Retro Transport

Coffin nosed Cord and Clipper

Now, over the last twenty-five years or so Agent Triple P has spent a lot of time travelling around the world in order to tell Johnny Foreigner what to do. Ironically, therefore, it is somewhat troubling that we still can't stand flying. Stranger still, that we are interested in two forms of aerial transport that, even if offered the opportunity to fly in them, we would never pursue! This is, of course, because Triple P's interest in them is visual rather than mechanical or historical.

Triple P is interested in four forms of transport from bygone days which, whilst all still around, are but shadows of their former glory days.

A nice segue from my piece about Miss Tahiti

Seaplanes

By which we mean what the North Americans would call "float planes" (aircraft with separate pontoons attached to the wing, keeping the fuselage out of the water) and flying boats (aircraft where the hull itself is what floats on the water). We have flown in seaplanes and hated every terrifying minute of it!

Airships

Primarily those with rigid frames rather than the modern non-rigid (or blimp) form. Nothing on earth would get us up in any sort of dirigible, let alone a balloon.

Ocean Liners

Those designed for passage making in the golden age from the 1910s to the 1950s rather than today's cruise liners. We are quite happy with the concept of sailing the world on large ships. Whether we would want to do it in the company of thousands of old people is another thing.

Paddle steamers

Initially, the first retro form of transport we were interested in. Our favourite book when we were small was called Steamboats of the Mississippi and we used to borrow it from the mobile library every week for several years. Unlike the previous three categories these largely represent an earlier era of travel than the inter-war period.

So far in this blog we have really only looked at liners but this will change over the next few months. We have never been that interested in cars (except, possibly American cars of the 1920s and 1930s) and even less in trains (except the Orient Express) so these are unlikely to feature so heavily. Of course if we can find interesting pictures whch feature these forms of transport and attractive women then it will be a bonus!