Great Western Coffee Shop

Yesterday on channel 25

11:00am impossible railways (Switzerland)
16:00pm trains that changed the world     

Channel five
18:35pm Tony Robinson
19:0pm Bressington steam railway
20:00pm fare dodgers on London transport
21:00pm PADDINGTON PADDINGTON
22:00pm London underground

One of my treasured books from school days was Alan Bloom's book all about Bressingham; I've bookmarked this to watch - thanks for the alert. No "spoilers" here - I may post further afterwards.

I visited Bressingham on a family trip back in 1976 when I travelled on a narrow-gauge train driven by the man himself so I'll be watching too!

Enjoyed the show ... though I felt a slight sadness of former glory painted, it has to be said, though Alan Bloom's book.  I recall it from the days of Oliver Cromwell coming there days after she pulled the last BR steam special in 1968, and last night's show was a bit of a shocker showing the scramble to get even a single standard gauge locomotive into steam for a special day.

I visited once - in passing, with family on our way to Norwich by road.  Thinking about that, it must have been a few years BL (Before Lisa), so with my previous wife and it would have been with kids in tow.   As the only one of the group of 4 with interest in the traction engines and railways, and with the visit being on a typical rather than "feature" day, the visit was not a long one and featured the nursery strongly in our itinerary.

Perhaps a place to go back to next year?   Plans to rove around this year have been kiboshed ... next year's list is open.


Edit - a correction of a memory

Brittania class 700-13 Oliver Cromwell,I wonder why?

The Sunday Times "Culture" listings didn't say the Paddington programme was a repeat, and it took me only a couple of minutes of viewing the first episode last week to realise that it was. Since the original screening last year the series has become historical - how long will it be before we see such crowds again? Bizarrely they've retained the original commercials offering a package of travel and overnight stays. (Might be a competition - I fast forwarded through my recording.)

I find the "fare dodgers" series a bit annoying, with the same longish preamble of incidents at the start of each episode and a "taster" before each commercial break of what's coming up after it.

Of minor railway interest, yesterday afternoon BBC2 showed "Some Like It Hot", with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon fleeing a gang in 1929 dressed in drag and joining an all-girl orchestra where Marilyn Monroe is the singer. There's a couple of exterior shots of the train the band takes to Florida and some scenes inside the sleeping car. I mention the film because c1962 it was screened at the end of term at my boys-only boarding school. The lust of several hundred adolescents when Marilyn was on screen was palpable. The railroad passenger car that was used in the film is now at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Channel 5 have a habit of taking a documentary, re-narrating it (typically switching a male voice for female or vice versa) and including a couple of extra scenes or alternative takes so it can be called 'new'. This is the treatment given to the Paddington programme.