1968 and all that
The National Railway Museum means well, bless its heart. Hoping to make a little money, no doubt, from folks who had not a lot to do at half-term, they set up a 1968 nostalgia fest. (40 years on from the end of scheduled steam on BR). Alas, I fear that for the organisers this had been research into ancient history, for the flavour of those heady days in summer 68 was not recaptured at all. (And I don’t mean les evenements at the Sorbonne in the same year either). It’s all very well having Oliver Cromwell and Evening Star and Clun Castle and a Jubilee and a well-tank and a couple of delightful freight locos lined up in light steam but the only things moving were piddly. Those of us who travelled through the night to see grimy 8Fs and Black 5s lit up by the first rays of the June sun, who stood in fields of willow herb to watch the last railtours of the last weeks of steam blast double headed over the hills and viaducts in Lancashire, who cherish the steam locomotive as a live, powerful, working machine don’t get a lot from a static display like this. I’d rather have had dozens of screens showing film of those last days. The railway museum does a great job – but a few acres in York can only be a museum – they are never going to re-create the steam railway. Nice try, and I’m glad the NRM’s there, but it’s reminded me that I should visit and support more preserved lines.