This weekend, Virgin Trains set up a photo-opportunity event for rail enthusiasts – four generations of trains travelling side by side on the East Coast Line. Of course, it was also a marketing opportunity to show off Virgin Trains’ new Azuma, alongside two present-day trains, and the...
The National Army Museum will be opening its doors to the public on Thursday (30 March) after a £23.75m redevelopment that sees the building transformed from what the Director General, Janice Murray, described to me as a gloomy warren “rather like a car park”, to a bright...
A brand new museum focused on D-Day and its connections to the American servicemen that left Britain in 1944 for the Normandy beaches, has just opened in Portland, Dorset. The Castletown D-Day Centre has been in the planning for several years and it is perfectly placed within...
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) have announced an agreement with the Italian shipbuilder, Fincantieri S.p.A., to build their next generation ships. Four 140,000 gross ton cruise ships, each carrying around 3,300 guests, are on order for delivery in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, with an option for two...
This looks like an interesting project, if it ever gets off the ground – see what I did there? This is a new concept ducted-fan vertical take-off (VTOL) aircraft that could be commonplace if it works as billed. The six-seat XTI TriFan 600, say the designers, “will...
The build-up to the 100th anniversary of the end of The Great War continues to grow and so do the associated memorials, museums and interpretation centres in Belgium & France. In the French Ardennes, the War & Peace Museum is due to re-open on 11th November 2017...
2017 is an important year for Finland – the 100th Anniversary of Independence. Finnish nationalism developed in the east of the country, on what is now the border with Russia, and after the country’s birth on 6th December 1917, its independence was first tested in the Winter...
Designs for four new terrifying but beautiful structures for the Zhiangjiajie National Forest Park in China’s Human province, have been unveiled by their French designers, Martin Duplantier Architectes. The Chinese are fast developing a love-hate relationship with vertigo experiences in their cities and their landscapes, and the spectacular...
The massive 57-kilometre Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) in the Swiss Alps is finally opening this weekend after 17 years of construction. From Sunday 11 December, train passengers will be able to speed between northern & southern Switzerland in 17 minutes, cutting the overall cross-border journey time from...
One of the key travel trends identified in this year’s World Travel Market – Global Trends Report, compiled by Euromonitor International is the return of supersonic air travel. Thirteen years after the demise of Concorde, a number of initiatives are underway to re-open the supersonic air travel...
The National Army Museum has saved T E Lawrence’s dagger, robes and kaffiyah for the nation thanks to two grants from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) totalling £113,400. Lawrence was given the dagger, known as a jambiya, by Sherif Nasir in 1917 after the victory of...
The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington, has been working with Microsoft to digitise the interiors of some of its aircraft. It means that visitors to the museum, and to the museum’s website, can wander through the cockpit and interiors on the Surface Pro tablets carried by...
Deutsche Bahn’s new long-distance train, was presented to the public yesterday at Berlin Central Station. The new ICE 4 train, which according to Dr. Rüdiger Grube, Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of Deutsche Bahn, “ushers in a new era” comes with numerous technical innovations and...
Two electric driverless buses started working on the streets of Lyon this week at the beginning of a year long trial. The keyword is “working”, though… not “earning”! The buses, manufactured by a Lyon-based company, Navya, have been road tested in other French cities but until now,...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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