If I had a Time Machine ....

[Coldgunner]

3rd July 1938 - Stoke Bank. I'd like to get a decent I quality shot of the run and also just experience seeing it all for myself.

[The Stationmaster]

Interesting idea if you had to be witha relative - so that might put me shunting at Swindon in WWII, or working on a swing bridge on the ECML in NER land, or on York station in the 1890s or working in York Carrage Works in the 1930s and again in the '50s.  

 

But, horror of horrors being with a great grandfather as he helped 'narrow' the broad gauge in 1892.  What an awful event to have to witness.

[whart57]

19 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Thinking about, which is probably not a good idea, if time travel was invented, presumably the technology, and all other technology, would diffuse backwards in time, so that very quickly all times would actually be pretty much the same, and technological progress across all time would be led by a sort of spearhead of the furthest future, which would itself be ever-accelerating as the back diffusion built a higher platform from which to launch each age.

 

A bit like how travel in space has led to all places becoming more and more alike, every high street the same in every town in the country, and aa discarded empty Coke tin in every conceivable place on the planet.

 

So, pretty quickly, it wouldn’t be worth the bother of going to 1900, because it would be just like now, although now itself wouldn’t be like now now, if you see what I mean.

 

 

 

 

 

Suppose though if the technology allowed you to go back in time view the world but not actually leave your time machine. If you were to put this into a sci-fi story you'd have it that it was a virtual you travelling in time - and always backwards it seems - but that virtual you has no physical existence so cannot interact with past worlds.

[BMacdermott]

Hello whart57

 

Your post above is pretty much how I would see the situation.

 

It did throw up a (totally hypothetical and somewhat strange!) anomaly for me though...

 

If I wanted to go back to Exeter Central and observe a full 1960 summer service from start to finish, I'd need observations at the west and east platform ends as well as at Exmouth Junction shed and the sidings!

 

It's the stuff of Hollywood sci-fi movies, but what if - instead of actual time travel - we were able to view all places at all times in history through our computers? Select a map reference and date/time - hit 'go'! A bit like Google Earth but with historical perspective and movement!

 

A full 1960 summer service would entail about 90 days viewing - and that equates to over 2000 hours to observe at each of the four locations! A fascinating research project...as long as you have a 'fast forward button' to skip the dead times!

 

The mind boggles!🤓

 

Brian

[Coldgunner]

/tinfoil hat on

 

There is a 'theory' the Vatican has a device called the Chronovisor that can see through time. I wonder if Popey boi uses it to view Crewe North Junction instead of looking for Jesus?

 

/tinfoil hat off

[Michael Hodgson]

27 minutes ago, Coldgunner said:

/tinfoil hat on

 

There is a 'theory' the Vatican has a device called the Chronovisor that can see through time. I wonder if Popey boi uses it to view Crewe North Junction instead of looking for Jesus?

 

/tinfoil hat off

 

This puts a completely new meaning on Mass production, but when they roll that out to the rank & file clergy, you won't need to go to confession any more.   The padre will already know as he'll be watching as you commit your sins! 

 

Alexa, say 6 Our fathers and 10 Hail Marys.

 

[MichaelE]

I'd like to go back to Germany in 1967 when I was there as a kid. Lots of different electric locomotives in service at that time. Some even left over from WWII and just after. Lots to see.

[whart57]

What I would like to be able to do were things I might have done if I'd been aware of them at the time. For example, in the mid-60s I discovered narrow gauge through a book in the school library and some Airfix Pug conversions in Airfix Magazine (remember that?). But I thought only in terms of things like the Talyllyn or Ffestiniog railways, I didn't realise there was a working narrow gauge system twenty minutes drive away from where we lived serving the gravel pits between Faversham and Sittingbourne. I did go and check them out some twenty years later when they had long since closed but it might have been good to see them working.

[Arun Sharma]

Like so many who might have possibly 'bunked' sheds back in the day, I didn't have a camera. Thus whilst I have pretty vivid memories of a host of steam sheds, works and station approaches, I have almost no photographs from 1960-68. Given a time machine, I would like to revisit some of those places and perhaps [additionally] be able to respond to those who worry about the correct shade of BR crimson/maroon. My memories of a very clean [invariably] 46245 City of London at 1a was that on a bright April morning in 1964 it looked almost pink rather than crimson/maroon. A colour hue which I have yet to see in any published photographs of her.

[KeithHC]

For me it would be two different places. First would be back to either summer 65 or 66. During one of those summers I went with my Dad on an official outing of the Mullards research labs photo society to Nine Elms. I did not take any note of what locos where there. It was a summer Saturday afternoon. When ever I see David Shepards painting it reminds me of that day.

 

The second would have to be a day in 1964 I would go between Rowfant and Grange road. I could then record all those details I think I am missing for my layout. With a digital camera and a tape measure of course.

 

Keith

[RichardT]

On 18/01/2024 at 11:53, The Stationmaster said:

or working in York Carrage Works in the 1930s and again in the '50s.  

But, as my maternal granddad worked at York Carriageworks from 1915 to 1966 I’d also be there under the family rule, so if I bumped into you would the resultant RMWeb paradox loop result in our returning to the present to discover that TT-120 narrow gauge was the only legal modelling scale allowed by our Guinea pig overlords?

 

Yours in timely-wimey confusion

 

Richard

Edited January 19 by RichardT

[Forward!]

I'd go to visit the GWR mainline in the 1860s to see a broad gauge loco running at full chat up to 60mph. I still can't quite imagine how it must have looked and felt, despite witnessing modern broad gauge locomotive replicas running (crawling along at Didcot's track) in modern times.

 

(By the way, I don't need to travel back in time because I'm currently sitting at my office desk in the former GWR drawing office in Swindon. The window latches, door furniture, staircases and even the toilet pull-handles all have GWR stamped on them!)

Edited January 19 by Forward!

[Michael Hodgson]

21 minutes ago, Forward! said:

 

(By the way, I don't need to travel back in time because I'm currently sitting at my office desk in the former GWR drawing office in Swindon. The window latches, door furniture, staircases and even the toilet pull-handles all have GWR stamped on them!)

You're sitting in the wrong office!  "Forward" is LNER's motto. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The GWR always had to outdo the others so it had two - They borrowed (without consent) from the Cities of

   London - Domine Dirige Nos (Gawd Help Us), and

   Bristol - Virtute et Industria

 

[whart57]

In Michael Crichton's Timeline a tech billionaire funds the creation of a time machine with which he hopes to record the great moments and great men of history to replay to the modern generations. It works but the results are disappointing - Washington's crossing of the Delaware doesn't have the great leader standing in the prow of the lead boat, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address is a guy standing in a field barely audible beyond the first half dozen rows. I wonder whether those expecting to see great feats of steam engine performance will be similarly disappointed by the reality.

 

Does anyone remember the British Rail advert of c1980 which had an aerial view of Flying Scotsman being overtaken by a blue diesel. The point being made was that normal services on the ECML - then diesel hauled - were 20mph faster than they had been in steam days. Beware of the rose-tinted specs.

[Forward!]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

You're sitting in the wrong office!  "Forward" is LNER's motto. 

 

 

The MS&LR/ GCR had the motto first! 

[D826]

For me, notwithstanding my love for all things on the GWR/Western Region and all points west (as the book title said - Don't Knock the Southern) it would be Great Central related.

 

I'd love to have caught the Master Cutler between Marylebone and Sheffield in 47 to 58 - and enjoyed the fast running and excellent engineering of that late lamented masterpiece.  The engineering near Canons Ashby and through South Northants and traces that remained just looked so impressive. 

 

If its possible for a dead railway to look fast the GC did. (Though obviously not on the Met GC joint lines).

 

(Id be tempted to follow up with a visit to Barnstaple in about 1960 then down to Dawlish for 1970).