April 19th – I’m fascinated by the machinery of the railways. I’m no train spotter, and wouldn’t cross the road to watch a train go by. However, as a train traveller of a certain geeky nature, things like signalling, communications and the weird and wonderful machines that one sees whilst negotiating the morass that is the British railway system hold a certain fascination. At a wind-blown and damp Nuneaton, there sat an incredibly complex ballast regulating machine. This Austrian made train levels, adjusts and cleans the ballast, the bed of shale under the track, and keeps the track in perfect condition. Usually run with a tamper (the yellow machine parked behind), a train that measures and corrects the sleeper and track positions, this is a very complex machine indeed. While I was admiring it, a General Motors class 66 locomotive trundled through the station; at a little over walking pace, it clanked its couplings, pulling upwards of thirty containers behind. The raw, yet controlled power of that – the noise, vibration and sheer presence – is awe inspiring.
You’d have to be dead not to be impressed by that…
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