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Archive: cornwall

Steam — the Museum of the Great Western Railway

12 September 2011 13:17

Categories: *, Commuting, Nostalgia, Personal, Travel

The second leg of my trip took me away from nature. I decided to go out of my way to visit Steam — the Museum of the Great Western Railway.

I am not an extreme railway enthusiast, although I do find railways quite interesting. I only knew that Steam existed when I happened to pass it on the train a few weeks earlier on a separate journey.

I decided I wanted to visit, and it was quite convenient that I managed to incorporate it into my holiday. It is very easy to get to by rail, being just a stone’s throw away from Swindon railway station.

The museum is very comprehensive. It is not just a collection of old trains. The very first thing you see when you enter is a mocked-up back office. I wandered into a small room to find myself walking in on a worker being given a row by his boss for turning up late for work! Quite amusing.

From there, you go on to learn about the processes of building a steam locomotive, step by step.

Caerphilly Castle locomotive

Caerphilly Castle locomotive on Flickr

Then, finally, you are presented with the finished product. This is Caerphilly Castle.

The underside of Caerphilly Castle

This is just one example of the excellent way exhibits are presented at Steam. A staircase allows you to walk straight underneath the locomotive to give a view of the underside.

After that, there are exhibits about the building of the railway itself. You learn about the Box Tunnel, and the Great Western Railway’s original unusual, but superior, broad gauge.

This is perhaps the most fun part of the museum. There is an awesome train driving simulator, and games that demonstrate the difficult job signalmen had.

Then you pay a visit to a mock GWR railway station.

The mock railway station at Steam

Train-shaped coffee pot

The station contains objects like clocks, benches and vending machines of the steam period. But the highlight for me was the brilliant silver-plated locomotive-shaped coffee pot.

This was used at Swindon railway station, which apparently was notorious for its awful refreshments. Isambard Kingdom Brunel himself complained about it, with audio of his complaint playing out in the mock railway station. The display describes it as a “foul brew”, but you cannot deny that it was gloriously presented.

"See your own country first"

After you have looked around the railway station, it is time to enter ‘Speed to the West’, which is all about the efforts made to attract tourists to use the Great Western Railway. Among the exhibits are old slot machines, which you can still try out for 20p.

“See your own country first,” one poster implores. “There is a great similarity between Cornwall and Italy in shape, climate and natural features.”

This was another highlight for me. I have a particular fascination with the visual identity and graphic design of railways.

It would have been really great if I could buy some prints of old GWR posters from the souvenir shop, but sadly they didn’t sell anything like this. I made do with a GWR keyring and three bottles of beer that were brewed by the Box Steam Brewery, based near the Box tunnel.

I also pressed a penny to emboss it with the GWR logo. I haven’t done that in years, but it is always quite a nice and inexpensive souvenir of a visit.

All-in-all I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Steam, and would highly recommend that you pay a visit if you happen to be in the Swindon area.

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Done a queue two

11 November 2006 23:10

Categories: Commuting, Edinburgh, Entertainment, Food and drink, General, Personal, Scotland, University

I wrote about the queue I stood in the day before Standinaqueue Day, and I somehow got sidetracked into talking about weirdos in trains. I have only just started on that, stay tuned for another train weirdo post to come one day.

But yesterday — the day after Standinaqueue Day — I did manage to find the time to stand in a queue. I feel a bit bad for not submitting a story to Standinaqueue, but what can you do if you haven’t stood in a queue on Standinaqueue Day? If only I could have moved that queue to a day before, but I think I already messed the queue around enough as it was.

It was in the little shop in Potterrow at the University. It was a long day, so I had to buy some sandwiches. I don’t often go to the shop there, but I think usually there are three tills but one queue. But today the queue was kind of loosely formed, although it extended fairly far back. It was difficult to tell whether somebody was in a queue, looking at something on the shelf or just standing around.

Tentatively, I joined what I thought might have been the back of the queue. Turns out I was standing next to somebody who was already in the queue. I was put off by the fact that he was chatting to two friends. But I then realised that I had pushed my way in front of his two friends! Oops. The guy graciously signalled to me to go ahead, but I felt bad so I just stood on the spot until he had been served.

Queues are not the only seemingly mundane things that can vex you though. As I said, I went into the shop to buy a sandwich. When I went up to the fridge with the sandwiches in it, I was faced with an awful dilemma.

There are clearly two tiers of sandwiches. On one low shelf we have “Simply Scottish” sandwiches. This is clearly the no-frills option. Basic fillings, cheap packaging. It looks like it probably has horrible white bread that tastes of polystyrene, and it wouldn’t surprise me if semen is used instead of mayonnaise.

On a higher shelf there are the more expensive Ginsters sandwiches from Cornwall. They are more expensive, but they look absolutely gorgeous and the packaging isn’t made of toilet paper. And how can you argue against fillings such as “roast chicken stuffing”?

Obviously, I chose the Ginsters sandwich. But as soon as I had paid for it, something struck me. Edinburgh University has a well-known divide between the (mostly) English (mostly) well-off “yahs” on the one hand, and the (mostly) Scottish (mostly) less well-off people on the other.

I personally think the divide is overhyped. I think in some ways it’s only really bad if you’re looking out for it. But I’m noticing it more and more as I near the end of the uni “experience”. Still, there is no denying that at least the perception is that there is some kind of class / nationality divide at Edinburgh University.

And I had just come out of my shop, having snobbishly turned my nose up at the basic Scottish sandwiches in preference for the more expensive English sandwiches with posh fillings. All of a sudden I became conscious of the fact that I was carrying Ginsters sandwiches. People were probably making judgements about me.

“Look at him; he’s a total yah for not eating the Simply Scottish sandwiches like normal students with massive debts,” people said to me in my head. Am I becoming one of those awful people who started university with a Scottish accent but have magically attained a posh accent somewhere in the intervening three years?

Ah, bollocks to it. Those sandwiches are so tasty. How could I resist the “meat feast” triple pack?! I may as well boycott Marks & Spencer now. I know where to go for my posh sandwiches from now on: the humble union!

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I am not a nationality

21 June 2005 19:15

Categories: Personal, Politics, Scotland

John B asks, “English? Wossat then?”

Many bits of the administrative region called England – London, Cornwall, Yorkshire, Newcastle-and-surroundings, Manchester-and-surroundings, Scouseland-and-surroundings and Cumbria, for starters – all have regional identities that are far stronger than any ‘English’ identity.

I obviously don’t know well enough because I’m not English. But from this not-very-distant distance it certainly looks to me as though England, as a ‘nation’, doesn’t have very much in common with itself. Cornwall itself probably has a stronger nationalist movement than the whole of England does! (Whether the English want a national English Parliament or regional parliaments is up to them though. It’s a bit rude of me to tell them what’s what.)

Scotland is the same mind you. There’s probably not an awful lot I have in common with, say, your average person from a remote fishing village in the north. There are at least two major spoken languages (three if you include Scots, as many do) in Scotland. A Scottish identity is there though. Scotland’s Parliament is reasonable — nay, required — because of the separate legal and education systems which Scotland always had, and that’s before you go on to ask about identity or nationality or whatever.

I hate the whole concept of the nation though. I am not a nationality. I am an individual person.

Update: John at The England Project adds his views. The conclusion is one that I agree with.

Why should one nation have a parliament in the union and not the others? Cultural arguments simply do not wash because to have them one has to accept that only countries that have a single and strong cultural identity should have a national parliament.

5 comments