Category Archives: Uncategorized

My friend, Robert Hanks, took this photograph on the Cambridge-Newmarket line last week. Lovely.

Here is a diagram from the Sunday Times, Eureka; History of Invention from 1970. The diagram is from the entry about steam railways and shows the shrinking effect, on geography, of mechanical railway acceleration in the middle of the 19C. … Continue reading →

Here is a film of an American steam train winding its way through the mountains. The driver, Steve, is giving the whistle his best blast. There’s a corny voice-over at the beginning which is best to ignore… Quite apart from … Continue reading →

Here is a BBC sound recording of the famous Flying Scotsman… https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08fmjfn

Here’s a wonderful picture of the French TEE from the 1970s. I rode one of these trains between Paris and Toulouse in 1978. Happily, this was also the period of Kraftwerk’s famous TEE LP, and was probably the most stylish … Continue reading →

Here is a piece of railway music…A year later, Jean Mitry would do the same thing in cinema with Pacific 231 (1949). The first half especially.

A lovely image from the music video, posted below, from 1982. I’ve posted before about the psychological effects of speed and railway travel in relation to Freud and Brecht etc. This is perfect.

Great sounds, and great trains.

and previously posted about, here https://bagdcontext.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2011/07/02/cow-catching-babbage-and-keaton-and-the-machine/

The Guardian had a story about this terrific photo https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/mar/05/train-across-alps-bernina-express-giancarlo-staubmann-best-photograph