Romance of steam

Sunday out on a test flight with my son after installing new oil hoses,
etc... We are out over Lake Huron and looking inland at the color
changes in the trees and about 15 miles away we see what looks like a
major fire with black and white smoke (old tires?)... So we change
course to go see... We find that it is a steam train (apparently the
one used to design the Polar Express movie)... Certainly looked
dramatic with the black and white smoke/steam billowing - and of course
this being a post maintenance flight I didn't bring a camera from the
car...
Anyway, I'm sure the 'romance of steam' types were happy... I doubt
that the farms and towns getting the dose of coal smoke were quite as
happy with it... I remember being a child at the end of the steam age
and they smelled just like our coal furnace when the draft wasn't set
right... Not pleasant at all, and to have 2 or 3 trains an hour go by
belching black all over the wash on the line must have been hell... I
remember going to town on a still and frosty morning and seeing the
individual columns of black smoke rising from all the chimneys as
people got out of bed and began stoking up the furnace... There's a
reason for progress...

denny