Luigi da Porto – Legends and ghosts

 

Giulietta e Romeo

Luigi da Porto – Legends and Ghosts

 by DG (and by my husband – do not think that I wrote everything about the  trains)

Gatto ghost

I believe that neither my husband nor our friends consider me a particularly romantic woman.

Nevertheless, I find that the animated monsters books of my collection … ..

leg 01
…. giving off a smell of legend. (Let me, I will prefer  your truffle risotto !!)

risotto
I feel it when, for example, opening a pop-up book, emerges the Dragon, this legendary being, this kind of “collective invention”, which can be found in the ancient tradition of many countries ….

leg 02
The ancient walls of our house guard a legend in the silence of their ancient stones: that of Romeo and Juliet ….

leg 03
… .deeply linked to this building that was five hundred years ago the home town of its author Luigi Da Porto.

leg 04
This work, many people raise at the origin of romantic literature ….

leg 05
… Was initially entitled “Historia of two noble lovers” and was then skillfully shooting, 80 years after publication by the writer from Vicenza, by William Shakespeare, who produced his famous play.

Willy

Who is willing to believe that I can trust the ghost of Luigi da Porto is at home here with us and he is part of this aura of legend …

leg 06
I must say that he is courteous and respectful, but also a little joker: there is his paw if I find my favorite kitchen ladle in an impossible place  or if disappears  the care-pipe of my husband ….
I think he is also used to train who live with us here, in what was once his home, even though at the beginning I had to explain what they are.
Fortunately he did not ask me what is the purpose, but I think, for gallantry, he did not want to get me in trouble … ..
However he knows that he must not touch the trains, otherwise the mood of my husband, and therefore mine too, would lose all trace of romance ….

romantic

Being essentially a literate ghost (he can not water the flowers when we are not at home) he appreciates our library and read the books dedicated to the trains, as in this house, there are some that those texts describe as “legendary” … ..
I am not sure that they are in themselves, but they are, in my opinion, for the way in which they arrived in this house.
Take, for example, this 626 Rivarossi 1949 ….

leg 07
 in a rare livery red-brick for the Scandinavian market …

leg 08
I can tell you that a well-known MEP, if read these lines, will understand finally, after many years, because my husband gave him appointment in a remote village in the Dutch countryside ….
…. just because there was to treat the purchase of this locomotive …. !!!!

leg 09
Few know the English brand Scalemaster that produced this train

30 years

in the late ’30s.

leg 10
Its locomotive freelance faired ….

leg 11
…. with the requirements that would seem wrongly hooked backhand ….

leg 12
… Seems to express, with its futuristic lines … ..

leg 13
… the hope and the desire to progress of the Europe of the ’30, whereas the already gloomy looming threat of World War II ….
It was for this search engine that thirty years ago, instead of visiting the shops in the center, I accompanied my husband on a bleak and very scary neighborhood on the outskirts of London ….

London
One day, well before the advent of the Internet, my partner had a contact in Paris with a group of train enthusiasts of East European which then drew up a periodical publication ….

leg 14
… where once there was talk of the “legendary and mysterious railcar Carpathian” …

leg 15

 built by RTM, Romanian brand of trains in HO scale founded in the 50s.
I remember that we looked everywhere on our travels and especially my husband began to gain his wanderings professional in Eastern Europe to try to find it ….
I am used to live with a stubborn and headstrong partner (luckily me too), that for ten years he has moved heaven and earth in the footsteps of this “ghost”

Dracula

from the country of Dracula…

leg 16
… ..to finally discover it during a quiet Sunday visit to the “Marché aux Puces” of Saint-Ouen in Paris on the bench in a junk shop.
It reproduces with some freedom the railcar produced in Romania by Malaxa from ’37 …

leg 17
… That was still serving in the 60

leg 18
When, after years of research, he manages to find these rare pieces, I feel deeply shared in his satisfaction … … !!
Remaining in the countries of Eastern Europe, the popular tradition speaks of a monster that lives in the shallow waters of Lake Balaton, called “Draganella”

leg 19
Another legend spoke of an aerodynamic train  called “Stream Liner” product in that region from equally mysterious brand Roglin 30s.
And it costs more than twenty years’ research, but in the end it came too ….

leg 20
… The result of the “tip” of a German friend and a special trip witht some adventures.

Balaton
And it built in sheet veneer technique similar to TWE 700 Maerklin and also its engine, housed in the central element is similar to the 700 series and shares with it the manual reversing …

leg 21
And for today, wanting to remain in Hungary, here is photographed  this package …for “Cuccioloazzurro”..

leg 22
…. by the Magyar Meja mark , born in that country in 1946, nationalized in ’48 and forced to change activities to produce products more suited to the needs of the people.
Even this train is the result of many years of passionate research and was finally bought in the Indiana through a friend then living in Muncie, in November 1999, the period of Halloween ….

leg 23
The roads that led this train from Budapest to Indianapolis

Hiawatha travel

remain mysterious, it is certain that crossed twice the Atlantic … the second time, with us, on a Boeing 767 of Delta Airlines.
The box contains an electric three axles locomotive , six freight cars, as well as tracks, switches and the transformer

leg 24
The locomotive operates at 24V AC, three rails …

leg 25
… it has an  engine of Russian origin

Matrioska

(is also this a war surplus?), a mechanical quality …

leg 26
… And a very robust and heavy superstructure of iron sheet 1.2 mm thick.

leg 27
The structure of the wagons is made by the same plate

leg 28
…. solid, sturdy, made to play …

leg 29
…. but not devoid of charm.

leg 30
 They are less austere then locomotive which

has a look

leg 31 very grim

Mostri matrioska

and the signs of the time give

leg 33

them an inimitable patina

leg 32
My monsters are a bit mad at me …

leg 34

because I worked a bit long on train sets, but now it is late and I close the books and put them to sleep ….
… And I have not forgotten the “legendary” Hiawatha

Legend

(how many searches for these!): my husband has promised to Mario to dedicate one of its future articles to them

leg 35
Do not think you too they are monstrously beautiful?

Mostrosuamente

About Luigi da Porto

storia Rom Juliet uk(@ December 24, 2015)