I recently came across this small event in Patrick Delaforce’s book, Churchill’s Desert Rats . It illustrates how, sometimes, there can be brief moments of honour & decency – even involving the SS – in the midst of total war. It was during the opening stages of...
Energy Observer will be the first hydrogen vessel to sail around the world when she completes her 6-year mission to test a range of eco-friendly, zero-emission, marine power technologies, and at the same time, inspire people in the 101 stopovers in 50 counties along the way. Energy...
Memorial 14-18 is not one, but three sites on, and next to, the dramatic Notre-Dame-de-Lorette hill just southwest of the town of Lens in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France… The National Necropolis of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette is the largest French military cemetery with the remains of over 42,000...
Here’s an interesting concept for eco-friendly, adventure tourism accommodation – a floating igloo houseboat. A Finnish company, AuroraHut, is producing a self-contained igloo boat™ that can be used as a houseboat on water in summer, and as an igloo on top of ice in winter. The 12-sided...
P&O Ferries has signed a €260 million contract with Guangzhou Shipyard International for two new 230-metre super-ferries – the largest ever to sail between Dover and Calais. The new ferries will incorporate a number of technologies and features that will boost efficiency and reduce their environmental impact…...
Fort Sumter at the entrance to Charleston harbour has had a lot thrown at it over the centuries. Hurricane Dorian, earlier this month, was just the latest assailant to threaten the 190 year old island fortress*. The opening shots of the American Civil War were fired at...
My expectations of the Grand Bunker Musée (museum) were not all that high when I eventually got around to visiting, but it turned out to be really interesting. I originally thought the 16m tall concrete bunker, which has been restored to its 1944 condition, was a flak...
Restrictions on domestic coal burning proposed in the UK Government’s consultation on Clean Air Strategy published in January this year, pose a problem for heritage railways. Everybody* recognises the urgent need to reduce our use of fossil fuels, but, as the Heritage Railway Association (HRA) Board Member, Chris...
I came across this statue of French aviator, Hubert Latham, a couple of days ago on the French coast just outside Sangatte. He’s an interesting guy and so nearly was the first pilot to fly across the English Channel. He was certainly the first to try! Latham...
We think of the Hawker Hurricane as the workhorse of the Battle of Britain and, while generally acknowledged to be not as fast or glamourous as the Spitfire, most pilots found it to be a highly efficient gun platform that could take a lot of punishment. Most,...
The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) will be running a magical illuminated steam train in the build up to Christmas. Not only will the Northern Lights Express be lit up, but so too will be parts of the forest that it runs through. https://mechtraveller.com/Extracurricular/Northern_Lights_Express.mp4 The spectacular...
The Juno Beach Centre is different to many of the other museums & memorials on the Normandy coast in that its focus is not so much on ‘what happened here?’, as ‘how and why were the Canadians here?’. “The goal is not to be too technical,” says...
This was one of the 26 sections destined to be part of Saddam Hussein’s ‘Project Babylon’ Iraqi supergun project started in the late 80s. The project was the brainchild of Dr Gerald Bull, a Canadian artillery expert who had been involved in the US-Canadian HARP project (High...
A visit to the the historic Geevor Tin Mine in Cornwall includes a chance to walk down into part of the tin mine itself, if you can do it under your own steam, but not everybody can – until now. A new 360-degree virtual reality tour launched...
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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