Brief encounter

I often hear steam trains pass nearby and heard one today just after lunch. I looked up "steam engines coming out of Woking" on Google and found this site. Yes, it said, that was indeed a steam engine coming out of Woking at 2:04pm. I looked down the list and saw that it would pass through Gomshall at 2.50 pm. I could make Gomshall in half an hour, I thought, so I popped Pippa in the back of the car and set off, reaching the station with 10 minutes to spare.

It's good to see steam engines and, sure, they're the real thing and sound right. But they're not as I remember them and that's mainly down to two things: smokeless fuel and preservation. Today's restored steam engines sparkle. They didn't sparkle in the 1960s. They were black from all the soot churned out in voluminous clouds of smoke. That's the second thing that's missing today - big white enveloping plumes and the smell, ah, the smell. A sommelier of steam would break it down: full-bodied coal tar, iron, carbon with hints of vanilla and elderberry (OK, I made those last bits up).

My uncle Bob was a signalman so I saw a lot of steam trains as a kid and remember well when the tracks began to be ripped up in 1966. Not even Christopher Trace and John Noakes could stop Dr Beeching. I was going to do this image black and white but thought it was a bit too BE and went instead for a 1960s Triang box lid/annual of steam look, shame about the lights and the trackside boxes (what lights and boxes, you may ask? See Kaybee's comments below, an easy-to-follow video on cloning and healing in Photoshop here, and the original blip here. And if you prefer that one, please don't tell me).

Sad to miss both the Blip meet in Henley today and the FT Old Lags walk in Kent but I'm working pretty solid just now.