Jumping in the past with many choo-choo trains! (many pics inside!)
Fantastic Sunday yesterday thanks a big exhibition of choo-choo trains in my city (Pistoia, Italy)! You have to know that when I was a little child (like many ther children) I loved to play with a little toy train imaging adventures all around the world and trains are always so intrigued for me, more than other transports!
When I read on a local newspaper that in the weekend there was the opening of the storage of the old steam trains I said to my hubby "We have to go there!". Paolo was super excited because he loves so much the old trains and so, yesterday, we went there!
There were many people, many entire families, people of every age who wanted to enter in the magical atmosphere of the old time! Steam locomotives, old electric locomotives, different vagons and also an exhibition of some beautiful tiny model railroad layouts for the joy of children and adults! Those miniatures (dioramas) represented the old rairoad of Porrettana, the railroad that connect from many many years my city with the city of Bologna.
All around the volunteers helped people to understand how that old engines worked and in a specific room there was also the museum of the old mechanics school with some pieces of engines that student studied.
A curiosity: the term locomotive come from the latin loco (from a place) and motivus (causing motion) and so in italian (that is a latin base language) we use the terms locomotiva (singular) and locomotive (plural).
The historic rail vehicles storage is placed close to the station trains and Ive always seen the collection of old locomotives just from a distance, but in the last weekend we could see them very close and some of the steam locomotives was in operation! There was a ton of smoke all around and the smell of the past helped to think to be in the old times ^_^
Have you ever seen a steam locomotive? They are fueled by burning coal (or wood) to produce steam in their boiler that moves the pistons thanks a steam engine. They have beautiful mechanical parts, very fascinating!
The first steam locomotive was built in the 1802 (by R. Trevithick) for ironworks in the Uk and this kind of locomotives were very common until the World War II, when it started the use of electric trains and, after, the use of diesel-electric engine for train.
In time, people who love so much those beatiful steam locomotives, helped to preserve their memories and sometimes they organize short trip using a choo choo trains, like a jump in the past!
It was really a beautiful jump in the past and it was a great opportunity for everyone to connect us with a part of our history having fun!
See ya soon
Silvia
I love steam trains too! I have ridden on them, as we have a few places in the US that still run historic ones as part of a sort of park of history.
Sandly our actual train system is so bad in the USA. We are so behind Europe in this. After WWII when the US really built up it ripped out tons of teain lines and replaced everything with roads and highways as we were to become the 'car makers' of the world. In my area, you used to be able to take trains but before my time, now all the area that had tracks that would benefit the towns and help with all the traffic we have on the Cape in the summer were ripped out and paved and used as bike trails, which sounds nice but only get used occasionally for sport and recreation when we really need cheaper and more reliable and less traffic inducing transportation. Oh well.
This looks like a lovely day out!
I'm not so sure that the train system in the Usa is wrost than our italian train system. Here in Italy we have a good net of railroads, but many problems with delay of the trains. Many people use train form the little town to the big city, but everytime there are some issues :(
In the US you can't even take a train from little towns or villages as they ripped out most of the lines and only use them to move garbage around but not people. And our tracks are such bad shape that our trains travel SO SLOW.
When I'm in the UK I am always amazed and jealous of their trains, so effieceint and fast. If our trains could be the speed of English trains then when @winstonalden took his train into the city for work he'd get there in 20 minutes instead it's over an hour AND he has to drive 30 minutes to a much larger town to catch the train, even though if it were 1940 he could just catch it our our little village here, as the trains used to run from the city to all the little villages on the Cape all the way to the very end. Now you have to just sit in cars in traffic in Summer to get anywhere.
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Amazing! Really beautiful the "old-school" trains!
It was really great to watch all those locomotive in tha same place ^_^
Silvia it's great experience. Choo Choo train has been my funny play in childhood where I along with my cousin used to make a long queue putting hands on the shoulders of front person. And thus train would move.
All the sounds of engine.
It's nostalgic post for me aswell❤
I think Choo Choo trains are a part of the memories of many children, here I did the same play with my sister and my friends ^_^
Hahaa. That sounds really great.
Nostalgic❤
A beautiful day, a nice and classic train
this train is very historic