A cousin and close friend of mine died a few years back; we shared love for planes and trains.
Now he would spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on magazine subscription to said same.
He would bring over piles two or more feet high over for me to read.
I miss him as a friend but some weeks back I just had this empty feeling and was not sure what it was till I stopped at a magazine rack and looked at the trains and planes magazines there and then it dawned on me how much I missed spending hours sitting in a chair, no TV, just reading these magazines, so I have splurged in buying said same. (I can see why he subscribed as three single issues cost almost as much as a years subscription.)
I just purchased, online -- (one of the truly good things about the net is to be able to find and purchase journals and books you either would not find, or would find at asininely high prices without the net)-- several books, I used to read at a hobby shop 45 years ago. I did not buy them then as 20 bucks was a lot of money, but now that I have them, for half that price, they bring back sweet-sad memories of us heading to the Twin Cities to engage in hobby affairs.
The one book is all black and white on steam locomotives of Spain and Portugal , but the black and white photos are shot in a manner that you can almost smell the smoke, steam , oil and soot soaked gravel and dirt in the shop areas.
I grew up in machine sheds and garages with oil soaked, metal shaving coated dirt floors, what became our garage had a genuine coal bin and Dad's dad fired his furnace with coal until the seventies.
Those pictures brought back pleasant memories of my youth.
An interesting thing from the book:
Electric, not diesel powered trains killed steam in most of Europe.
Some of the locomotives, Spain and Portugal, were active till the day electric lines replaced them in the early 1970s were British built locomotives from the early 1870s.
Most of the major Railroads taken over by Franco in Spain, were actually owned and run by the British.
