Friday, May 02, 2003

This weekend, I found myself between business meetings in London and Dublin. As it turns out, a friend and colleague who lives in the UK has an exotic hobby he invited me to share. He owns an antique steam locomotive and is a licensed locomotive engineer. If my facts are right, his locomotive auditioned for the part of the Hogwart Express in the Harry Potter movies but lost out to another. But the story doesn’t end there. His locomotive is being used to promote the movie and has been trucked around Britain on the back of a flatbed truck. In one town the truck broke down and created a disturbance worthy of Harry himself.

A steam locomotive is difficult to photograph. To see it all means you lose all the detail that makes it interesting. To see the detail, you lose the massiveness and majesty of the beast. But here are a few photos you might enjoy.

A steam engine consumes coal, obviously, but ti also consumes water. With each stroke of the piston, some water-turned steam is lost and has to be replaced at the next station. At the end of of our journey we stopped for water and coal (5 tons of coal in an afternoon - not an inexpensive hobby). 

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Trains
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Saturday, June 24, 2000

I am trying to fly from London to San Francisco when a massive air traffic control radar failure shuts down all of London’s airports. I watch as flight after flight is delayed, delayed, delayed, and then cancelled. Mine’s on its third delay when I notice they are readying the Concorde for take-off. I asked the BA lounge attendant if there was room on the Concorde ... “Yes.” Can you put me on the flight, I ask. “Sure, no problem.” Thus begins a dream flight for me.

There was some drama arriving in New York when I discover there is no onward connection to San Francisco booked for me. But the inconvenience was amply offset by the fact the BA didn’t charge me extra for my flight on the Concorde.

The Rest of the Story: The experience was more, and less, than I expected. The cabin is quiet and the flight very smooth. I was able to balance a nickle on its edge on my tray table without vibration or turbulence knocking it over. It doesn’t feel like you’re going fast. The sky is a very dark blue, nearing black above. You can see the curvature of the earth. But the cabin is cramped, a bit like an MD-80. The food was so so. And landing in New York, the JFK terminal was just as shoddy, confusing, and chaotic as ever.  So the Concorde didn’t cure all the ills of the world. No one on the planet needs this. But it was great fun for me!

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Planes
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