All in a Day's Work!

This is part of one of the most famous trains in history, it is ofcourse The Flying Scotsman. Jon has a great interest in trains due mainly to the fact his Dad worked for British Rail and the family travelled first class, for free. As Laurence could not drive they travelled everywhere by train.There was no need really for him to own a car as their house was near to the station and this took him straight to work, also at another station. Some years ago as a surprise birthday present, Jon spent a day driving a steam engine. He was in his slement. We are also very close to the North York Moors Railway and often go to Grosmont or Pickering. Again, Jon loves nothing more than having a good look in the engine sheds. This week Jon is engineering a part for a miniature railway company, it happens to be a Flying Scotsman replica, it could even be the one he rode as a young boy! Now how coincidental is that?

NIGHT MAIL by W H Auden This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door. Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb: The gradient's against her, but she's on time. Thro' sparse counties she rampages, Her driver's eye upon the gauges. Panting up past lonely farms Fed by the fireman's restless arms. Striding forward along the rails Thro' southern uplands with northern mails. Winding up the valley to the watershed, Thro' the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead. Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder Shovelling white steam over her shoulder, Snorting noisily as she passes Silent miles of wind-bent grasses. Birds turn their heads as she approaches, Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches. Sheepdogs cannot turn her course; They slumber on with paws across. In the farm she passes no one wakes, But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes. Dawn freshens, the climb is done. Down towards Glasgow she descends Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes, Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen. All Scotland waits for her: In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs Men long for news. Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from the girl and the boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or visit relations, And applications for situations And timid lovers' declarations And gossip, gossip from all the nations, News circumstantial, news financial, Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in, Letters with faces scrawled in the margin, Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts, Letters to Scotland from the South of France, Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands Notes from overseas to Hebrides Written on paper of every hue, The pink, the violet, the white and the blue, The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring, The cold and official and the heart's outpouring, Clever, stupid, short and long, The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong. Thousands are still asleep Dreaming of terrifying monsters, Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's: Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh, Asleep in granite Aberdeen, They continue their dreams, And shall wake soon and long for letters, And none will hear the postman's knock Without a quickening of the heart, For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?