There was an interesting snippet on the BBC news this morning about a Collection X.
With such an intriguing name and the phrase 'barn find' being used I watched it.
I thought it might have been a massive collection of space toys but it turned out to be a huge group of old steam locomotives hidden away in barns for fifty years.
Once the property of the late railway super collector Peter Rampton, part of the Freemans catalogue family, the trains are now being sold off and going to various rail museums including the Vale of Rheidol.
I'm not a big train enthusiast but I can appreciate the excitement the release of this lifetime's collection is generating.
There's a book on Collection X too, Narrow Gauge Enigma.
Have you a rail museums or historic railway near you?
When I was a kid there was an old train engine at a park that we used to climb all over. Here in Los Angeles, there's a huge collection of engines and cars at Griffith Park. Took my kid a long time back, but the size must've intimidated her because she wouldn't even get close.
ReplyDeleteYep, trains are a matter of taste and it starts as a kid Baron. They never really grabbed me in the way they did other kids.
DeleteI'm one of those who is in to both space and trains, and yep both started early in life. I live about 4,000 miles west of Surrey and as it happens, have a good friend in Surrey where we crossed paths a decade ago on an incurable illness health support forum and she is in to both trains and space. And really cool are the launch operations where they use trains to move the rockets to the launch pad.
ReplyDeleteHave recently bought a couple books by Brian Harvey, Japan in Space, and, Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration. Want to get his books from 2019, China in Space, and 2004, China's Space Program. 1/72 scale figures and vehicles of cover art on Japan in Space and the astronaut and lunar rover in cover art of China's Space Program would be most welcome.
And while we're talking space and books and trains, a 2010 book by Haym Benaroya titled, Turning Dust to Gold: Building a Future on the Moon and Mars, mentions levitating railways on the moon. Right now I'm not going to disturb the cat to get up and go get the book, but I'm pretty sure concept art reproduced within also presents trains on rails made from lunar materials.
So, yes, train stuff and moon stuff do go together. :)