Tornado trains
A piece in The Independent the other day leapt out of the page at me. The first new steam engine to be built for over fifty years in Britain is now almost complete. This project, first conceived in 1990, has set out to build an A1 Class locomotive from scratch using original blueprints in a workshop at the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum. The engine has been put together by hundreds of volunteers at a cost of some £3million. The money for this project has been raised by the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust. The Tornado engine will hit specially-laid tracks in April and – if all goes well – will travel on main lines up and down Britain over the summer. It will be available for charter parties once it goes into service.
Although I'm not by any means a train fanatic, I do like them. When I was a child growing up in Rathcoole, our big treat during the summer holidays was a day out on the train to Carrickfergus or -even better- to Whitehead! My younger sister and I would wake up excited and raring to go early in the morning. Our first job was to prepare our sandwiches and flasks of tea. We would have these as a picnic on the beach when we reached our destination.
We would walk down the long route through Rathcoole, on to the Old Irish Highway and the Station Road to Whiteabbey Station where we had to wait for our train. While my mum rested on a bench we would be all over the platform looking out for signs of a coming train. We'd look down the line for a green light. We'd look for smoke signals that might indicate a steam train coming our way. Soon, we would see smoke and hear the distinctive puffing sound as the train approached the platform. It really was exciting.
I'm glad that the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland is keeping at least some of these engines running. I saw one crossing the Lagan last May Day bank holiday and it brought back all these old memories for me. Some of these days I must travel on one of the RPSI's day excursions just to soak up all these old experiences.
In the meantime, my memories have been rekindled by a book I came across the other day. The Ulster Transport Authority in colour by Derek Young is a reminder of the trains and buses that used to serve the people of Northern Ireland from 1948 to 1967. Most pictures of this era tend to be in black and white, so it's really great to see a lot of vintage colour photographs from all parts of Ulster.
I was struck by a 1967 picture of a Belfast Corporation double-decker bus outside Carrick train station. A number of railway wagons had derailed between Downshire and Eden, so this bus was taking rail passengers between Carrick and Whitehead. Nothing new there, then! There's a terrific 1967 picture of a steam train passing Downshire halt and a poignant picture of Jordanstown station showing all the lovely station buildings that NIR tore down by stealth one Sunday morning to be replaced by a bunch of ugly boxes.
There's a lot of other interesting stuff in this book that I'll come back to in a future Kerr's Corner.
Although I'm not by any means a train fanatic, I do like them. When I was a child growing up in Rathcoole, our big treat during the summer holidays was a day out on the train to Carrickfergus or -even better- to Whitehead! My younger sister and I would wake up excited and raring to go early in the morning. Our first job was to prepare our sandwiches and flasks of tea. We would have these as a picnic on the beach when we reached our destination.
We would walk down the long route through Rathcoole, on to the Old Irish Highway and the Station Road to Whiteabbey Station where we had to wait for our train. While my mum rested on a bench we would be all over the platform looking out for signs of a coming train. We'd look down the line for a green light. We'd look for smoke signals that might indicate a steam train coming our way. Soon, we would see smoke and hear the distinctive puffing sound as the train approached the platform. It really was exciting.
I'm glad that the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland is keeping at least some of these engines running. I saw one crossing the Lagan last May Day bank holiday and it brought back all these old memories for me. Some of these days I must travel on one of the RPSI's day excursions just to soak up all these old experiences.
In the meantime, my memories have been rekindled by a book I came across the other day. The Ulster Transport Authority in colour by Derek Young is a reminder of the trains and buses that used to serve the people of Northern Ireland from 1948 to 1967. Most pictures of this era tend to be in black and white, so it's really great to see a lot of vintage colour photographs from all parts of Ulster.
I was struck by a 1967 picture of a Belfast Corporation double-decker bus outside Carrick train station. A number of railway wagons had derailed between Downshire and Eden, so this bus was taking rail passengers between Carrick and Whitehead. Nothing new there, then! There's a terrific 1967 picture of a steam train passing Downshire halt and a poignant picture of Jordanstown station showing all the lovely station buildings that NIR tore down by stealth one Sunday morning to be replaced by a bunch of ugly boxes.
There's a lot of other interesting stuff in this book that I'll come back to in a future Kerr's Corner.
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