Early Railways – The Wargaming Erratic

200 years on – tomorrow

The world’s first public railway ran on 27th September 1825. The route from the coalfields around Bishop Auckland ran through Shildon and Darlington to reach Stockton on the river Tees.

Today you can still travel the route.

And at Shildon (north west of Darlington) the Locomotion Museum may not carry the international reputation of the Railway Museum in York but it’s still worth a visit. Its facilities are all modern.

You can arrive via the original railway line or if coming by car there is a large free car park.

Frankly this is a case of less is more – museums wise!

If you just want to get your head round “railways” then Locomotion does it better and quicker.

This is one of the great things about small museums – they often “punch above their weight”: The Wallace collection in the London springs to mind.

Locomotion concentrates on both the beginning of the railways and the modern experiments with speed such as examples of APT and HST.

An HST 125 from the 1980’s peeps out from behind LOCOMOTION dating from 1825

It is the presentation of these modern trains alongside the diminutive Locomotion and other early steam engines that looks so good.

There is a good selection of other engines and coaches showing developments over time as well as technologies.

Memorabilia and the inevitable shop and cafe round off an excellent site.

The prototype HST stop gap for the APT which became a massive success in its own right under the 125 badge.

Mid twentieth century workplace looks clean – imagine the soot and smoke engulfing this place in every tunnel or from a passing steamer! Never mind the fierce heat when opening that firebox door! It belongs to a “Black Five” steam engine – nicknamed because it was always in black paint and classified as a class five locomotive.

A black 5 – a workhorse of the LMS and later nationalised British Railways.

Shildon was a massive wagon workshop and manufacturing site

High Street Hiatus III

Slightly off track Bangor in Snowdonia or rather Eryri National Park as it is now called is not an obvious destination when you have the mountains, seashore and a host of attractive towns and villages – usually accompanied by a castle – to pick from.

On this occasion this High Street trip included an island hop and a pier!

Bangor does have a church – a cathedral in fact, a pier and as it happens a very useful military and transport history bookshop. https://www.facebook.com/people/Pete-The-Hat-Militaria-Antiques-and-Collectables/100063839724031/?sk=photos

The 6th Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Caernarvonshire & Angelesey) were originally a volunteer rifle corps raised in 1859 at a time of concern about Britain being invaded. The more I visit the UK coast the more this issue of possible invasion around 1860 pops up.

The Tomb of Owain the Great is also to be found in the Cathedral

I chanced upon a militaria shop in a very tidy 1970’s shopping mall, a stones throw from the Cathedral. It was full to the brim and also had a decent range of secondhand books. The owner gave me a good price for the items I bought and was very welcoming.