Allure of the mighty steam locomotive lives on

Especially for Britons of a certain age, fascination with these beautiful behemoths is mixture of nostalgia and awe

Nostalgia, as the old joke goes, is not what it used to be. But when it comes to steam locomotives, for me and many other Britons of a certain age, we literally wallow in nostalgia when confronted by one of these behemoths.

I was recently asked by a Chinese colleague to explain Britain's fascination with the age of steam, whose golden period is reckoned to be from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Tough question-but here we go. Visit either London's Science Museum or take a trip to York, a major railway city and home to the country's National Railway Museum.

I've been there several times, and a kid in a candy store doesn't start to describe my reaction each time.

The visitor is confronted by beautifully restored engines from various landmark periods, standing on rails and in some cases arranged so that small and not-so-small boys can climb into the cabs, with their bewildering array of gauges, levers and valves.

Among my favorite exhibits is a monster-and I mean monster - locomotive from China. Its official title is Chinese Government Railways 4-8-4 KF7 Class, serial number 607.

Built by the British company Vulcan Foundry in 1935, and withdrawn from service in 1981 before being donated to the museum, this fabulous beast in its black livery with red trimmings, thundered up and down China's railways, belching black smoke and hauling anything from freight to passengers.

Now, freshly painted and regularly photographed, she's (locomotives are always she - don't ask me why) parked up in the museum's main hall alongside, and often dwarfing, exhibits from all over the world.

My favorites include the Mallard, a 1938 streamlined blue locomotive designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, the go-to guy for locomotive design in the 1930s.

Built for speed, it broke the world steam speed record in 1938, shortly after it was built. Streamlined, it hit 126 miles an hour (203 kph) - and that record has never been beaten by a steam train.

Switching focus for a minute, crowds today flock to see The Flying Scotsman, a Gresley-designed A3 Pacific class locomotive that runs a regular service using period-specific rolling stock. Painted in its original apple green livery, The Flying Scotsman, named after the regular London-Edinburgh route it operated before the World War II, steams on a variety of routes throughout the UK.

Built in 1923, and obviously thoroughly refurbished and overhauled, it pretty much represents the pinnacle of steam power. But think before you rush to buy a ticket - traveling on it from London to York will cost you a whopping 450 pounds.

So what is it that makes people like me love steam power?

It's a difficult one - I was brought up by my father to respect and handle machinery, and mixed with a nostalgia from the summer holidays when I was a kid with the long rail journeys from Oxford to Hartle pool, I suppose it is memories of time gone by.

I can still smell the potent tang of steam and burning first-grade Welsh coal as the locomotive sat hissing at Oxford Station.

I think you also have to take into account national pride. It was, after all, the Brits who invented railways.

A reminder is the perfect replica of George Stephenson's Rocket that sits in the museum it is a relative of Locomotive No 1, which was the first steam locomotive to haul passengers, as opposed to freight, on a line from Stockton to Darlington in 1825.

We've come a long way since then - or have we?

Chris Peterson is managing editor Europe for China Daily. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/26/2017 page11)