Old tech saves the day

[bellinghman]

As seen here: Passengers rescued by Tornado.

It's rather wonderful in its way that when the electric-driven trains were being disabled by ice and snow, a good old-fashioned A1 Pacific steam loco could carry the stranded passengers to London.

He said: "It was a nice way to finish for Christmas, though I think some of the rescued passengers didn't realise they'd even been travelling on a steam train until they got off."

Hmm. I wonder what they thought the plume flowing back along the train from the front was, then.

(Steam trains are wondrous things, but I wouldn't really want them back in bulk. Electrics can run in almost any weather, as the Swiss can demonstrate, and they don't have to run on hydrocarbons.)

Comments

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

As someone who used to live with a steam powered branchline at the bottom of the garden, I agree - wondrous, but I would no more want to live next to one than I would an apatasaurous.

[knell.livejournal.com]

Well, diesels run fine under these circumstances too...

[furrfu.livejournal.com]

This might be a good point to mention the fantastic http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/ - over 20GB of train p0rn. A 7+ hour train journey from Bergen to Oslo, through one of the prettiest landscapes on the planet.

[hesadevil.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a regular steam train doing the London/York route, or is it a special touristy thing that happens every now and then? We can hear it's whistle (and sometimes the track-noise is the wind's in the right direction) from our house.

[fanf]

One of the many reasons I love the TGV: yay for nuclear powered trains!

[jon-a-five.livejournal.com]

The problem with moving a diesel train line to electric is that you have to add the electrical wiring along the track as well as buy new trains. It's incredibly expensive and would require investment (which seems to be a rude word in some parts of the train industry and government).

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

The Flying Scotsman is to be re-named in order to honour Gordon Brown

At last, Gordon Brown decided to throw the towel in and resign.

His cabinet colleagues decided it would be a worthy gesture to name a railway locomotive after him. So a senior civil servant - 'Sir Humphrey' - went from Whitehall to the National Railway Museum at York, to investigate the possibilities.

"They have a number of locomotives at the NRM without names," a specially-sought consultant told the top civil servant. "Mostly, however, they are freight locomotives."

"Oh dear, that's not very fitting for a prime minister," said Sir Humphrey. "How about that big green one, over there?" he said, pointing to a beautiful train numbered '4472'.

"That's already got a name" said the consultant. "It's called the 'Flying Scotsman'."

"Oh. Couldn't it be renamed?" asked Sir Humphrey. "This is a national museum after all, funded by the taxpayer."

"I suppose it might be considered," said the consultant. "After all, they did rename a number of their locomotives after directors of the company, and even renamed one of them Dwight D Eisenhower."

"That's excellent", said Sir Humphrey, "So that's settled then .. let's look at renaming 4472. But how much will it cost? We can't spend too much, given the expenses scandal!"

Well, said the consultant, "We could always just paint out the 'F'"