"It's all about trains"

We went to the pub to celebrate a recent birthday. Choosing an appropriate card had taken some time, as the birthday boy has a dry sense of humour. We settled on a Punch cartoon by John Donegan. Copyright law persuades me that I’d probably better not include here, but it can be found easily online. It shows a man, having thrown a ball for his highly coiffured but very stationary French poodle, saying, “Never mind ‘Pourquoi’ - just get it.” It had made me laugh out loud in the shop. It made the recipient laugh out loud when he first saw it, too, but, as you might have guessed, that had been a long time ago. Though our endeavours had fallen a little flat, I was consoled by comments that it had been a “nice try.”

The conversation turned briefly to my blog. Someone observed that, “It’s all about trains.” “I know, I’m sorry about that,” was as much as I could offer on the spur of the moment, in response to the obvious disappointment that I’d caused.

It is, of course, essentially a railway blog. My cunning plan is to promote railway heritage, by trying to entertain those who already have an interest and by bringing it to the attention of those who don’t. I’m not sure how to address success or failure in this quest, but I’m amusing myself and it “keeps me off the streets,” though more exercise on the streets may actually be more beneficial to me in the long term.

I do have a less frivolous and less self-indulgent side, but I don’t think that the audience I’m aiming for would wish me to bang on about things that I very definitely have opinions on, although every now and then I just can’t help myself.

I want it to be an overall positive experience. I want to rejoice in what has been achieved so far and to advocate the case for continued conservation. I want to celebrate how people pursue their railway-related interests and communicate the enjoyment I’ve had at the line-side and pretty much everywhere else.