. Wouldn't it be something if London Underground ran some of its old '30s stock around the City once in a while, just for the fun of it? (I know the London Transport Museum runs the occasional excursion on various suburban lines' extremities, of course - in fact there's one coming up next month - but it would be splendid to see some 1930s Art Deco on, say, the Circle or Metropolitan lines.)
Still it sounds like those New Yorkers lucky enough to experience public transport 1930s-style enjoyed the opportunity, even if some of them seemed a little nonplussed(!). It's sometimes easy to forget that where we would experience a thrill at seeing an 80-year old train pulling into our local station, there are people out there for whom the whole thing would just be very odd. I know - what's wrong with 'em, eh? It's nice to see that it brought back happy memories for some folk as well, though - all the more reason to do it again!
Let's hope that it doesn't take another natural disaster (or period TV show) to encourage the New York Transit Authority to wheel out some of their classic carriages again. In the meantime it's great to see these old cars given their head on a newly-restored line.
The starting of a new job seems to have coincided with a bit of a downturn in vintage news (not to mention my third cold in as many months!) - hence I have been absent from the blogging circuit for nearly two weeks, for which I must continue to crave forgiveness! I still haven't forgotten about you all though (I read all your posts of an evening, or at the weekend, as something very much to look forward to) nor this blog of mine.
Sitting on the train during the commute into work I often find myself thinking of potential subjects for this site and, while listening to my portable i-gramophone last week, it occurred to me that the very mode of transportation I was using - and the music I had playing - would make an excellent topic.
The railway train has always had an instantly recognisable rhythm and one that naturally lends itself to a musical beat. There have been countless songs over the years featuring trains and rail travel to some extent or another but it is the half-a-dozen or so favourites in my music collection that I intend to focus on here.
The first song, Choo-Choo, neatly sums up the steam train in typical Thirties onomatopoeic style and is wonderfully redolent of period rail travel. Written and recorded by American bandleader Frankie Trumbauer in 1930, it was almost immediately cut by a multitude of other bands on both sides of the Atlantic. While the original Trumbauer recording is excellent, my favourite from the U.S. is Paul Whiteman's version, above, made in the same year.
In the U.K. the two Jacks - Jack Payne and Jack Hylton - both recorded versions of Choo-Choo a year later in 1931 and again, while Jack Payne's version is wonderful, Hylton's arrangement just shades it for me.
Arguably a more famous "Choo-Choo" is Glenn Miller's brilliant 1941 record - Chattanooga Choo-Choo, a song that instantly conjures up images of transcontinental railway journeys in the 1940s and '50s.
A year or two earlier Glenn Miller had had similar success, reaching number 1 on the U.S. Billboard chart with another train-themed number - Tuxedo Junction. The song had actually been written in 1939 by American bandleader Erskine Hawkins and while his original version made it to number 7 in the charts it remains less well-known today than the classic Miller arrangement.
Another railway tune that has become inextricably linked to its [co-]composer - so much so that it is invariably called his "signature song" and found in every compilation of his music - is Duke Ellington's Take The 'A' Train. It is a reputation that it thoroughly deserves, being one of the defining examples of 1940s big band music never mind rail-based songs.
One of my very favourite "songs of the track", though, is this one - Honky-Tonk Train Blues. Although written and first recorded as long ago as 1927 by the noted early boogie-woogie pianist Meade Lux Lewis, this 1938 arrangement by Bob Crosby (Bing's brother) with Bob Zurke on the piano really rolls along splendidly.
For me all of these help rekindle some of the fun and romance that seems to have been lost from modern train travel, as I commute to and from work in a characterless and brightly-coloured plastic tube. Sometimes I can even imagine seeing something steaming past the station platform, or pulling the far more luxurious carriage I picture myself travelling in... porter! My case please!
In April 2011 I did a little post about a 1903 "autocar" - an early form of petrol-electric railway engine carriage - that had been restored thanks to an Heritage Lottery grant. This was one of Britain's first [part] electric-powered locomotives, a glimpse into the history of a train type we now take for granted and a very rare example being one of only three ever built.
The 1908 Steam Railmotor that features in this story from Cornwall would seem to owe something to the North Eastern Railway's slightly earlier autocar - certainly in its overall design and appearance - but still retained the tried and tested steam propulsion of more traditional locomotives of the time.
Now, having lived a life of self-propelled coach, locomotive-hauled carriage and even a railway office it has finally been restored to its original condition after decades of fund-raising and thanks - once more - to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (perhaps even part of the same pot?). Last Sunday it undertook its first passenger-carrying run under its own power since the 1930s, along the achingly picturesque East Looe River branch line of the West Coast Railway, and will return for a further series of journeys this weekend.
Another unique and fascinating piece of railway history has thus been saved for future generations' enjoyment thanks to the hard work of volunteers and enthusiasts plus the collective might of the Heritage Lottery Fund and First Great Western. Steam Railmotor 93 makes a pretty sight chuffing along the banks of the Looe and long may it continue to do so.
Steam train to return to London Underground Back in October of 2011 I did a post about the renovation of the oldest extant London Underground railway carriage - Metropolitan Railway Carriage Number 353, originally constructed and in use from 1892. Plans were well underway to restore 353 to its former 19th-century glory in time for 2013, the 150th anniversary of the London Underground system. I wondered then just what form these celebrations might take and how 353 would fit into them and now 2 years later, with 2013 rapidly approaching, the events to mark this momentous milestone have been revealed. London Underground celebrations to mark 150 years What splendid events they sound, too! Transport for London and the London Transport Museum have really pulled out all the stops to make these celebrations something to remember. For not only has Carriage No. 353 been fully restored - an impressive and laudable event in itself - but it will actually run on the Underground on two dates in January as the start of a year-long commemoration.
It gets even better. Four additional
coaches of 1898 vintage will also accompany 353 on these special
excursions. One of the oldest working electric locomotives, the 1922 Sarah
Siddons, will be on hand to assist in the towing of these carriages.
"Assist" because... the work will be shared with one of the last
surviving Underground steam trains - Metropolitan Railway Locomotive No.
1. That's right - an 1898 steam engine is going to pull
19th-century carriages along a stretch of the London Underground!
I'm sure it will be an amazing experience - a real time warp - for those who
will win the ballot that the London
Transport Museum
has deemed necessary to decide who can purchase tickets for these historical
journeys. In any event it is an incredible way to mark 150 years of the
world's first underground passenger railway and begins a whole year's worth of
special events including: further heritage rail trips, books & poems,
displays & exhibits, commemorative £2 coins, LU memorabilia and even a
series of theatre events at the old Aldwych Underground station. So even
if you can't get to see (or like me can't afford to see) these oldest survivors
there is bound to be something else to take your fancy and suit your
pocket. Well done to TfL/LTM and happy birthday to the London Underground!
*Met. Locomotive No. 1, Sarah Siddons, Carriage No. 353 and the 1898 coaches will be travelling on the London Underground on the 13th and 20th January 2013, between Moorgate and Kensington (Olympia), Edgeware Road, Earl's Court and Baker Street. See the London Transport Museum's website for times and ticket prices.*
The heritage railways of the Kirkby Stephen Stainmore Railway Company and the Kent & East Sussex Railway form the backdrop for these two news items relating to the recent restoration of vintage rolling stock.
The first article is the standard story of a worn out railway carriage being returned to its original 1930s glory by a group of dedicated volunteers, but no less worthy for that. The coach in this particular case is not quite finished - more funds are needed apparently - but I have little doubt that it soon will be and that it will be a welcome addition to the Stainmore Railway Company's stock. The group should also be commended for its attempts to restore and reopen the Kirkby Stephen East railway station and so become part of the larger neighbouring Eden Valley Railway, itself aiming to become one of the country's newest heritage lines - I wish them both success.
I came across this second item quite by accident but it more than deserves its inclusion here, dealing as it does with a vintage vehicle reworked for modern - and noble - use.
Disabled access has long been something of a problem for older transportation systems, which in some cases have not and cannot be updated (witness the withdrawal of the tradition London Routemaster bus, due in part to its inability to meet the Disability Discrimination Act). While it is only right and proper that less able-bodied people should be able to fully enjoy museum exhibits, heritage railways and the like the difficulty of providing full accessibility often still remains simply by dint of the historic construction of buildings and/or machinery (and in some cases, the impossibility of successfully converting them).
This is not the case on the Kent & East Sussex Railway though, I'm pleased to see. 9254 Petros was the first railway carriage to be fully converted for disabled use, following its decommissioning from mainline service in 1981 after twenty-five years of use. A year later it was updated and delivered to the KESR and two years ago it began undergoing a complete refurbishment, the results of which you can see in the above news report that I stumbled across.
Now Petros is back in service on the Kent & East Sussex line, offering remarkably simple but effective access (and with it, greater enjoyment) for disabled passengers. Approbation is in order for the railway, for having such a splendid carriage as part of their stock and for providing a valuable and much-appreciated service. A service that should be the envy of many a heritage - and indeed many a modern - railway and another sterling example of traditional transport updated for the 21st century.
Gosh, has it been really been a whole seven days? How very remiss of me, but there has honestly been little of note to blog about - except the Chap Olympiad, of course, which I was unable to attend this year but which you can read all about on RetroChick's and Penny Dreadful's blogs (and probably by now a few others - there were hordes of 'em there, by the look of things!). Next year, I promise you, just you wait!
I've got a couple of posts in Draft that are still waiting to be finished, but for the moment I thought I'd do a little filler about a couple of recent purchases that are of interest.
No, I haven't bought the Coronation Scot (I wish!), or even a ticket to see that famous locomotive (or even been lucky enough to get a ticket for any other famous train, unlike someothers I could mention{shakes fists in mock outrage}). I haven't engaged the services of Mr Tintin either (Tintin? Mr Tintin? Mr T. Tin? - what say you?). What I have obtained, though, are probably the next best things.
Ever since I bought my Monopoly Nostalgia Edition a few years ago (have I mentioned that before?) - in fact earlier than that, from when I first started playing the British Towns card game that has been in the family for years - I've had a hankering for some old-fashioned board games and this has gone some way towards satisfying that craving. It's the Coronation Scot Railway Game!
Coronation Scot Railway Game, £3 (from £6) + postage, at Past Times
When I first set my eyes on this little game on the Past Times website a year or so back I knew it would only be a matter of time before an example would find a home in Partington-Plans Towers and a happy set of circumstances conspired to allow just that two weekends ago.
The first circumstance is quite obvious - it's currently half price! That alone nearly convinced me to take the plunge were it not for the fact that Past Times' postage & packing fee of £3.50 would have negated the saving. But what was this in my Inbox?! A special one-day-only offer code for free p&P - AND an extra 20% off everything in the shop?! Apparently a special thank-you for being a previous customer (although I've bought a few things in person at my local branch several times I can't for the life of me remember ever buying anything online before, but I wasn't about to complain!) - what luck! So with a whopping 70% off and no postage to pay this wonderful piece of fun came to me for the bargainous sum of £2.55.
A bargain indeed, with four real wooden pieces, dice and shaker plus a proper fold-out board such as one might find on games costing 3 times as much. Very often a cheap-and-cheerful board game has to make do with nothing more than a piece of reinforced cardboard for a playing surface and plastic markers, but not this one. Perhaps they really don't make 'em like they used to - top marks to the manufacturers, Ecotronic, for sticking to such a faithful reproduction. Now that I can look at it closely first hand, I can honestly say that if I'd paid the full price and postage I still would have been happy.
As you can probably tell I'm very pleased with this modest piece of railway fun and am now looking forward to trying this out in a game with someone (any takers?). In the longer term I've already got my eye on its sister title Touring England but for the time being - all aboard the Coronation Scot!
Turning to Tintin, my post three years ago(!) detailing the then just-completed motion capture film that would become The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (and the one a year later showing the first images) is still even now one of the most popular on this blog and I have been a bad blogger for not having followed it up - particularly as I went and saw it at the cinema and as Messrs Jackson and Spielberg must surely be well into the second film by now! The least I owe you all is some sort of review and I will see about doing just that, as I have just today bought the DVD. The special 2 Disc Edition - I always try and buy the 2-disc edition of a film, even though I don't always watch anything on the second disc I just like to get my money's worth and at least I know I have the extras if I ever do want to watch them! - "Exclusive to Sainsbury's", apparently, and "Available for a Limited Time". We may scoff, but a quick look on Amazon and elsewhere proves the truth in this statement - no sign of a 2-disc special edition anywhere. The same price as the standard single-disc version sitting right next to it on the same shelf, too, so how could I not? I must admit Sainsbury's have been doing very well recently to match, or even better, the prices of online retailers - so top marks to them (those who know me well would say that I'd give top marks to Sainsbury's on most things, but we're not here to discuss my grocery preferences!).
Already I'm imagining a Tintin adventure on the Coronation Scot, so I shall away now to watch the film and [eventually] strong-arm a family member into playing the Railway Game. Hopefully news will pick up in the week ahead, but I will return at some point with the promised review at any rate.
Some pleasing local news (local inasmuch as it's in the same county, if not quite as close as I'd like!) in the form of the long-awaited reopening of the Epping-Ongar railway as a heritage line - the longest in Essex!
Closed in 1994, before which it was the easternmost branch of the London Underground Central Line, the Epping-Ongar Railway has since been converted into a tourist line until recently running only diesel and electric stock.
4953 Pitchford Hall, now in use on the Epping-Ongar Railway
Now with the restoration of the line complete, with new track laid and Ongar and North Weald stations revitalised, steam locomotives are now also in use and the line is close to realising its full heritage potential. Work is still ongoing to link up with the western terminus of Epping but until then a vintage bus service takes passengers the last leg of the way, surely the next best thing!
Congratulations to the volunteers at Epping-Ongar Railway for reaching this important milestone after 18 years of tireless work. I'm sure they will succeed in getting to Ongar and making an already excellent heritage line even better, and I wish them the best of luck in that regard. This is one county-dweller who certainly is proud of this Essex heritage line, which I shall have to make every effort to get to at some point in the future.
A quaint incident is recalled in this article about a letter of complaint to a railway company one hundred years ago, recently discovered at the National Railway Museum.
We've all likely had cause to complain about our railway service and every other day local and national news seems to feature stories of delay and incident, but this letter reminds us to spare a thought for railway passengers of the late 19th and early 20th Century, when rail travel was sometimes still a rather crude affair. Right up until the early 1900s some train companies crammed third class passengers into open-top carriages with hard bench seats and the locomotives, as in this particular case, were often basic and open to spit flame and embers onto the more unfortunate travellers.
By the 1920s the likes of "Gazelle" (above) had - on passenger services at least - given way to the lovely steam locomotives we know and appreciate today, but this remarkable piece of social history shows how hit-and-miss things could be in the years beforehand. I'm sure the letter will be an excellent edition to the museum's collection.
This story has been reported by various news sites, including the B.B.C., but by far the best and most comprehensive description is from science [fiction] blog io9.
As anyone who has crossed the Irish Sea will tell you, a train journey (or, these days, an aeroplane flight) is infinitely more preferable to a ferry crossing and this was obviously very much the case even a hundred years ago. It should come as no surprise therefore that the industrially-minded Victorians seriously considered a series of railway tunnels beneath the Irish Sea; the idea of a Channel Tunnel had been mooted almost a century earlier so the intent was clearly there. Regrettably in both cases the huge engineering challenge would prove too great for Victorian science to overcome. Nevertheless that such a plan was drawn up is a remarkable testament to the technological ambition and farsightedness of 19th Century engineers.
The suggestion of tunnels between mainland Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man still occasionally appears even today. But it was the Victorians who first thought of the idea even though they, and subsequent supporters of the scheme, were always stymied by the matter of cost, politics and now a difference in the railway gauge. It's not to say that the project is unfeasible, however, and I'm sure the vision will still be revisited in the future and - who knows? - maybe even undertaken.
We've had the King George II returning to Didcot and Tornadobesting Shap Fell and Beattock Bank on its way from Crewe to Glasgow, now the Oliver Cromwell has made its début on the Swanage line in Dorset (in Dorset? I'd recommend it to anyone! Boom-boom! >groans<). The march of steam continues!
The National Rail Museum is doing sterling work in ensuring its exhibits continue to run on the railway lines of today and can be enjoyed by a new generation; like all historic machines it is far better to have them still running than sitting behind glass in a museum building - they need to be out there doing what they were designed to do. It's great to see more and more steam trains still breaking records, still achieving firsts while running new excursions all over the country, and bodes well for all these fantastic locomotives.
From pedal power to steam power now, and guaranteed to get to Scotland far quicker than any penny-farthing could, Tornado the modern-build steam engine has further added to its laurels.
Striking a blow for the steam locomotive in what must be a great vindication for its creators, 60163 Tornado proves that it has what it takes to go the distance (literally!) and easily overcome the two of the most difficult railway gradients in the British Isles during this record-breaking inaugural trip to Glasgow. Not to mention weather that, as you can see, while as typically British as the scenery would be a challenge to any train.
There it once again captured the hearts and minds of all who saw her, bringing back happy memories for many and providing everyone involved with a marvellous experience.
I have a distinct feeling that this will not be the last 40-year old steam engine record that the mighty Tornado will break and I for one look forward to reading of its next great achievement. Well done, chaps!
A wizard wheeze from HBO, makers of the hit U.S. television series Boardwalk Empire, who have brought an actual 1920s subway train out of retirement and with the assistance of the New York Transit Authority are running it on a limited basis on one of the Manhattan lines for every weekend throughout September!
The London Transport Museum and London Underground have done similar one-offs in the past with 1930s-era stock, but nothing as old as the '20s I think. It must be quite an experience; it's just a pity there's a great big ocean between me and it, else I'd probably be on it every weekend! Well, it's reminded me to keep an eye out for any vintage LU runs in the future, anyway*. Some videos have already surfaced on YouTube which give a good sense of travelling on a 1920s subway train. It looks like fun!
Incidentally has anyone actually seen Boardwalk Empire yet? Is it as good as I hear? I'm amazed the first series hasn't already been snapped up by Channel 4 or someone. For the likes of me who refuse to further line the pockets of the Murdoch empire it is most frustrating! I want my Twenties fix! ;-)
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*While searching the Interweb to confirm my memory of the LU/London Transport Museum heritage runs, I've discovered there's another one this Sunday, the 11th September, up at the end of the Metropolitan line between Harrow-on-the-Hill, Rickmansworth and Amersham. The museum's 1938 train and locomotive are being given an airing and there's even a competition for the best period-dressed passenger! It may be a little late in the day (certainly is for me, not to mention a little bit of a trek for me at the moment) but I thought I'd bring it to your attention anyway. Details here.
We've all heard the excuse of "leaves on the line" from today's train operators but in the world of heritage steam railways it is "lambs on the line", at least in the case of this incident!
It's the kind of heart-warming story makes one smile, particularly at this Easter time when it somehow seems even more apposite. It could even be said to have something for everyone - a steam train for the chaps and a cute little baa-lamb for the girls. ;-P
All's well that ends well, then, as Lucky the Lamb not only survives his close shave with the steam train but actually gets to ride on the footplate (!) before being nursed back to health at a Totnes animal sanctuary. Added to which the South Devon Railway got an impromptu emergency stop test for one of their locomotives out of it and the vigilant crew deserve congratulations for their actions.
Back in July 2010 I did a blog post about Robert the little steam engine, who was discovered in a sorry state by the contractors who were rebuilding Stratford station outside London for the 2012 Olympics, and who thankfully rather than being sent to the scrapheap was instead sent to my local heritage railway museum for restoration.
Now the work has been completed and Robert has been moved back to Stratford station where he will form part of a wonderful display for all those who will come to the Olympics by train, not to mention the commuters and general visitors who pass through the station on a daily basis.
I said it before but I am delighted that the Olympic Committee saw it fit to not only to keep Robert at Stratford but to restore him to his former glory and make him a centrepiece of the new station. It shows a rare appreciation of the heritage of not just this country's transportation system but the local area's too and creates a splendid contrast to the modernity of the new station and surrounding Olympic Park. I look forward to seeing him in the metal whenever I'm next in Stratford (which may well be for the Olympics!).
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