Phew Charles, how do you drive that thing ? Burnt fingers? radio? It looks exiting anyway.
I also liked Andrew's video because it encapsulates the exhilaration that - in my experience - only Gauge 1 can provide. Well among model railways, anyway.
In this case it's the steam express in full flight, full of inner life and with a hint of danger. You can't do it with "ride-on" because the illusion is broken. You can't do it as well with electricity (though the sheer inertia of Gauge 1 stock is a driving challenge), and you can't really do it at all indoors. I suppose Gauge 3 could do it if one had a big enough estate, but Gauge 1 and its variants tick all the boxes for me - and I can still lift the locomotives! The sounds - exhaust bark and clickety clack - are so right, and with coal firing the smell is right too. Even the rain is right ;-)
There are other ways to get this elation, even from my beloved geared lokies. They say that Shay racing is like snail racing without the suspense, but I can tell you that hurtling down a steep gradient with half a hundredweight of wet logs gathering themselves ominously on 'skels' behind somebody else's precious Shay - with no brakes - is white-knuckle stuff that takes a steady hand on the transmitter to get just the right amount of back-pressure in the cylinders. The scream of the blower and safety valve on a coal-fired Aster steaming-up at nose level is another thing that raises my goosebumps:
The video also catches the sociabilty of the steamup. Until they got "cool" and self-propelled, my kids were very keen on the monthly trip out to join other families, with a bunch of other children and pets to play with - and occasional duties as Driver before a slap-up meal. Even now my sixthform daughter will bring her sunhat, homework and dog rather than study at home.
Hoping to grab more pictures this weekend.
David
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