A new, specially designed, luxury tourist train was launched yesterday in Japan. The Royal Express will operate from Yokohama station in Yokohama and Itokyu Shimoda station in Shimoda City at the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula with its full of hot springs and picturesque coastlines. Around...
On Thursday this week, an amazing piece of space history goes on sale at Sotheby’s Auction house in New York – the original flight plan from the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. It’s one item in a ‘Space Exploration’ auction of space memorabilia and artifacts, some of which...
Yesterday, Disney Parks & Resorts unveiled a detailed model of Star Wars Land, scheduled to open at Walt Disney World and Disneyland in 2019. Star Wars Land is not based on a specific location in the Star Wars canon, but instead recreates a remote trading port on...
Here’s an interesting and puzzling piece of history that I stumbled across recently. It makes me think it might be time for a return visit to Malta! I came across the anecdote in Stuart R. Scott’s 1996 book: Battleaxe Blenheims – 105 squadron RAF at war 1940-1 *...
Most travellers think of the French Ardennes, and the Meuse valley in particular, as a ‘battlefield’ landscape, but its longer heritage is ‘industrial’. This was the heart of the coal and iron industry in France and just as in the valleys of Wales, the story is one...
There are plans to turn the Mediterranean island of Menorca into an eco-electric hub, and they don't just stop at renting electric cars to tourists.
Foulridge Tunnel, on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, is to become the longest canal tunnel in the UK to open to canoes. The mile-long, the 200 year old tunnel, looked after by the Canal & River Trust, is regularly used by canal boats, but from Saturday 03...
If there’s one thing a visit to the Culloden battlefield reveals, it’s what a poor choice of ground Charles Edward Stuart (aka ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) selected for the last major battle fought on British soil. It is flat and open moorland, that’s a start. But, given that...
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...
I’ve been looking recently for references to the legendary WW2 pilot Douglas Bader in and around the Pas de Calais where he was shot down and captured in August 1941. (For some time, I’ve been encouraging the local tourism office in St. Omer to put together a...
RAF Cosford is still an operational airbase and most importantly, it’s the home of the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering (DCAE), which sets the tone & style for the museum and gives it a unique atmosphere. It’s not that in Hangar 1, for example, you’ll find loads...
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 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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