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Als je met de ICD gaat ben je verplicht om stilletjes in jezelf te vragen "welke pride vlag is dat?"

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Girl I have horrid ideas you can't even perceive in this dimension.

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My most intense TTTE headcanon is one that barely relates to canon. It is as follows:

"Well-adjusted newbuild" is an oxymoron.

Some do better than others, sure, but when you're playing resurrectionist, some sort of trauma to someone is almost inevitable. The little narrow gauge lads who are basically just a new [x] in the family tend to take it better, 'cos they're in this little preserved bubble where the inter-engine culture hasn't necessarily changed that much- there's been a great and terrible upheaval, and everyone bears those scars, but there's a comfort in running routes that have stayed the same for centuries. the likes of Tom Rolt (Talyllyn no.7) and Corris 7 tend to have a bit of time to get their bearings before they're eased into knowing about The Horrors.

Straight replicas of a specific engine have it harder, even if there's still classmates knocking about, especially if there's only ONE classmate. They're effectively imperfect clones, and while that's not as uncanny-valley as it would be to a human, I think a lot of their relatives still wouldn't like it. Perhaps a stronger effort would be made to find common ground there, to let the personality of the newbuild make them distinct from the original in one's memories, but the oddness would probably never quite fade.

And then you have your full on Jurassic-park situations, your Steam Into History no.17s and T1s (pending completion) and Tornadoes. Those are... divisive. Opinion varies from "spit in the face of the originals" to "resource-draining leech taking time and money from restorations" to "Vapid showboat with no culture or common sense" but are rarely good. They're also brought into the world pretty much alone- no railway, no classmates, no nada. Thus begins an unwinnable and inevitable process of "proving" themselves, which happens one hard-won opinion at a time rather than as a general shift in culture. There's the constant need to perform to several different expectations at once, AND the under-socialisation from essentially lacking a family, AND the obvious angst of being physically part of a group you're culturally outside of. Healthy!

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Theyre gossiping about the class 195s and whenever they're noticed, they stop talking and then look at each other and giggle

Me 🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Awdry

[sees LNER express engine] oh if that thing could talk it would be a bitch

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Me 🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Awdry

[sees LNER express engine] oh if that thing could talk it would be a bitch

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Floppy Concorde stickers are now available!

Buy them here

I didn't realize there would be so much demand for them so I only got 10 of each, but I'll restock them if we sell out :)

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Beyer-Gyatt. is that anything?

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That's right ya'll, Gay Sex is now legal on the trains and we encourage you to do it 24/7 on your trips

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On Irish trains we have train magazines for some reason and I would like to inform u that hozier is on the cover

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"Average Tumblr user has fucked a train" factoid is actually just a statistical error. The Mechanisms fandom, who fuck 10,000 trains every Friday, are outliers and should not have been counted.

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On September 19th 1854 The Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) opened, running from Aberdeen to Huntly.

The Great North of Scotland Railway was established to connect Aberdeen with Inverness, a target which it never reached due to the hostility of the Highland Railway based in Inverness. Furthermore, this impoverished railway built a penetrating line deep into GNSR territory to reach Keith. Between Aberdeen and Lossiemouth (its furthest point from Aberdeen) the GNSR built a series of lines serving North East Scotland from the fishing ports of Fraserburgh and Peterhead to the distilleries of Speyside. A separate line (originally entirely separate with its own locomotives: the Deeside Railway) reached Ballater and was used by the Royal Family to reach Braemar.

The main station in Aberdeen was owned jointly by the GNSR and the Caledonian Railway (the North British Railway merely had access to it over the CR). Very little of the GNSR remains other than the mainline to Keith and the main station in Aberdeen. Only one of its typical locomotives the Gordon Highlanders in the pic has been preserved

Curiously the building in the last pic has never been a train station. The signage points it being part of GNSR, but it was actually used as a bus station of sorts.

In an attempt to service as many passengers as possible, the North of Scotland Railway introduced bus services to more remote towns in the early 20th century.

This bus depot serviced the people of Braemar until the Deeside line was closed in 1966. Today, the bright blue timber structure retains its original signage.

Despite the absence of restoration work, the facade of the building remains in one piece, and the depot’s waiting room and office can still be observed through the front windows The building has become a popular subject of many an Instagram post!

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Tbh, I think a lot of this is pure cultural context. We must remember that Awdry grew up in a moral landscape where class was baked into the bedrock of society, social mobility was functionally nonexistent and Knowing One's Place was a virtue of 'civilised' British society. Attempts to change one's social standing were more insults to the upper classes than marks of tenacity or ambition among the lower. I'm not at all surprised to see that philosophy re: "stepping out of line" echoing through the works of a man who went to two separate fee-paying boarding schools.

I honestly don't even think it always makes for particularly good fiction. That "commupence" angle started to feel cruel and condescending to me when I was still a toddler, especially when the offense in question was more of a silly flight of fancy than anything actually disruptive (see: Percy and the Trousers). I don't want to sound all "your favourite kids show is SECRETLY DARK AND DYSTOPIAN" about it, but I do think rws inherited a lot of its contemporary values, and those were a wee bit fucked.

Is it just me or does some of Wilbert’s stories feel a little … mean spirited, lol?

Go on... 🤭

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Have got off the second stupid bus and honestly? Less miserable than expected. Mostly napped.

I wish I had the kind of train neurosis that makes you actually remember to book your travel in advance. I will be yeeting across the country for train shenanigans tomorrow and the only way to accomplish this with any rhyme or reason (and for less than a cool hundred quid) is getting on a bus at the absolute arsecrack of dawn and then getting on ANOTHER bus at an equally stupid time to go to England in. Miserable.

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I wish I had the kind of train neurosis that makes you actually remember to book your travel in advance. I will be yeeting across the country for train shenanigans tomorrow and the only way to accomplish this with any rhyme or reason (and for less than a cool hundred quid) is getting on a bus at the absolute arsecrack of dawn and then getting on ANOTHER bus at an equally stupid time to go to England in. Miserable.

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ngl I literally think the reason people have assumed youre a man without any evidence is because this blog used to post trains and people associate that as a Male hobby. so Some People probably just defaulted to assuming whoever ran the train blog was a man and didn't think critically about that assumption 💀

oh fuck that's probably it lmao. I tend to be the most prominent Train Guy in my life so I legit just forget sometimes that the Default Railfan isn't me and my friend who I keep sending Azuma pictures to against her will. I'm like this:

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i don’t think people realize how much of modern life we owe to ball bearings everyone say thank you ball bearings