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"Real steam" by one definition, about to vanish from the world

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LSWR Cavalier

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The Snowdon Mountain Railway is almost entirely diesel operated these days,if I recall correctly it has been for some time, steam runs a 'heritage' service which is very infrequent and has been withdrawn for this year.
Travel by steam doubtless costs a lot more.

@Calthrop has a point, I think the FR and Talyllyn 'died' and now have afterlives, brighter and shinier than their 'real' first lives.
 
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MattRat

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The Snowdon Mountain Railway is almost entirely diesel operated these days,if I recall correctly it has been for some time, steam runs a 'heritage' service which is very infrequent and has been withdrawn for this year.
Probably staffing issues. It takes 2 people to operate a steam train, and 1 to run a diesel. Plus guard of course.
 

nanstallon

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I've found Poland wonderful for bird life -- though I'm in any case, pretty much comprehensively "sold" on Poland in general. Particularly good fun in the stork-summering-and-breeding season, late spring / most of the summer (and the locals love the storks, and put up elevated nesting-platforms for them) -- in the countryside in the season, storks all over the place, doing their thing. Have also seen cranes -- close-to, from a train -- in western Poland.



I admit to being a bit funny in the head about these matters: by all rational and linguistic-sense-making canons, regular day-by-day steam shunting activities are the real thing -- just, I irrationally feel that steam locos out on the line, regularly and copiously hauling trains, are really "what it's all about". A number of countries, after they had ceased to use steam for regular line working, for a fair while kept it in some strength, purely for shunting. That was stuff which I never wished to go to see: it just felt for me, such a miserable and ignominious come-down and "antechamber to death", for the survivors of the country's steam fleet. Shunting by steam can indeed be, in itself, a fine spectacle: in Zimbabwe in 1991, I revelled in watching it at Bulawayo; with there still being there at that time, plentiful steam line working, which I also experienced.
I share Calthrop's views as to wanting to experience 'real' steam out on the line, and especially when you have seen it in its full glory it is a mistake to go again for a cut down operation. However, even preserved steam has its own nostalgia - I'd certainly make the trip from Cornwall to the East Midlands if the Stirling Single (working in 1981) were to be working again on the Great Central Railway! And with carbon so unfashionable these days, can we be sure that steam will continue even on preserved lines?
 

tbtc

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I admit to being a bit funny in the head about these matters: by all rational and linguistic-sense-making canons, regular day-by-day steam shunting activities are the real thing -- just, I irrationally feel that steam locos out on the line, regularly and copiously hauling trains, are really "what it's all about". A number of countries, after they had ceased to use steam for regular line working, for a fair while kept it in some strength, purely for shunting. That was stuff which I never wished to go to see: it just felt for me, such a miserable and ignominious come-down and "antechamber to death", for the survivors of the country's steam fleet

All depends on one's definition; and happily, this hobby is a "broad church" -- no universal protocol or orthodoxy, about anything in it, which one must adhere to, or else (beyond being gently "rubbished" by fellow-enthusiasts who feel otherwise).

As I've emphasised throughout this thread: my ideas on this matter -- admittedly highly negative and rigid -- are for, and in respect of, myself only; I don't consider myself on any mission to convert the wrong-headed rest of the world !

As a member of the "wrong headed" community, I've found this thread brilliant - thanks for starting it and generating the discusion

I'm really not bothered about steam - but I love the way that railway enthusiasts can have completely different fascinations - from the kind of people who want to go back to how things were a hundred years ago (steam locos, branch lines with a couple of trains a day etc) to those who want only the most modern technology and also those who are stuck at a particular time period (e.g. wanting to preserve a Pacer - but then, growing up in Scotland I had practically no experience of Pacers in childhood, so they had no impact in my formative years, I'm not trying to kinkshame those who have a bit of a Pacer fetish) - there's obviously no 'right and wrong' - but it's interesting to read the views of someone with very different opinions to mine but who argues them so well - you've drawn a distinction in this thread that I'd never considered/ worried about, but I like that it matters to you, I like that there are niches within niches, I like the way that this discussion has gone (even if it means nothing to me personally)
 

70014IronDuke

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Heizloks were probably unable to move, so they could not count as being in service.
As a photographer, had I been there and got an atmospheric shot of, say, the 'driver' wiping his brow, or sitting up in his cab reading the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung :), I'd definitely count it as 'real' - certainly compared to anything on a UK preserved railway.
 

Calthrop

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As a photographer, had I been there and got an atmospheric shot of, say, the 'driver' wiping his brow, or sitting up in his cab reading the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung :), I'd definitely count it as 'real' - certainly compared to anything on a UK preserved railway.

This brings to mind something read, a good many years ago; which I have at least briefly cited previously, on these Forums. Happened, I believe, after the end of regular British Railways (standard-gauge) steam, but while the Vale of Rheidol line was still worked by BR. A comment by someone who had visited the Talyllyn Railway, and the Rheidol, in quick succession. On the former, train-making-up was taking place at Towyn; with the volunteer loco crew clearly delighting in the show they were putting on for the interested onlookers, and cheerily interacting with them -- everyone having a splendid time. On the Rheidol, in contrast, the staff were doing their jobs conscientiously but without noticeable joy, and essentially ignoring the passengers other than taking the occasional look to make sure that they were behaving themselves. Especially -- pre-departure from Aberystwyth, the driver was standing on the footplate smoking a cigarette, gazing straight ahead into nothingness and looking totally and utterly bored. The "comment-er" -- though not having actively disliked the jolly and animated doings on the Talyllyn -- summed up his impression of the Rheidol scene as, "now this is a real railway !"

@70014Iron Duke: it would seem that you and I are pretty much "on the same page" as that chap.
 

341o2

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The Talyllyn has remained in continuous operation using original locos and original stock. At what point did it cease to be real? (arf)
But the two original locos are effectively replicas of the originals. They perform totally differently. Like my grandfather's axe on its third head and fourth handle.
Yes, I've heard that comment regarding the attitude of footplate crews on the TR and VoR when the latter was still part of the national network
 

Calthrop

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As referred to in OP, re Bernd Seiler and Sandaoling, China; e-mail from Herr Seiler this morning -- recent intelligence from China, from someone likely to be reliably in the know: steam operation in the open-cast coal mine at Sandaoling may after all not finish until spring 2022. A possible few months' stay of execution !

Further to my OP, and my post #21 as above: periodic newsletter from Bernd Seiler's organisation, received 10/10/2021, states:

"It's back and forth about the end of steam at Sandaoling. At the beginning of September, officials said that the end of steam at the opencast mine would be in October 2021 but on 16/9 a loco driver called our contact in China and said that the date of the end of steam operation had been changed to March next year. This news was also heard from 'official' circles a little later. So Sandaoling still has another winter with steam operation ahead of it. However, hardly anyone will be there when the last steam train comes out of the pit. This is because China requires a three-week quarantine in a hotel if one wants to enter the country, no matter whether vaccinated or tested. This means that only a few local railway enthusiasts will be there when the last spark glooms [sic] in the night sky over the desert.

The plan is to replace the railway into the pits by trucks. Then it will be as dusty there as it already is on the western side of the pit, but they think that the railway is no longer worthwhile for the remaining coal to be extracted."

[He continues, about a location called Nanzhan -- something with which I confess I'm unfamiliar; from what I can figure out, it definitely seems to be located not far from Sandaoling; maybe actually physically and / or administratively linked with it.] "Nanzhan, on the other hand, wants to continue using steam locomotives for shunting and to the deep mines for another two years or so. This means that authentic working steam is not completely dead and there will still be steam hauled and banked trains. But who wants to go all that way for trains that run uphill tender-first once or twice a day?"

I would, if I were a man of sufficient means; but then my passion, is other than for artistic photography with a large amount of stuff to work on !
 
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