The Weather

The Beeching Axe ....

I remember that movie, one of my favourite ones - 'Blixten Från Titsfield' as it was named over here.

I was to build a small modelrailroad based on a fictive small British town by the sea and had gathered an impressive amount of rolling stock and several locos in brass and white metal and it was all stolen 20 years ago. Still have a bunch of books om railway modelling and "the real thing", among them a book on Highworth branch.
 
That Beeching is the other side of the the family. In a way he did the best he could. I met and talked with Barbara Castle. She saved many of his axed lines. Between them both they saved the railways. The problem was I suspect the Ford Motor Company selling the dream. Britain more than most had daft railways that didn't really go to the right places. Land disputes and being first with an idea I guess. India got the improved ideas 30 years later. Sri Lanka is the better version of Indian railways for one who wants to try the broader tracks.

As far as I know the deal was Lion was restored to working order for the film. In the fillm you can see where they broke the buffer bar. It remains so.

Lion is very like Blutner the famous German loco of the time. By 1850 locomotives were already capable of speeds good enough for local railways today. 80 kph being very possible. Since about 1880 the timetable has hardly changed. That is starting to change now. One local service that looks like a standard urban train is averaging 160 kph on renew track. It's the old Varsity line being reborn. Bletchley Park was the mid point.

The St Ives line in Corwall would suit very well your railway. If you go there always park at the Park and Ride and take the little railway. It's a bargain trip and saves the impossible parking closer to town. St Ives is the favourite place to visit, Sea Gulls love it also. Don't eat in the street as the Sea Gulls will tell you all food belongs to them.
 
I loved the scene where the good guys stole a loco but was stopped by police and fined for a number of offences.

I think we had a similar situation in Sweden. Lines that didn't pay off was a main reason to shot them off.
For a while in the 60's and 70's I got the feeling that the state run railway company made up time tables and price list to get yet fewer people going by train.
Today there are just a few miles of railways saved for enthusiasts, the most famous situated some 20-25 miles from us. Then there's the DVVJ wwhere you have to paddle "the train" yourself on a 31 mile long track (you can go as far as you want).
Many more tracks have been turned into bike roads and that is fantastic.
The saddest is the closing of the railway lines on Öland and Gotland. Today they would have been major tourist attractions.

Anten-Gräfsnäs railway

DVVJ

Ölands järnväg
Youtube - Ölands järnväg (starts at 20 minutes)
 
In the film the vicar stole the loco.

Sweden has very interesting railways that go far North. Weather link there.

I would have had Wallender being a part time railway man on a little railway to reduce his stress. It would also mean he would have to use the rule book. I like the Swedish version with the Kurt with redish hair. The daughter my idea of women I like. Complex.

Bernie Grundman without me saying said his favourite film is Titfield Thunderbolt. I think amongst others he cut Paris Texas. Most people own something he cut.
 
YouTube

My favourite railway film. It was a disused railway near Basingstoke. It is not Irish as said because the coupling gear is wrong. I seem to remember a LNER A4 class is at the begining of the film. It's designer a friend of Bugatti. Fastest steam ever when Mallard.

My favourite quote is " The next train has gone ". Will Hay discovered Saturns white spot. He was a polymath. The film deals with the IRA as a subject, yilkes!
 
It's said by Brits the world views us as only talking about the weather. In my experience the whole world does and the Brits have funny ideas of others. Most of us come from farming families until recently. We would talk about the weather. UK is at the end of the Jet-steams so very prone to unusual weather compared with Belgium or France. Ireland is a wetter version.

Global warming is the weather with a new slant.

The Beechings were always farmers. Richard Beeching was the other side, some inheritance arguments split the family . We seem to all be engineers. Officially I'm an electrical engineer. I do many mechanical projects yet have no qualification in that. However the whole family who are not farmers are mechanical engineers when the men. Pearson's have the oldest bike shop in the world in Sutton Surrey. My other side.
 
I am absolutely certain there is one already.

Went to the Stanley Clarke consert in Molde a couple days ago. It was raining very gently, and the performance was FANTASTIC! It felt like a jam session that just took off. Got hammered on Riesling and ate moose burgers. :-D

Yesterday I went fishing with a very good friend. No cloud in sight. Picture taken at 23:54 after we gutted the fish.
 

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