> My earliest memories of such things would date to the late fifties.  I
> never saw anything other than a deisel loc.

Well, travelling with a steamer is an overrated experience - like most
things we regard as quaint or romantic.

Very nice if you do it from time to time, for pleasure, when you are in for
a bit of romance. Beatuful to behold, especially on pictures.

But when have you do it often, every week, then the charming experience
becomes less so. I remember how everbody rushed off to close the carriages
windows whenever a tunnel was near. If you forgot - or did not know the
line - let us say it was not very pleasant.

We all are longing for the past, but we tend to remember just the pleasant
things. Rural life, 40 years past, was it nice? If in winter you had to go

doing it in high summer, when the flies were swarming and the odour was
horrible. No warm water boiler (you heated bath-water once a week on the
coal stove), no showers, coal ovens as heating in the winter. That was rural
life in East Germany in the late sixties and early seventies...

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