What is the Romance of Steam ?

What is the Romance of Steam ?.....

Getting up at 04 stupid o clock.....driving for an hour and then having to prep a loco in the freezing cold and driving rain.
Then work a loco for 8 hrs in a damp draughty hot and cold cab.
And then do the same for the next 4 days.....

No romance there....its unpleasant hard work.
Enjoyable though but i think by the end of the 2nd day any lingering romance would have gone....

 

For me the romance of steam is a combination of things.
The smell of an engine in steam (burning coal,steam& warm oil) bottle that and you have a winner.
Hearing the sound of an engine working hard.
Seeing the look on peoples faces as we belt through a station where they are waiting for their mundane train.
Having people come running down their gardens to wave as you go by, on the Shakespeares every Sunday the same people
come out to wave to us, we go past their houses every Sunday at the same time but they still come out.

 

The romance of steam...
Sitting on damp stations during and after the war,watching soot covered engines speed through (like opening shots of "Brief Encounter")and wondering,will I ever get home.

..and seeing my Father go deaf with the constant noise in the GWR boiler shop in the Swindon Works during his stay in the 1920's,forced out later by the depression of that period.A working hell that wouldn't be tolerated today.

 

The romance of steam is a myth started by those that have never worked it. :smt040

I'll crawl back under my rock now.

 

Aah, come on Dave you have to admit there is something a bit special about a steam engine, even after getting up at 4.am to prep it for a run.
But there again you are an Aussie so you don't feel the same attachment that we Poms do.
Answered in the same spirit as the quote. \/

 

I've looked on Wikipedia for "The Romance Of Steam" and it doesn't come up with anything, so it doesn't exist.
Ah well another dream shattered.
But with St.Valentines day just around the corner maybe we should all send our favourite engines a card and a bunch of red roses.
And to start things off......
To Rood Ashton Hall Thank You For The Hours Of Pleasure You Have Given Me. [smilie=my heart fire up for you.gif] [smilie=mylove.gif]

 

I'm taking my favourite engine out to dinner in the evening. \/

 

I do hope you have packed some " supplies" in your snap bag ?

 

I'll admit nothing.

I will say thought that running tender first at 2am in -something degrees Celcius, with a howling gale and a bit of sleet thrown in for good measure has certainly got something. Don't think it's romance though. \/