Since moving to a new home about a dozen miles from Strasburg, I have made an effort to find a way to combine steam with other local elements that only have chance encounters with the trains. One of these elements is a hot air balloon. There is a company that sells rides at sunrise and just before sunset, and they launch from Bird-in-Hand, roughly four miles from Strasburg. Every time that they fly, the balloons go wherever the air currents take them and it varies in all directions from day to day. Combining this randomness with a 90-minute interval between trains, seeing the two together is an unusual occurrence.
Last Saturday, the two came together as well as I have witnessed them. Of course, the train was a “Day Out with Thomas” trip, but there is a live BEDT 0-6-0T under the toy-like appearance. My years are well beyond having Thomas as a childhood influence, but a little online searching revealed that a Big Red Balloon appeared in a few episodes. It’s not red, but here is my re-creation of some of those scenes.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
