> 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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> 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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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> schreef in bericht 
news:4a8d41f8$1@news.povray.org...
> You remember steam locomotives???  I'm gobsmacked!

1950's in France, until the line I travelled most often on (with my parents) 
was electrified, I think that was end 50's early 60's. I do not really 
remember diesel electrics in between. Before electrification, travelling on 
the line Paris-Amsterdam, the train switched locomotives at Brussels 
(steam -> diesel) and maybe again at Rosendaal (diesel -> electric).

Thomas

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"TC" <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> schreef in bericht 
news:4a8dfce7$1@news.povray.org...
>
> 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...

I certainly do agree with you, and in East Germany that experience remained 
longer too. We (oldies) have now forgotten (younger generations never 
experienced it) about how the cities smelled and looked in winter in the 
1950's in most parts of Europe: coal and wood burning in every appartment, 
smelly cars and trucks (much more than nowadays), smog... We complain about 
pollution but forget that already a very long way has been travelled.

Thomas

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"m_a_r_c" <jac### [at] wanadoofr> schreef in bericht 
news:4a8d45f1@news.povray.org...
>
> When I was 12y old (in the 70's), I took one of the last french steam 
> trains every second weekend to come back home from school and way back 
> (wasn't Hogwarts BTW :-( )
> The locomotive was a Pacific 231 (French notation) or 4-6-2.
> Few years after they were replaced by diesel/electric locomotives.
>

My school in the Paris banlieue was alongside a railway station of one of 
the local lines. Steam traction was used there I think until about 1963/64. 
Every half hour, class had to be interrupted because of the noise of the 
steam loc starting from the station... and close the windows of course :-) 
I think that most steam engines were Pacifics in those days.

Thomas

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"Stephen" <mcavoysAT@aolDOTcom> schreef in bericht 
news:2lhq85pr154amevlvhu24p5c9a93n5h6dk@4ax.com...
>
> Also carriages without a connecting corridor or toilet. The phrase "Do you 
> need
> to go?" was said a lot to children.

I remember those only from the UK....

Thomas

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"TC" <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> wrote:
> 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...

And worst of all... no POV-Ray! Arg!

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On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:37:12 +0200, "Thomas de Groot"
<tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> wrote:

>> Also carriages without a connecting corridor or toilet. The phrase "Do you 
>> need
>> to go?" was said a lot to children.
>
>I remember those only from the UK....

We heard rumours that the train carriages on the continent were better. They
even had toilets and you could buy food :). Truthfully I can only vaguely
remember those sort of trains and they weren't long distance ones.
I remember in 1957 been taken from Glasgow to Sky on the train to catch the
steamer to Stornoway. That was a corridor train but the year before going to
Largs on a Sunday School trip, it had unconnected compartments.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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High!

Jim Charter wrote:

> You remember steam locomotives???  I'm gobsmacked!

Here in (Western) Germany, the last ones were put out of operation in 
1977... so I would not be too young to remember regular steam trains, 
but I hardly can remember any travels by train at all in my childhood 
days, as my parents both had a driving license and for a family of four, 
travelling by car was much cheaper than taking any train back then.

By the way, between 1977 and 1985, steam locomotives were formally 
outlawed in Western Germany!

Nowadays, I'm a die-hard train traveller (no car and no license - it's 
my ecological creed!), but I never had the chance to ride on a "museum 
train"... which would not please me that much, as I'm more into 
hyper-modern high-speed trains (as you see in my current POV-Ray 
project), zooming across France in a TGV or doing Japan by Shinkansen, 
that's me!

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

Now playing: Juan Charrasqueado (Mariachi Nacional)

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> "TC" <do-not-reply@i-do get-enough-spam-already-2498.com> schreef in bericht 
> news:4a8dfce7$1@news.povray.org...
>> 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...
> 
> I certainly do agree with you, and in East Germany that experience remained 
> longer too. We (oldies) have now forgotten (younger generations never 
> experienced it) about how the cities smelled and looked in winter in the 
> 1950's in most parts of Europe: coal and wood burning in every appartment, 
> smelly cars and trucks (much more than nowadays), smog... We complain about 
> pollution but forget that already a very long way has been travelled.
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
Not by personal experience, but just by looking at old photographs on 
the Montreal skyline dating back to the 30's and 40's, then going to the 
approximate place from where those photos where taken can be instructive.

Back then, from the Mount Royal, you just can't see the horizon, in any 
direction. There was that low lying bank of dark gray smoke in the way.
Now, with a population over 20 time larger and largely more than 1000 
times more cars in the streets, you can see the horizon.
(most of the areas now covered by the city where fields)

Back then, the outer wall of any brick or granite house more than 5 
years old where mostly black.
Now, those same walls have recovered ther original colours, mostly due 
to the rain.

And, now, old peoples that lived during that time are complaining about 
the polution levels we expeiencing now... And say that in ther time 
there was no polution.
In my view, it's just that back then, nobody imagined that the polution 
could be mesured. Some did'nt even know of the word...

Now, there are trees in the city that bear some moss and/or lichen. 20 
years ago, NO trees had any moss nor lichen.


Alain

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