Birthdays

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were both born on this day, 200 years ago. 

You two were pretty sweet for a Tab and a Yank - happy 200th!

Oh, and steam trains...

So this one I don't think heralds a return to anything, but is just sort of cool. A group of volunteers have been working since 1990 to create a new steam engine that can run on the main lines in Britain - contributors donated the price of a pint of beer a week, and experts donated their time, and just recently they've finished! The train has made its first runs, including a long-distance run from Yorkshire to London. It's worth scrolling down on that one to see the photo of the steam train pulling into the station alongside a modern engine. 

A New Age of Sail?

I've been musing for a while to anyone who will listen that maybe, in the future, there will be a return to sail as a way to transport commercial goods. After all, as fuel gets increasingly expensive, why not transfer goods that aren't particularly time-sensitive by a completely non-polluting and awesome form of transport? Of course, there are probably lots of issues involving unreliable weather and more expensive crew, but still, a boy can dream, no?

Well, I'm apparently way behind the time. The return of sail has already started - there's a French company shipping wine by sail to other parts of  Europe, starting last year with a run to Dublin but with big plans for expansion. They've had at least one more ship running, but have chartered five. So far its mostly just carrying fair-trade, luxury goods, but even at that the French Association of Shipowners predicts that sailing ships could get up to 1/2 a percent of the shipping market worldwide (which is probably more than it sounds). Details here. 

I had know that they were  using fancy computer-controlled "Sky Sails" (giant kites, basically) to reduce fuel consumption on ships, but a return to actual sail for shipping is just so incredibly cool.