After watching Strictly Come Dancing, I caught up with a tv programme I recorded a ten days ago, about building a stream locomotive. From scratch.
I like steam trains. I'm not obsessive or anything. But I have been watching a lot of BBC4's recent (and ongoing) series of programmes about steam trains.
Tonight I watched Absolutely Chuffed1, about a group of men who decided to build an A1 class locomotive. It took them eighteen years or so, and three million pounds.
And it made a really good tv programme. There was a lot of the Titfield Thunderbolt about the enterprise: a certain professional-amateurishness and the fact that everyone kept telling them that it would never work.
It did; and I wish I had been there.
1Although the programme is still on iPlayer, I have no idea how long it may stay there, since usually programmes only stay for a week - and it is over seven days since this was shown...
I like steam trains. I'm not obsessive or anything. But I have been watching a lot of BBC4's recent (and ongoing) series of programmes about steam trains.
Tonight I watched Absolutely Chuffed1, about a group of men who decided to build an A1 class locomotive. It took them eighteen years or so, and three million pounds.
And it made a really good tv programme. There was a lot of the Titfield Thunderbolt about the enterprise: a certain professional-amateurishness and the fact that everyone kept telling them that it would never work.
It did; and I wish I had been there.
1Although the programme is still on iPlayer, I have no idea how long it may stay there, since usually programmes only stay for a week - and it is over seven days since this was shown...