Catching a steam train on the London Underground - all aboard!

I was never a 'girlie' girl growing up. Sure, I had Barbie dolls and sewing kits, but I'd be so busy designing their international homes (made with stacked chairs and ice cream container Jacuzzis) and embroidering details into their fantastical outfits that I never really managed to find the time to style their hair or play tea with them.

 

I'm much the same 20 (or so) years later; while I've learned the basic art of applying make-up and dressing up with scarves, of a weekend I'm never happier than with my hair chucked my hair into a crazy bun and skidding around an architectural wonder, be it a church, bridge or tube station.

This...

 

or this... it's not even a choice is it?

Yes, you read that correctly, I'm a self-proclaimed geek with a fascination for mechanics, design and structure. This weekend began with delicious cocktail in  glamorous London bar, but by the end of it I was found on a tube station platform, eagerly awaiting an original London Underground Steam train running specially for Chesham's 125th birthday.

 

 

 

Chesham is at the far end of the Metropolitan line (that plum coloured one running NorthWest to NorthEast) and is quite a pretty station. Surrounded by trees, cream iron tracery and pretty cottages, it isn't the grim, grey London that commuters are used to, in fact it's not really London anymore, but an area of Hertfordshire.

 

  

Trains evoke for me a taste of England; the tolling of church bells, the delicate tinkle of a tea cup, and the chugging whistle of a steam train. It also spins an image of London; the chatter of commuters, splash of a chilled pint and the melodic whoosh of underground doors to a background reminder of 'mind the gap'. 

 

Inlaid with the glamour of a bye-gone age, there are no perspex sheets or lemon yellow safety rails here, but an opulence that transports you to another era.

 

 

Some of our fellow passengers dressed beautifully...

...while in this case I opted for a style far less flattering and much more suited to shovelling the coal. Some things never change.

The underground does, evolving to suit technology and the needs of the growing population, but we much prefer the slower, prettier trains used to running the Underground. Alas, our white bullets are here to stay, shooting through London, keeping the city running smoothly.

 

Watching the countryside speed by as the gentle chugging of the train echoed around the nearby villages was simply divine.

 

  

Sadly, all good things come to an end and the train whistled off into the sunset, back to the depot for cleaning and housing whilst we boarded one of the white tube bullets back through London, to make our weekday daily commutes as normal.

  

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