Only Rocket Roll But I Like It

This replica of Stephenson's Rocket is more usually seen at it's museum home in York. However it is a fully working replica and for another couple of weeks, courtesy of the Science Museum, it will be chugging up and down a very short stretch of railway in Hyde Park, London. It's a smooth ride although you don't get to sit down and you may get a face full of steam from time to time, also not very fast: six year olds on rollerblades were passing us without difficulty.

Rocket was designed by Robert Stephenson. It was my inspiration for the Martian steam barge in Soupremacy so I enjoyed this first-hand experience. The original Rocket, or at least what's left of it, can be seen down the road in the Science Museum.

It makes all the difference in the world...

Last year was a good year for real-world steampunk generally as tall ships resumed delivery of wine and British engineers and enthusiasts built a new steam locomotive from scratch. I got my fill of steampunk last weekend by wandering through the Science Museum: Stevenson's original Rocket, the live demonstrations of Watt's beam engines and other static steam engines, the collection of steam ship engine parts and best of all the various Charles Babbage machines including one of the working Difference Engine reconstructions. The Difference Engine is the mechanical supercomputer of the steampunk world, playing a central role in the William Gibson / Bruce Sterling novel "The Difference Engine" (1990) but, as far as anyone knows Babbage never completed a full scale version of either the Difference Engine or its successor the Analytic Engine - a mechanical computer that may have proved the equal of the punched card systems that appeared much later. Over the past few years reconstructions of the DE have been built in UK and US museums, while impressivly Tim Robinson and Andrew Carol built working engines out of Meccano and Lego respectively.



While mentioning the Science Museum I should also point out they are currently running an excellent Dan Dare exhibition, contrasting the stories and features from the comic with real-life inventions and design trends from the 50s. I have fond (if somewhat vague) memories of the Eagle and would recommend the exhibition.

Enough clacking for tonight...