Boys, boys, boys.... An infant baby-boy enjoys the cartoony micro-world where trains, trams, monorails, tunnels, bridges are recurring themes. Bedtime can be a battle at times, but baby-boy usually cooperates once he puts his head on a pillow with train, taking that train to his dreams. Then he plays with Chubby Choo Choo softboxes, Einstein Bendy balls, ordines on a placemat with pecoware... all with trains. Then comes 'Thomas & Friends' series... In toddlerhood, boys collect all possible 'members' of Thomas Wooden Railway (Hiro, Rosie, Toby the Tram Engine, Emily, Clarabel, James, Spence, Rocky, Gordon, Percy, Ferdinant, Mail-train, Milk-train, Oil-train, or Kevin the Crane) to decorate their master room, making a boyhood scene, where the locomotive is the must. The next couple of years they try the automotored railway crossings. Once they reach their five-six years, most of them abandon Thomas. While there is no need to explore the reasons, we still need to continue inspiring them with knowledge of real trains, engines, railways. From the horse-drawn wagons, steam-hauled or diesel locomotives, to electric trains, WingZero, Maglev and bullet-shaped high speeders, this 52-page tourbook has them all, embeded with 58 witty 'snapshots' of the avid tourists, father jaguar and his cub on the railway panoramas. Running history of rails, you`re back to 600 BC Greece, to see the grooved stone path, the onset of the railways. Riding on the horse-drawn wagonways in Diolkos - 1st century Greece, or 1500`s Germany, you then take the first true funicular railway in 1600`s Newcastle, and the first self-propelled, steam-locomotive in 1800`s Wales. After a ride on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, you take San Francisco cable cars, or Douglas Bay Horse Tramway in Isle of Man. Once history is over, you travel on the world`s famous high speeders in China, Germany, Japan, France, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Spain, U.K, Italy, and Belgium. But that's not the end. You learn the parameters of trains: horsepower, EMS, EDS, even the shemes for the repulsive lifting force, or engine`s levitatation in different types of trains. For a fluctuate feel, you ride on the world's record breakers, in terms of the slowest, fastest, longest, or shortest. Starting in Moscow (RF), your tour ends in Cape Town (South Africa). On Trans-Siberian Railways you visit Krasnoyarsk, where you 'stolby, ' have a snow-bath, or eat smoked golomyanka from the world`s deepest Lake Baikal. Then you move to Vladivostok, were you partake in a bread and salt affair, a traditional Slavic welcoming ceremony. After riding on the world`s shortest train in Los Angeles, CA, you move to Cambodia, to take the world`s slowest train from Battambang to Phnom Penh, and think of Indiana Jones. In Hamburg, Germany you admire the world`s largest train set. Heading England, you take the world`s smallest-gauge train in Kent, and lodge in a beach hut in Norfolk. After seeing the world`s famous ten rail stations in Germany, Malaysia, Austria, France, Japan, Australia, Spain, India, Belgium, and U.K., your tour concludes aboard a safari train moving through the wildlife corridors, and heading the very depth of rainforest. // Visit other 90+ travel diaries from this author.
About the Author: Written in pourquoi tale genre, "Amazing Railways" completes a series of travel-diaries in the line with: (1) Amalfi Coast, Italy; (2) Amazing Andorra; (3) Amazing Bavaria; (4) Amazing Berlin; (5) Amazing Bhutan; (6) Amazing Cave-Houses; (7) Amazing Domes; (8) Amazing Dublin; (9) Amazing Falkland Islands; (10) Amazing Florence; (11) Amazing French Riviera; (12) Amazing Greenland; (13) Amazing Gozo, Malta; (14) Amazing Iceland; (15) Amazing Innsbruck; (16) Amazing Jurmala, Latvia; (17) Amazing Monaco; (18) Amazing Naples; (19) Amazing Palau; (20) Amazing Paris; (21) Amazing Salzburg; (22) Amazing Scotland; (23) Amazing Tree Houses; (24) Amazing Vatican; (25) Amazing Vienna; (26) Amazing Windows; (27) Amazing Wyoming; (28) Amazing Zürich; (29) Annecy, France; (30) Austin, Texas; (31) Banff, Alberta; (32) Bruges & Ghent, Belgium; (33) Cabo San Lucas; (34) Christmas Island; (35) Cocos Keeling Islands; (36) Colmar, France; (37) Cork & Kenmare, Ireland; (38) Easter Island, Chile; (39) Exquisite Bath, England; (40) Fifty Odd Loci in the United States; (41) Fiji; (42) Interlaken and Saint Moritz, Switzerland; (43) Island Saint Helena: British Overseas; (44) Isle of Man; (45) Lafayette, Louisiana; (46) Las Pozas, Xilitla, Mexico; (47) Lecco, Italy; (48) Lille, France; (49) Montserrat, British West Indies; (50) Mulhouse, France; (51) Myrtle Beach, SC; (52) Nara, Japan; (53) Obernai, France; (54) Odd & Outre Places of Washington, DC; (55) Palma de Mallorca, Spain; (56) Poznan, Poland; (57) San Marino; (58) Santa Fe, NM; (59) Sardinia, Italy; (60) Sélestat, France; (61) Sint Maarten: Dutch & French Overseas; (62) Sintra, Portugal; (63) Socotra Island, Yemen; (64) South Georgia & Sandwich Islands, Britain; (65) St John's: Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada; (66) Strasbourg, France; (67) Svalbard, Norway; (68) The Faroe Islands; (69) The Trulli of Alberobello, Italy; (70) Tristan da Cunha, and (71) Wissembourg, France.