A little journey at the St.Gotthard with DR 50-3673

It can be done... or instructions on how to reverse the direction of travel of a locomotive !

The technique is very simple but effective: elbow grease!!! It seems incredible, but once placed on the turntable, even a beast of this size, all iron and steel, can be moved "by hand" simply by pushing it, probably the greatest effort is needed to overcome the friction due to the slightly gnarled gears of the platform. Here we are at the Erstfeld station in Switzerland, along the historic Gotthard line, and a DR 50-3673 is being turned, a series of steam engines built in Berlin in the forties.

The journey intended as an experience, and not simply as a physical movement from one point to another, is a bit of a sense and metaphor of life; in most cases a journey is undertaken to go to some place, and to do so the most disparate means are used, but sometimes the means itself is the destination of the journey, the experience of moving and crossing landscapes uses an unusual, particular means, as in this case: aboard an old steam train.

Therefore not a journey in search of unknown landscapes, but a journey in search of unknown sensations, a journey through time and memories, or rather no, in the suggestions of distant and never lived times, because I think that few of us can remember journeys on steam trains anymore.

The train is always a fascinating means because it does not take away your resourcefulness completely, unlike the car that takes you right to your destination, without effort, today not even the effort of knowing the route, and perhaps in the near future without even the pleasure of driving it. Not the train, it only accompanies you for a while, it accompanies you to the station, then you still have to use your resourcefulness to reach your destination.

The timetables are always in doubt, because there are always a thousand unexpected events on the horizon, the smell of coal, the steam that hisses and puffs and clouds the landscape, transforming even the most banal everyday scenes into visions, the soot that enters your eyes, the discomfort of the carriages, always instructive, in short a little journey into the world of railways and trains that is itself a destination, even without necessarily having to go somewhere in particular, for some particular reason. And through glimpses of landscape glimpsed from the window, intercepted glances and words, fragments of other passengers' lives, the warm lights of a bar, a clock that menacingly reminds you continuously that your time is limited, a deserted platform in an unknown station, make you relive some mysterious sensation of déjà vu and make you experience firsthand the atmospheres imagined in some old novel, some adventurous thriller or some film.

There are many ways to travel, you don't necessarily have to go somewhere.

You can look at some other photos in the album on zonerama: