Trains, trams and topographical travels

I have no great and abiding interest in trains and yet I have somehow accumulated several postcards showing them. Many, but not all, are special trains for tourists rather than the average train taking commuters to work.

One, as you can see, is a vintage card showing the Royal Mail night mail train. At the bottom left is the only tram in this mix.

More to the point of postcard collecting are the cards which show specific places, known as topographical in specialist collecting circles. They are the sorts of cards generally sent home by tourists. The ones I show below are just a few of the many I have sent (to myself as well as to others) on my own travels.

Train spotters

Children seem to do the same things the world over.  This could be a scene from "The Railway Children " (by Edith Nesbit) but in fact it's an oil painting by Pavel Gavrilenko, a Belarussian artist. It was painted in 1957, just four years before he died.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

The beginning of the London Underground

Two of the stamps, shown here as PHQ stamp cards, in a set of 10 to commemorate the opening of the London Underground, the oldest underground transportation system in the world.  They were issued last Wednesday, 9 January, the exact date of the opening of the first line.  The general public was admitted the following day.

The full set traces the development of the Underground and also shows some poster art.  There are in fact 11 PHQ cards because the eleventh shows the mini-sheet.  Altogether too many for one post.  Sadly, not all the designs are available as individual stamps.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

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Trains autos couchettes

The French train service, SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer) still runs trains that will carry your car from Paris to 18 or 19 stations in the country.  Unlike the one pictured in this 1970 postcard where the cars travelled behind the sleeper trains, nowadays you travel on a sleeper train and your car travels separately.  A similar service in the UK, the Motorail, stopped operating during the 1990s.

In spite of taking a lot of the traffic off the roads, the French authorities have regularly felt the need to run road safety campaigns on their stamps.

I think their messages are all self explanatory.  I rather like the design of the last one which I have on a card from 2004, showing a human body overlaid with road maps and wearing a seat belt.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

River Kwai

Known as the Burma Railway, the Burma-Thailand Railway or the Death Railway, it was built by prisoners of war during WWII.  One of the bridges was featured in the book and then the film, "Bridge over the River Kwai".  The postcard shows the dangerous curve at Kanchanaburi, just beyond the bridge.

The London to Dover railway line.

Two postcards showing the same section of railway on the London to Dover route (or Dover to London, depending on your point of view).  The first one is dated 1907 and the second 1964, and it remains much the same today.  The main differences between the two cards, apart from the weather and the state of the tide, is the shape of the cliff which, like the cliffs nearer Dover, suffers regular landslips.

Although the railway line is still the same these days even though it now takes the high speed train, there have been major changes in this area most of which you can't see.  It is from beneath Shakespeare Cliff that the Channel Tunnel runs.

This is a photo I took myself about a year ago of the other side of the double rail tunnel seen in the two postcards.  The dual entrance is on the left but beside it there is another tunnel.  This one leads from the road above and allows visitors get to the large recreation area which has been made from the waste produced by digging the Tunnel. It is called Samphire Hoe, a lovely  nature reserve where you can walk, picnic, watch birds, butterflies and other wildlife.

A post for Sepia Saturday.  A click on the button will take you to the blog.

Transport in various forms

I took part in a round robin exchange of cards recently, with the theme of transport.  I loved this tram postcard I received from Russia, but I was even more delighted when I saw the superb stamps on the reveres.  I think a rocket could legitimately be considered a form of transport even if it's not one I'm ever likely to take.

The rocket stamp commemorates the 50 year anniversary of the building of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, and the truck stamp shows the AMO-F-15, the first vehicle produced by the AMO factory which was later renamed ZiL.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Transport

Stamp cards issued at the same time as stamps in a series "Transport and Communications", dated 10 May 1988.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"

Puffing Billy

I searched and searched for a New Year or new beginnings stamp but thought it was mission impossible, so I settled for another Christmas stamp which arrived on this card just two days ago.  It is probably one of the more unusual Santas I have seen!

It seems fitting that Australia should start off my New Year because they are of course well ahead of us in the  celebrations for 2012.  The postcard above shows the Puffing Billy Railway, one of the original narrow gauge railways in Victoria, Australia.  It's a very popular ride.  I didn't notice on the card itself but when I'd scanned it, I noticed all the children, presumably children, sitting at the windows with their legs hanging out!  There do appear to be some bars across to stop anyone falling out, but even so - yikes!  And they are going over the Monbulk Creek trestle bridge.  Yikes again!

In the end, by the time I'd given up looking, of course I did manage to find a new beginnings stamp.

I don't think you can get any more of a new beginning than a stork making its deliveries.  These stamps were intended for birth announcements.  Apparently it's a very ancient northern European legend that storks bring babies to new parents.  It has now spread throughout the world after the legend was popularised by Hans Christian Anderson's story, "The Storks".

A very  happy 2012 to you all, whether or not the stork visits!!

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, now hosted by Violet Sky at "See it on a Postcard!"