There’s something about a steam engine that gets under the skin. It’s not just the hiss, the smell of oil and soot, or the rhythmic chug echoing across the countryside—it’s what they represent: a world we remember, or imagine, as simpler, steadier, somehow better.
I was recently at The Greatest Gathering in Derby—an event to mark 200 years since the dawn of the railways. Among the stars were titans like Flying Scotsman and Sir Nigel Gresley, engines so deeply rooted in our cultural memory they feel almost like family. It struck me that part of what draws people to these events isn’t just admiration for engineering—it’s change itself. Or rather, what comes after change: the loss, the memory, the longing.
And speaking of change… I’ve had my own encounter with it lately. For months now, especially as deadlines loomed, my six-year-old
computer has groaned and wheezed its way over the finish line, dragging me with it. I knew the day was coming when it would finally give up, and there’d be no magazine at all. So last week, I took the plunge and upgraded— with the help of David and Martin at Data One Limited of Loughborough.
As predicted, nothing was where it used to be, or worked quite as it did. Stress levels at Burton Towers were at Def Con 5. I’d taken a couple of hundred photos at The Greatest Gathering, and once the dust settled I was eager to see them. On my camera’s SD card were a few stray old images, so I deleted them—or so I thought. Wrong folder. In one click, the whole lot vanished.
David and Martin have been superb – true IT angels – patiently fielding my hourly calls and calmly producing solutions. Even as I write this, David is attempting a recovery. Fingers crossed, eh? Thankfully, four photos survived on my iPhone: selfies with old engines I’d first known in my youth. Pictured here as well as me and the Flying Scotsman is Sir Nigel Gresley – a locomotive I rode behind at the age of 15 on an enthusiasts’ special in 1968. On that trip I even went onto the footplate at Carlisle Station to take photographs of the cab interior; but that is just a memory now, the little colour slides, lost in the fog of time.
Perhaps that’s why railway heritage strikes such a chord—not in resistance to change, but in tribute to it. Whether it’s the end of steam, the start of hydrogen trains, or simply moving from one computer to another, change can be painful. But it’s what allows the past to be cherished, and the future to roll on.
Steve & Mary
Editors, Soar Valley Life
