Scotland To Get New Trains!The Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train which runs between London’s Euston Station and Scotland will be getting some new trains. The Caledonian Sleeper runs every night except Saturday up the West Coast line. There are two trains. The highland bound one of which is divided into three sections when it arrives in Edinburgh – one going to Aberdeen, one to Inverness and one to Fort William. The other – the lowland one, is divided into two sections at Carlisle – one section heads for Glasgow, the other to Edinburgh. The highland trains leave London around 9:00 pm, while the lowland ones leave closer to midnight. You can check the actual timetables here CAF, the Spanish manufacturer of railroad equipment has gotten a $225 million dollar contract to build 75 cars for use on the Caledonian Sleeper. These are doubtless going to be modern and very comfortable. My early memories of the Scottish trains going from Edinburgh to Inverness were wood and had raised seats and table while the aisle was slightly lower.(I almost expected to find arrows stuck in the wood!) You had to lower the window in the door to grasp the door’s outside handle to let yourself off. When I rode the railway more recently, it was certainly more modern – but the charm was gone. Oh well, progress. More Of Scotland In JapanIn the past we have run into a number of Scottish themed places and objects in Japan - of all places. It is the only place I have ever seen the English represented by a man in a kilt! There is a kind of “biscuit” made in Japan which you can buy in a can. The biscuit is made from rice. Why it has a Scottish piper on is anybody’s guess. One person said that the soldiers in the Japanese army used to take these with them to eat.   
Modern Gaelic Verse - PamphletIt is with some sorrow, we announce that we have come to the end of the pamphlets which were published originally by An Comunn Gàidhealach (acgmod.org) . We have received many positive comments about them and we are happy to have had the chance to bring them back to life as it were. We want to take this opportunity once again to thank the people at An Comunn for their kindness in letting us have the privilege of republishing them for our readers. Please check An Comunn’s website to see the wonderful work they do. Here now is our last pamphlet. The pamphlet “Modern Gaelic Verse” was written by Iain Crichton Smith © 1966 - revised 1976. It was printed by Caithness Books, Janet Street, Thurso and was published by An Comunn Gàidhealach with whose kind permission we publish it here. What are the difficulties with writing poetry in a language that is not in common usage? Are there really excellent examples of poetry in Gaelic? Find out the answers in this interesting pamphlet which gives the history of Gaelic poets and their work. These pamphlets have been scanned and therefore are large image files. Click each link to read one page at a time Tweetscollected by cecilia |
