Where did those days go?

Phew, where did the last few days go!!  We're now home from our fabulous holiday, and it's time to catch up on things.  The National Railway Museum in York was at least as good as expected, and York was fun generally.  A really beautiful town, if somewhat busy with tourists.  The lighting in the NRM made it quite difficult for photography, but I'll include some of my pretty ordinary ones.  They really don't capture how good this place is though.

The Museum is basically divided into two parts- the Station Hall- part of which is seen above, and the Great Hall which is a new building constructed around a turntable from when the area was an important engine shed.  My favourite part was the Station Hall as it captured the atmosphere of an old station in the steam days very well.  The Great Hall has many amazing exhibits, but less overall atmosphere.

I particularly like the earlier items- locos and rolling stock- of the pre-Grouping era, ie before 1923, which are mostly authentically painted in beautiful reds and greens.

One really amazing area, off the Great Hall, is their Storage Area, housing some of the several million items that they have which aren't on display, as such.  This is either a collector's dream, or a collector's nightmare, depending on how much you would like to have even one of these items in your own collection!  Absolutely incredible pieces, and a privilege to be able to see them.  

Being the big kid that I am I couldn't resist the miniature train ride, which is in a nice park-like area out the back of the Station Hall.

I always get good ideas for my own hoped-for railway when I visit someone else's line, and this one was no exception.  Well, that's my excuse, anyway!

One interesting item in the stored collection was a wheel from a Micheline Railcar, which were made by the Michelin tyre company.  I had never seen one before, and couldn't picture how a rubber tyre could be used in a railway context (although the Paris Metro uses them, but in a different way), so it was really interesting to see one in the flesh.

Fundamentally the pneumatic rubber tyre forms the coned tread of the wheel, with a normal flange as part of the metal wheel.  This one was deflated, but I wonder what pressure they ran on in service?  There is one of these railcars in the French Railway museum, but apparently one is still in service in Madagascar, though I doubt it still uses the Michelin wheel.

By the way, the scones with jam and clotted cream at the cafe in the Station Hall are highly recommended!

The Raceway

Sadly, our time visiting our daughter and son-in-law in Budapest came to an end yesterday, but we certainly did a lot together in that magnificent city and had a fantastic time.  I would have no hesitation in recommending Budapest as a really interesting European holiday destination.  We flew from Budapest to London yesterday, so that we can spend the last few days of our holiday doing some 'training' in England.

(photo courtesy of Business Traveller online magazine)

Today we caught a Virgin East Coast train from Kings Cross to York along what was the Great Northern then LNER's mainline 'raceway' up to Edinburgh.  I was like a 'tin of worms going fishing' this morning, looking forward so much to the journey, and most certainly I wasn't disappointed.  I can't help compare today's trip with yesterday's flight, which was about the same length of time.  Chalk and cheese, utterly boring and tedious to really exciting!

More than 30 years ago we visited the UK with a Britrail pass and several times rode on trains called Inter City 125s, which were then fairly new, the 125 indicating the train's maximum operating speed in miles per hour- pretty impressive!!  I was surprised today that our train was a refurbished IC125, still performing superbly and extremely clean and comfortable.  As we blasted up the grade out of Kings Cross, through Gasworks tunnel and soon out of the suburbs of London, I was really rather overwhelmed and impressed by the fact that we were hurtling along the very line that I've read so much about in the past.  The line that saw the absolute pinnacle of steam traction where Mallard set her world speed record, and which was the domain of the A1s/A3s with names such as Flying Scotsman, and the magnificent A4 Gresley Pacifics, followed by the equally impressive Deltic diesel locos.  How incredible would it have been to operate any of those superb locos and trains at speeds up to 100mph (160km/h) on a daily basis.  I found the incredibly rich heritage of this line really overwhelming.  Not to mention extremely enjoyable!!  The IC125s have certainly given excellent service, and are very much the modern day equivalent of their classic forebears.  Interesting that although the East Coast Main Line has been electrified for quite a few years, that a large proportion of passenger trains are still diesel powered.

Anyway, we're now in the beautiful city of York and looking forward very much to visiting the National Railway Museum tomorrow!!