On The Slide?

I went to Leicestershire's Ashby Folville Car Show earlier. It must be the last of the season as the autumnal winds blew into the cricket field where the meet is held most summer months. Thus a little subdued but a good atmosphere nonetheless.

What struck me about it was that, to my mind, far from being a celebration of car culture, this type of event reinforces the idea that cars are increasingly becoming at their most enjoyable and most appropriate as collectors items.... As an historic record of how people used to get around. Just like the final days of steam these car shows give more a sense of car cultures decline and ultimate burial rather than any notion of vitality or longevity.

As if to drive the message home... On the way home I passed underneath an abandoned disused railway line. The curved arch of the bridge now merely supporting trees. One time this line and the demise of the steam trains which travelled it would have been unimaginable, today you can only ride it on heritage lines; museums to steam, museums to how things used to be. The railway bridge, just the the road infrastructure will one day become, is an artefact of it's time and it's culture.