2012-04-02
post/20346372604
Intercity 125 high speed trains waiting to depart from London Paddington station, June 1991. Photograph: David Ashcroft. (via)
(Source: commons.wikimedia.org)
2012-03-29
post/20124079965
Inter-City 125 Oystercard holder and British Rail logo t-shirt, from the shop accompanying the V&A’s British Design exhibition. (Thanks, Chris.)
2011-05-30
post/6014019702
A diagram at Burrito Justice of the principal Spanish and French high speed rail routes, together with the proposed Californian system. Circle size indicates the population of the respective cities.
2011-02-02
2010-12-20
post/2390673178
Intercity APT T-shirt, from Teemarto. Lovely. (Good that they offer a choice of colours, too.)
This is one of the prizes for the (quite tricky) London Reconnections quiz (via).
2010-11-24
post/1671071777
Two historic films from BART. In particular, I recommend Along The Way, from 1968. Notable for the folky music, various shots of San Francisco with an intact Embarcadero freeway, and the introduction to the trains, at about 5’30:
And then you’ll board a train. Carpeted, air conditioned, settle in to an extra-wide, foam-rubber seat. And when you’re travelling on the surface or the aerial structures, you’ll enjoy the scenery from a full vista window.
2010-09-08
post/1087837693
Tony Judt: In Love with Trains in The New York Review of Books.
(I can’t read the whole article, but I love that quote, and anyway, this’ll make a good bookmark for when I am a subscriber.)
2009-10-08
post/207595468
What seems to be a peculiarly British solution to the problem of overcrowding on trains. There’s a lower height limit in the UK than elsewhere - so one approach was to stack the compartments.
From the sounds of it, it was a rubbish idea - but the eight carriages lasted in service for 20 years.
The link’s well worth reading. The carriages do sound flawed, though.
