The ‘Mayflower’ steam locomotive changing direction on the turn table at York Station.

I like Steam – the sound, the smell, the sheer force of presence that comes from a visible engine pulling up to the platform you are on – far more than the modern trains I’ve taken for work and for leisure. I do under stand the practical reasons that they needed to be retired, but it still seems something of a loss. Perhaps when autonomous vehicles have destroyed mass transit, the remaining national railways can be converted to heritage lines and Steam can rise again…