mef13

By mef13

Nostalgic moment

Well, I might have missed her last week, but I made sure that camera was at the ready today when the mighty Flying Scotsman roared into Hampshire again.
The famous railway locomotive, restored over a ten year programme at a cost of more than £4 million was back in Hampshire for the second week running, hauling the Cathedrals Express.
And what a difference a week makes. Last week I, and hundreds more, waited more than an hour in the rain to catch a glimpse of the celebrated locomotive and train make a circular tour of Hampshire from Salisbury to Southampton and back. Trying to balance umbrella which provided some shelter in one hand and operate the camera with the other, as well as catching a glimpse of the train itself, meant I missed the important moment.
This week I made sure. Different location, different viewpoint and a head-on camera shot from  a bridge across the railway line in a relatively remote section of the line approaching Southampton. I wasn’t alone.  Just two other people were on the bridge when I arrived.
That number grew to no more than a dozen, and we were rewarded by the magnificent view of the Flying Scotsman loco and its train as it steamed into view, round a bend in the track, ever closer, under the bridge, and on towards Southampton.  No more than 30 seconds in all. But rewarded by the nostalgia of the memory of the great age of steam trains.

Or is that revealing my age?  Even so, I shall revel in my moment of  reminiscences of when trains were hauled by real engines in all their majesty, like this.

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