Luigi da Porto – Legends and Ghosts
by DG (and by my husband – do not think that I wrote everything about the trains)
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 … ..
…. giving off a smell of legend. (Let me, I will prefer your truffle 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 ….
The ancient walls of our house guard a legend in the silence of their ancient stones: that of Romeo and Juliet ….
… .deeply linked to this building that was five hundred years ago the home town of its author Luigi Da Porto.
This work, many people raise at the origin of romantic literature ….
… 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.
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 …
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 ….
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 ….
in a rare livery red-brick for the Scandinavian market …
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 …. !!!!
Few know the English brand Scalemaster that produced this train
in the late ’30s.
Its locomotive freelance faired ….
…. with the requirements that would seem wrongly hooked backhand ….
… Seems to express, with its futuristic lines … ..
… 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 ….
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 ….
… where once there was talk of the “legendary and mysterious railcar Carpathian” …
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”
from the country of Dracula…
… ..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 …
… That was still serving in the 60
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”
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 ….
… The result of the “tip” of a German friend and a special trip witht some adventures.
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 …
And for today, wanting to remain in Hungary, here is photographed this package …for “Cuccioloazzurro”..
…. 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 ….
The roads that led this train from Budapest to Indianapolis
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
The locomotive operates at 24V AC, three rails …
… it has an engine of Russian origin
(is also this a war surplus?), a mechanical quality …
… And a very robust and heavy superstructure of iron sheet 1.2 mm thick.
The structure of the wagons is made by the same plate …
…. solid, sturdy, made to play …
…. but not devoid of charm.
They are less austere then locomotive which
has a look
very grim
and the signs of the time give
them an inimitable patina
My monsters are a bit mad at me …
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
(how many searches for these!): my husband has promised to Mario to dedicate one of its future articles to them
Do not think you too they are monstrously beautiful?
About Luigi da Porto
(@ December 24, 2015)