I wish I had been about to push Mr Korda out of the way so that I could take *that* photo of Cliche Guevara.
Seriously though, there are PLENTY of things I wish I had taken and/or filmed over the years, including one that I suddenly remembered from years ago. I really wish I had filmed probably my most dramatic railway moment ever (I know, I know).
We were on holiday in Venice, and took the train in and out from where we were staying West of Mestre every day. On this night, we were on the last train of the day.
Anyway, we arrived at the station where there was a level crossing. All the other nights it had stopped after a certain period of time, the time evidently clocked subconsciously by myself, but this time, I suddenly realised it was still going, something else was coming, but what?
The station was on a stretch of track where you could see in both directions for about a mile into pitch darkness before the line curved. There was nothing coming.
Eventually after a couple of minutes, heralded by a barely audible sound, a small set of lights appeared from the east and the noise gradually increased, accompanied by the sound of people waiting at the level crossing.
It was speeding towards us through the darkness, but..... what was it?? I didn't even know the light patterns on the front of the Italian trains so I couldn't even hazard a guess.
Was it another local passenger train from elsewhere I hadn't seen yet?
was it a sleeper?
was it, even a freight?
Whatever it was it was bloody big and loud!
As it got closer, I could see it had few, if any lights along the side, but that was of little help as it could have been an out of service local passenger train with its lights dimmed/switched off, all it was just a huge, noisy black featureless shape with a small bank of lights ROARING towards me.
WHAT WAS IT??
The people at the level crossing started to get restless, one or two went up to the barriers to watch and occasionally got illuminated by the flashing red warning lights, the dull roar increased, the lights got bigger, the rails started to sing.
Eventually after what seemed a very long time, the big black shape started to catch the light of the surrounding area, firstly on one plane of the cab, and then immediately on another*, but there was something strange about it, I couldn't quite compute what it was for a moment or two as, by this point, I had expected to see an E.655 or similar. And then it clicked what I was seeing as I had only seen one other before then. It was an old 'Isabella' Chocolate Brown E.636 complete with a big red F.S. badge on the front (I thought only E645s carried that). It was at the head of a HUGE triple headed freight with a diesel loco (probably a D343) clearly working, sandwiched between the big ancient 1940s E636 at the front and an E655 (I think) behind before an ENORMOUS train of freightliners, cargowagons and the like
ROARED past at 40 - 50 MPH and back into the darkness again, the headlights illuminating all the signs in front of the train and catching everything nearby in its draught as it went by.
I watched it as the tail lights faded back into the distance and finally rounded the corner and out of sight, the signals, small balls of light changing accordingly as it went.
No wonder the train had appeared so dark and featureless, the leading loco was dark brown!
The reason why I'd have loved to have filmed it now is because there were 3 locos to clock, and I instantly forgot the numbers of all of them as there was so much to take in visually and aurally as it passed.
I'd have thought that the E636 would have been easy to recognise as they didn't really carry the red F.S. badges, but no, I have drawn a blank as to what it was!
I assume it actually must have been one of the original E.645s which were of the same design, but I am convinced it was an E.636!!
I'd have loved to know why 3 locos including a diesel were working and what the train was too.
* - If you know what an E.636/E.645 or an E.424 looks like with the triple edged cabs, then you'll know what I mean when I talk about planes.
