The Watercress holiday lighting, wow
- Thread starter Greg Elmassian
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I remember seeing previous videos of a Christmas train, I think in Canada, but it takes something to beat that - pretty good I think.
We rode the North Norfolk Railway equivalent last year but it was nothing as lit up as that. I think last year was the first time heritage railways had tried this as North York Moors and a number of others did the same.
Various British heritage railways are trying to refresh their highly remunerative festive season attractions. A move away from crippling Thomas fees and slightly stale, though still popular, Santa specials. More seem to be moving to the "Polar Express" model and gaudily lit locos and their cosists. Both imports from the other side of the pond. Was the Coke lit up truck cavalcade the prototype, much as our modern day red & white garbed Santa was. Max
Call me Mr bah humbug, but another of those irritating things from the other side of the pond on the lines of ‘Train Station’ etc. But on the plus side it does give the Steam Railways much needed revenue in these worrying times for them and also you can do a vid in the pitch black of a cold winters evening.
So Christmas lights on your train is our fault?
No wonder we fought for independence ha ha!
(actually, colored christmas lights were invented in 1882 in the USA, so I guess it really is our fault, but you guys did not have to imitate us!)
Greg
No wonder we fought for independence ha ha!
(actually, colored christmas lights were invented in 1882 in the USA, so I guess it really is our fault, but you guys did not have to imitate us!)
Greg
Personally, I blame the French...
Ok, Ok, Before everyone reaches for their placards and pitchforks...
Maybe credit would be more accurate description:
46 years after Humphry Davy, an English chemist and inventor, produced the world's first electric lamp and 31 years before Thomas Edison patented the first commercially successful electric light bulb in 1879, this happened:
A train of light
November 1848Amid the gas lamps, the soot, the steam and the clamour of Paddington station, came a glimmer of the future. A French inventor, Monsieur Le Mott was to demonstrate his new system for lighting steam trains. His apparatus, the size of a sentry box, was strapped to the last carriage of an outbound train. At half-past six, in the late autumn gloom, he threw the switch. A galvanic battery of 60 or 70 cells stirred his lamp into incandescence, amplified by reflectors. A spectator describes the scene that followed:
If the anonymous spectator is to be believed, it must have been quite a sight...
So , it appears that lit trains have been around for quite some time.
Vive la France..!
Paul.
Info available from:
Who Invented the Light Bulb?
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Er .......... yes, and yes - we blame you and for some inexplicable reason, we seem to want to imitate.
Otherwise, why do we have Black Friday (which, for certain UK retailers, can last a month
)Incidentally, a former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, whenever he talked about the credit crunch / recession of 2008, always added the epithet, '....... which started in America.' as if to absolve our banks of all responsibility, or probably absolve himself of all responsibility as he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer before becoming PM.
But hey, it's always good to have a scapegoat - it's the season of goodwill
But you've got to admit, the Watercress Line have done it well
It's probably something like 35 years ago that we took our two boys (it was before our daughter came along) on the Watercress Line Santa Special. They had the system down to a 'T' - Santa's grotto was at a station in the middle of the line, and the Santa and mince pie specials left from either terminus, arriving alternately, and there were actually two Santas to speed things up (the kids didn't notice) and they were kept pretty busy.
Humphry Davy's light (1802) was indeed an carbon arc light, so yes it was electric, and apparently the first of it's kind and produced a bright white light.
Monsieur Le Mott's light was battery powered, so yes, that was electric too. The colours being produce by a prismatic effect through the smoke and steam. (Whether this was by design, I have no idea.)
I too was under the impression that this thread was about trains with coloured lights powered by electricity.Monsieur Le Mott's light therefore appears to fit the bill.
Incidentally, if you know of an arc light produced earlier than mr Davey's, please let me know..Paul.
Too late, we've all read it now! I hope you're pleased with yourself, you've confused st least half the forum! 2 Santas indeed!!!Many Heritage Railway's have two Santa's..
I think my eldest was probably about 6, the second one would have been 3 when they declared that all the Santas in Guildford were fake - because their eyebrows weren't white
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I think you'll find The Fake Santas of Guildford are a splinter group, not endorsed by the man himself (who as we all know, is olive-skinned and wears green). According to wikipedia, along with his many good deeds St Nicholas was ' imprisoned ... for slapping the heretic Arius. Another famous late legend tells how he resurrected three children, who had been murdered and pickled in brine by a butcher planning to sell them as pork during a famine'.I think my eldest was probably about 6, the second one would have been 3 when they declared that all the Santas in Guildford were fake - because their eyebrows weren't white
I think I may be guilty of thread drift. Back to the incandescent train.
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