JBRW Repurposing the legacies of the Industrial Revolution

-

BradburyDisusedRailway

The almost poetically sad expression 'disused railway'—10,000 miles is a lot of disused—once conjured up visions of neglect and abandonment. Heritage railways and the repurposing of some former stretches of 'permanent way' (a poor choice of words) have halted a small but significant part the decline. Before the 'Canal Walks' series (May 2011), which we featured recently, there were six episodes of a 'Railway Walks' series (Oct-Nov 2008), both presented by Julia Bradbury. Neither series is available for online streaming via the BBC iPlayer, but check the linked pages for DVD availability via Amazon and the BBC Shop.

We chanced upon a picture of Bradbury on the footplate of a heritage locomotive on the Ffestiniog railway—the fireman's side of a Double Fairlie for any trainspotters: the American English translation of 'railfan', 'rail buff' or 'train buff' fails to conjure up the anoraks and woolly bobble hats of the true pedigree breed of 'trainspotter'; 'metrophile' has connotations of being a criminal offense in certain jurisdictions. An RMWeb.co.uk forum member had asked: "In one of those taxi driver 'guess who I had in my taxi' moments, I had that Julia Bradbury off the tele in the cab of my double engine yesterday. Anyone get a photo of that?" Another forum member obliged with this picture:

BradburyFfestiniog

A good vacation destination would be the Bradbury walk 'Discovering Snowdonia', in episode two of 'Railway Walks', along the Mawddach estuary between Dolgellau and the coastal resort of Barmouth, with a visit to the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways double attraction [1] [2] operating a connected Caernarfon-Porthmadog line and a Porthmadog-Blaenau Ffestiniog line.

WelshDouble

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The discrete arts of talking and walking

-
Image
These extra-terrestial visitors did not have much to say, but I had a long chinwag with the property owner. 'Pine Tree Corner' was in Technicolor this evening. I turned the color saturation down to 'CREDIBLE'. I also chinwagged with a fellow immigrant as this 'plane glinted briefly, then began its descent to the nearby airport community. " What's one of those? " I hear you ask. In this case it's an FAA approved night-lit landing strip with a collection of privately owned hangars that have houses attached. It's the kind of place that Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), better known as Le Corbusier, would probably have loved: " …the beauty of an airport is in the splendor of wide open spaces! " He eulogized in more detail: " …sky, grass, and concrete runways " ('Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure' by Alastair Gordon). Well, two outta three ain't too shabby: ...
Read more

iRide.2019.10.07

-
Image
WE'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY • Since the demise of my Canon G11 (I miss ya baby; I'm so sorry I made all those niggling complaints about ya) I have been experimenting with carrying an old Canon A10 or an old Canon G2. I always have my iPhone 6S+ with me because that's how I record my rides on the Strava service. If only the iPhone didn't have such a wide-angle lens then I would probably not bother with a 'real' camera. Today, I had the Canon A10 and the iPhone stowed in a frame bag on the bicycle. I had not intended to take any photos, but when I made a water stop I realized that it has been a long time since I took a photo of the Hurricane Fault mountain tops—known as Mollies Nipple, the Three Brothers, Whiteface, and the Wart—in the late afternoon sun. I went to dig out the Canon A10, but on an impulse I first took a photo at that same location using the iPhone. The headline photo is Mollies Nipple. The upper photo in the collage of the string of tops wa...
Read more