The return of the Flying Scotsman to the main railway lines of Britain is a moat heartwarming sight. Built in 1923, she is one of the most iconic locomotives ever built. She retired from official service back in 1963, but the old girl, the Scotsman girl, has had a major overhaul is back.
Thousands of people are turning out to see her when she chuffs around the land. In an era when trains are boring to look at, uniform electric and diesel sets, without conventional locomotives, to see an engine actually pulling a train is quite wonderful.
It is quite easy to watch trains go by. There are countless vantage points along the line, plenty of bridges and stations and the good folk of Britain are enjoying the ride. But some folk are getting too near the action.
A place on which I would not choose to watch a speeding train would be on the tracks themselves. If a train passes by at high speed on one line, there is a fair chance that one may well come speeding by on the adjacent line. None of this has deterred some train spotters. They have actually gathered on the railway lines to view the Flying Scotsman.
I would disrespectfully suggest that this is a highly dangerous activity. Once modern day trains have left their stations, they are soon moving rather quickly. They are immensely powerful and they weigh many hundreds of tons. If you are on a railway line taking photos of a train moving in one direction, the odds of you surviving a collision with a train coming from then other direction will not be good. On station platforms, you are advised to stand behind a yellow line to avoid coming into contact with passing trains for a very good reason: it stops you being killed. Do these Flying Scotsman voyeurs think they are somehow immune from the dangers?
I watched the TV news earlier on and there they were. Flying Scotsman thunders along and just a few feet away there are people with elaborate cameras mounted on expensive tripods. They are not just a few feet away, they are actually on the tracks, mainline tracks. Even worse, some so called adults had their children with them. What were they thinking about? Quite apart from the fact that trespass on railway lines is a criminal offence, have the parents not suggested, even in passing to their innocent offspring, that a collision with a train can have only one result.
I am not whiter than white on this subject, having trespassed on the lines as a stupid young boy. I am not quite so stupid today and, having arrived in Bristol some years ago on a train which had a human head attached to the buffers following a successful suicide attempt on the outskirts of the city (the remains of the body were found later, stretched over a mile or more), I know for sure what we all know really: trains kill.
My loyal reader is probably not one of these idiots who would die, quite literally, for a photo of the Flying Scotsman. But there are plenty of idiots with a death wish.
Keep off the tracks. You know it makes sense.
