I think the thing I love most about steam trains is how much happiness they bring with them. The people on the train obviously tend to be fairly happy, but on top of that all the people lineside who waited half an hour to watch a train go past for 10 seconds are all happy too. Saw a bus driver in Ballarat who had pulled his bus over and stood in the doorway watching us go past. We also ended up in a race with a Frankston bound metro ok our way back and it was a constant cycle of them pulling ahead of us, then us overtaking them when they stopped. Most the usually depressed looking commuters had gigantic grins on their faces waving at us at we went past. Many old folks watched us fly by while (I presume) reminiscing about the days a steam train was not uncommon to see, as well as countless young’ns watching us go past too

Steam trains really are the best ^even if they do have a habit of starting bushfires ^