Steam Trains & Winter Magic

Nostalgia creeps in!
Right on, Dave. The old chu chu...especially I love when the engine makes a rhythmic sound when running at full speed....like a melody in my ear. My romance with the trains is my favourite pass time - I wrote that in my first blog 'A paradise name Sapa - Vietnam". I remember, once I hitch-hiked a goods train in India long time ago, spent the whole night in an open wagon, watching the dense forest go by in a moonlit night....they all scroll like a slide show in front of my eyes. Your story makes me walk down the memory lane, Dave. You are very fortunate to save you leg, though!

Panoramic dancing
The first photo is so important and this one grabbed our attention. Were you talking about yourself when you spoke of train nuts waxing lyrical? ha ha Freaking that you ran into a school friend and he remembered you. Excellent. That must have been fun. Eager to see what the dancing ones do next.

On train rides
I like trains but I am not a railfan. That is, I don't plan my trips around trains but if there are trains, railway bridges, railway stations etc worth seeing I happily take my time seeing it. I have to mention two train rides, out of the many I have taken, that really stick out. I once took a train from Kalka to Shimla in India. It is a narrow gauge railway in a spectacular mountain setting. I once took a train from Peshawar into the Khyber Pass up to the Afghani border. The montains there were so steep that the train in several places had to first go forward, then stop and reverse for a while, then stop and again go forward. I.e. the train equivalent to hairpin turns. Ake