A bit of difficulty deciding whether to put this in this sub-forum, or in "International Transport"; but it's essentially nostalgia that is involved here.
Different enthusiasts will have different definitions of what on the rail scene is "real", and what "artificial -- tourist-and-gricer-bait"; and this distinction will matter more for some, than for others. I personally am, here, far out on the hard-line / unforgiving / purist side. Am a lover of steam -- old enough to have known a good many years of it in everyday service on British Railways: and for me, it is real and thus to be admired and revelled in above all other forms of this mode of propulsion, only when it involves regular and relatively frequent line working; and is employed because it is what's available, and those who run functional / commercial rail services choose to use it -- not making that choice, to please people who for "frivolous" reasons, like steam traction. (There is the odd grey area in this continuum.) And to truly please me, real line working must be involved -- shunting-only activity, doesn't cut it for me.
For decades now, the steam scene as answering this description has been dwindling and getting ever more meagre world-wide: having become as of a fair number of years ago, restricted to essentially industrial railways. Effectively its last outpost on earth has become the colliery system at Sandaoling in western China, near the Mongolian border: steam of a couple of different modern classes, overwhelmingly in charge here -- shunting around the actual pits, and hauling coal trains to the China Rail exchange point. Visited and "valued" over the years by many enthusiast groups -- including Far Rail Tours: run, to many steam venues of -- to the purist -- varying authenticity around the globe, by the indefatigable Bernd Seiler. A sad e-mail from Herr Seiler has recently been circulated to FRT subscribers, informing that in this matter, "the end is nigh": it is planned for all steam operation at Sandaoling to cease in October this year -- i.e., next month. And -- a cause for additional woe -- it will not be possible to set up a last-minute visit to the venue: Covid-related factors mean that tourist trips to China of any kind will be impossible until at least the end of November.
Melancholy news -- though it has been seen as inevitably going to break, wherever the "last rites" might turn out to be, at any time for a few years past -- for those with my kind of "take" on the steam scene. (No intention of suggesting that anyone else should feel this way about the whole business: just the bad luck of myself and those with similar sentiments to mine, that we do happen to feel thus.)
Different enthusiasts will have different definitions of what on the rail scene is "real", and what "artificial -- tourist-and-gricer-bait"; and this distinction will matter more for some, than for others. I personally am, here, far out on the hard-line / unforgiving / purist side. Am a lover of steam -- old enough to have known a good many years of it in everyday service on British Railways: and for me, it is real and thus to be admired and revelled in above all other forms of this mode of propulsion, only when it involves regular and relatively frequent line working; and is employed because it is what's available, and those who run functional / commercial rail services choose to use it -- not making that choice, to please people who for "frivolous" reasons, like steam traction. (There is the odd grey area in this continuum.) And to truly please me, real line working must be involved -- shunting-only activity, doesn't cut it for me.
For decades now, the steam scene as answering this description has been dwindling and getting ever more meagre world-wide: having become as of a fair number of years ago, restricted to essentially industrial railways. Effectively its last outpost on earth has become the colliery system at Sandaoling in western China, near the Mongolian border: steam of a couple of different modern classes, overwhelmingly in charge here -- shunting around the actual pits, and hauling coal trains to the China Rail exchange point. Visited and "valued" over the years by many enthusiast groups -- including Far Rail Tours: run, to many steam venues of -- to the purist -- varying authenticity around the globe, by the indefatigable Bernd Seiler. A sad e-mail from Herr Seiler has recently been circulated to FRT subscribers, informing that in this matter, "the end is nigh": it is planned for all steam operation at Sandaoling to cease in October this year -- i.e., next month. And -- a cause for additional woe -- it will not be possible to set up a last-minute visit to the venue: Covid-related factors mean that tourist trips to China of any kind will be impossible until at least the end of November.
Melancholy news -- though it has been seen as inevitably going to break, wherever the "last rites" might turn out to be, at any time for a few years past -- for those with my kind of "take" on the steam scene. (No intention of suggesting that anyone else should feel this way about the whole business: just the bad luck of myself and those with similar sentiments to mine, that we do happen to feel thus.)
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