Nostalgia, Heritage & Leisure

Navigating through this website is easier with the navigator frame which should be to the left of this window. If it is not there then click here to turn it on! Alternatively there is a system map at the foot of this page.

More information about this website & why it was created can be found by visiting this website's "front" pages (link opens in a new window)

A couple of pages looking at how public transports can become more than just a
mere means of getting from a to b.

Nostalgia is very popular concept in our society. People are always looking back, as if they are trying to recall some sort of golden era when life was believed to have been better, even though for the vast majority of people this was not so. (The only possible exception to this is with food, as in ye olde days it was not adulterated with harmful chemicals or had its genetic composition dangerously compromised as is frequently the situation today)..

For some people Nostalgia overlaps into Heritage, much in the same way that we often look back to (for instance) Roman times to see how people lived and how that era contributed towards creating the society in which we live today.

Leisure is about enjoyment, rest, relaxation, recuperation and hobbies. Often this involves transport - perhaps to travel to and through beautiful scenery which we enjoy seeing or to visit an exhibition, zoo, historic home, garden festival (etc.,) where - on larger sites - the transport sometimes also performs a useful service linking the various attractions and saving the visitors from long walks.

Two trains cross at Dymchurch, on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Image & license: Ron Hann / The Geograph Project CC BY-SA 2.0 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/22855

In Britain's we have many narrow gauge miniature railways.

Most of these were originally built to carry freight but they now live-on by providing leisure-orientated rides to tourists - usually with the trains being hauled by historic steam locomotives - although historic diesels and (where they exist) electrics are becoming popular too. However some of these lines also provide services which meet the real transport needs of their local communities, often using diesel (and not steam) engines as these are considerably cheaper and less labour intensive to operate.

One example of this is the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway (RH&DR) which runs trains taking local children to school - so instead of the more usual school bus there is the school train!

This line also operates tourist - orientated trains and this combination of local community and tourist operations points towards ways in which the leisure industry can generate income which both benefits the local economy and helps to keep the transport system financially viable.

The RH&DR have a website at http://www.rhdr.org.uk
This page at the Wikipedia encyclopædia may also be of interest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romney%2C_Hythe_and_Dymchurch_Railway

Top left: Ex-Leeds City Council tram at the National Tramway Museum http://www.tramway.co.uk/ near Crich, Derbyshire. Below left: Fairlie steam locomotive on the Rheilffordd Ffestiniog (Ffestiniog Railway) http://www.festrail.co.uk/ in North Wales. Below right Ex-Derby trolleybus at The Black Country Living Museum http://www.bclm.co.uk/ in Dudley, West Midlands. (With grateful thanks to Peter Lutman FCILT for this information). Top right & centre: Steam (ex-BR Black Five) & electric (ex-Metropolitan Railway Sarah Siddons) locomotives hauling a southbound working (towards London) which includes an ex-BR MK11 InterCity passenger carriage leaves Rickmansworth station whilst an Amersham service (formed of refurbished 1960's "A" stock) approaches. Seen during a "Steam On The Met" event at the country end of the Metropolitan Line of London's Underground. It is with regret that since the de facto privatisation of London's Underground events such as this have become very unlikely to be repeated.