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A drone over your town
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I also found this one of Edinburgh (just across the river from my town).
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Hi Allan
Those bridges, and especially that 2017 built modern one, look like engineering and architectural marvels. There is an amazing engineering beauty and elegance to it, very artistically designed. I’ve certainly heard of the Flying Scotsman, but didn’t really know what it was until now. Looks like a great interesting train ride. Loved seeing the drone shot over Edinburgh, what an impressive city with such amazing old (Victorian) architecture. It’s so different from North America for sure, would love to visit and explore the rich heritage of Scotland. Thanks for sharing your corner of the world.
I thought you and Jurgen might enjoy these two drone videos of the railway in the northern part of British Columbia, about 2 hours north of Vancouver. In the wide vastness of our province two hours away is still practically in your backyard! HAHAHA. Along the Fraser River the railway is quite amazing, and the trains here are incredibly long. It’s an area I go up to often in the summer to visit a friend I have in that area. The train are always impressive. There were some huge fires in this whole area a couple of years ago that burned one town to the ground and evacuated many others. There is another place not too far away where the train tracks kind of spiral through a valley because of the elevation climb, and sometimes when a long train goes through it, the front and back of the train cross over like a snake. I’ll post a video of it, if I can find it.
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Simultaneous train crossing over bridges:
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Hi Jung,
Yes the new bridge looks impressive but of course the designers got one thing wrong. In the winter, under certain wind conditions, ice builds up on the cables and they have had to close the bridge for a day or so as the ice then falls down and hits the cars! They found the solution was to clean the cables as the ice was attaching to the dirt – maybe they forgot that you need to clean bridges to avoid such issues. They are currently developing a robot to clean them automatically!
Edinburgh is a mixture of two types of architecture. The Old Town is on one side, basically a single street from the castle at the top to the royal palace at the bottom (called The Royal Mile) dating from medieval times. Due to overcrowding over the years all the houses on this street are all very tall and thin, the original tower blocks.
On the other side of the railway (which was a lake at the time), the New Town was built between the 1760s and 1830 as a single planned development and has incredible architecture and curved cobbled streets. It is frequently seen in movies as it looks great. I’ve attached the 1768 plan. You can see how this allowed Edinburgh to expand. However it is a small city compared to others around the world as it is surrounded by the river, sea and a range of hills to the south.
The railways brought the Victorian era later on when they then filled in the lake and joined the two sides of the city with a railway in the middle.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by Allan Morton.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by
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Hi Allan
That seems to be one big flaw with that popular steel cabled suspension bridge design. We have a few bridges in Vancouver with that design, and one of the major ones that serve as the main artery in and out of Vancouver connecting it to the rest of the country had to be shut down for a day on the 23rd/24th because of falling ice from the cables. You would have that the engineers would have taken ice into consideration.
Thanks for the info about Edinburg’s evolution over the centuries, going all the way back to the medieval times, and the different eras since. The city is so rich in history, it must be like going back in time in some areas there. Such a fascinating city.
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Hi Allan,
great video clips. The bridge structure is very impressive. The “Flying Scotsman” as well. Have you ever traveled on this museum train? Is there still a modern version of the Flying Scotsman that runs regularly on the London – Edinburgh route?
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Hi Jurgen, I’ve not travelled on that particular special train. At the moment it runs once or twice a year from Edinburgh, does a circle loop of Fife then returns. It’s quite expensive (as for tourists!) but you can also get a meal on it. The Flying Scotsman engine itself was under repair for many years and only now does more frequent trips (in other places as well – it was even shipped to the USA for a tour years ago). It has also gone London to Edinburgh but so many people come to the line side to see it that they don’t advertise such trips due to danger of people getting hurt – you should see the crowds that try to get onto the track for a better view and forget there are normal trains coming the other way at 125mph! Here is a link to one tour company: https://www.steamdreams.co.uk/index.php
The rail bridge was opened in 1890 and was featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie The 39 Steps where the train is forced to stop on the bridge and the chase begins….
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Maybe the fireworks of the future….
I wish you all a happy new year and may your wishes come true!
PS: I know, I know, Christmas is over and there are certainly more exciting drone shows out there in the world. But not round about 1000 meters (3200 ft) away from the house where I was born. A drone over my birthplace 🙂
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Wow, that’s amazing, Juergen! I guess I’ve been living with my head in the sand, because I didn’t even know that drone shows were a thing. What an incredible marriage of aeronautics and computer programming!
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That’s a great use of drones. We had the same here for the Queens Jubilee party where they animated dogs and scenes above the palace gardens.
You might also like this video of the Glenfinnan Viaduct (in the western highlands of Scotland) made famous by the Harry Potter films. Of course it was actually built in 1897 and was one of the first in the world made from concrete. All the other bridges and viaducts on this line were made the same way and there is a old story that a horse and cart fell in when pouring the concrete so they are still there to this day!
This steam train trip is now so popular it runs twice a day in the summer months. You have to hope for a sunny day though to get the most from it.
You can read more about this journey here:
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David, the technical implementation of such shows is very impressive and I think many more exciting developments can be derived from this. But I find the creativity behind such presentations just as interesting as the technical side: telling an exciting story that can actually be implemented with the technical conditions.
Yeah Allan, I always find stone viaducts very impressive. They’re not as filigree as the more modern steel structures, but they give the impression of being built to last. The lake and mountains in the background provide an impressive backdrop for the passing train. I can well imagine that this route is very popular. English locomotives always seem somehow elegant and noble to me. Meticulously cleaned, shiny boiler (do you say boiler or kettle?) and the driving wheels are partly covered. A bit like a Rolls Royce on rails. The German steam locomotives are more functional and beefy (as well as the developers who built them…). Thanks also for the information about the train route. The horse and cart story sounds creepy. But I think stories like that are often told about bridges and old structures: something or someone fell into the cement. Who knows.
I imagine the Scottish Highlands to be very impressive in terms of landscape. Unfortunately, I haven’t made it to Scotland yet. Only as far as London and York. I rode a historic train there many years ago. Regrettably, I don’t remember which route. It was raining, it was very hazy and when the loco started moving, the whole train was enveloped in steam from the locomotive. The days before and also the days after, we had nice weather and sunshine. That’s life.
PS: Edinburgh also produced a wonderful drone show (Farewell – three parts in total). Even if I didn’t fully understand the lyric, it seems to be about farewell and loss and the seed of hope that sprout in the future: As the outgoing year is passing by and welcomes the new one.
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Jurgen
Another beautiful drone show in Edinburgh. The image of the angel in the sky was amazing. I watched the new years eve celebration in Seattle at the Space Needle that featured drones with fireworks this year. The drones weren’t as impressive as these, but it looks like drones will become a big part of the firework shows in the future.
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Allan
That steam train and the bridge and countryside is gorgeous!
On one of my cruise trips to Alaska, I took a train ride in Skagway that goes up a mountain pass that the gold miners built (Whitepass & Yukon Route Railway), and the track the train goes on is what was built some 100 years ago. It was quite a breathtaking train ride going over some of the bridges built into the cliffs. At some points there were people who worked the railway buried under a giant rock that is just marked as a grave with bodies underneath never retrieved.
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Jurgen, wow that is amazing what they can do with drones, many of them controlled by a single computer now, all working in unison. With a few hundred and even thousands of drones, they can form a giant TV screen in the sky, and each drone acts like a pixel, creating images. The future of drones is both amazing/beautiful and scary too with all the possible applications like this.
Seasons Greetings, and Happy New Year everyone, the count down begins to 2023.
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Yes Jung, I’m excited to see what opportunities this technology will bring us: Public viewing in the sky or firmament. A great idea. And yes, if you look at the resulting possibilities from a dystopian perspective: the danger of collective manipulation or surveillance could also arise. Oversized advertising and perhaps also political slogans that are constantly present and follow people everywhere: Greetings from George Orwell, Bladerunner and Metropolis.
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Hi Jurgen, loved the drones from Edinburgh. I recall at the time (new year 2021) that covid restrictions had cancelled the normal celebrations so the drones were excellent. This new year also, they cancelled the traditional fireworks from the castle which is normally accompanied by an orchestra playing music (again due to planning delays due to covid). However the 300,000 people street party went ahead.
At the rail bridge people go for a dip in the freezing water for new year while up the east coast we have the fireball swinging in Stonehaven – see clip below from one of my favourite YouTubers:
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Thanks Allan, I really enjoyed it. It’s always interesting and very nice to get to know new traditions and customs.
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