0It was like love, my fascination for those huge, noisy machines that were already near the end of their golden age. They moved with such magnificient purpose. They were alive, they had steam, smoke and the smell of minerals; they burnt energy without concealment, and you could see the fire. They raced against themselves, losing more heat than they used, running by burning their own cargo of coal; but there was 01font
00something very human02font00 about the need to keep the fire going by hand, shovelling and watching, never for a second being able to forget responsibility for the jurneyand the work.02br
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00what was so human about it?02br
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00Their waste did not have to be buried in lead-lined coffins, it was exhaled as carbon, sulphur and nitrogen, or swept and scattered as ash, the unburnt particles of coal settling gently on our clothes and hair. 02br
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00Some things that humans make transcend their function; instruments can be magical. That explosive, rhythmic sound we call puffing 01font
00says more to us about getting under way02font00, about departure, than a petrol-driven snarl can ever do; perhaps it has something close to the heat of our pulse.02br
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00"01font
00says more to us about getting under way02font00( =depart?) than a petrol-driven snarl," What more can it say?02br
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00Even if we were using up and heating the earth too much, and no-one knew that at the time, it would have been worth making an exception for steam engines. They were beautiful mahines; the most beautyful machines produced in the industrial revolution.02br
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00The honest power of a steam engine is overwhelming -- most of its important parts are on display. You see the great cylinder with great cranks and mechanisms outside it, you see the ingenious connection of levers and rods to the enormous wheels and you have already understood that this combination of things will work , and you might even see how. Unlike a motor car or a nuclear ship, there is no secrecy about a steam engine's force. What the engineers call the 'motion', the linked shafts and pistons and wheels that drive the engine, is as fascinating as the movement of a watch. And almost as jewel-like, 01font
00for02font00 the couplings and connecting rods were often still chipped and filed smooth by hammer and chisel, after they came off the milling machine. 02br
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00for02font00 = because?02br
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00Hands still made this parts of these engines, and it is no surprise that drivers spoke of them as individuals. But essentially, the engine was a boiler held in heavy frames on a set of steel wheels.02br
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00The simplicity of it fascinated me. Coal burnt in a furnace surrounded by water created steam; steam confined in a cylinder pushed a piston, and linked to wheels by rods that turned the straight thrust of the piston in a rotary motion, the engine moved and worked. The idea that hordes of people and commodities could be carried at such shakingly powerful speeds by a sort of articulated kettle, in which the water could never be allowed to fall below the top of the furnace or there would be an explosion, seemed amazing to me. What made it all so different from today's electric railways, which run at set speeds, was the need to be aware at every moment of the perilous balance of fire and water, which also gve the possibility of going a little faster if the engineman was good, or of disaster if he was incompetent.02br
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00Like everything else we make -- like firearms, for example -- the simple idea could endlessly be refined, developed and decorated. I discovered in their hayday, when steam under pressure achieved astonishing things. Libraries of books were written on the improvements of Watt's basic idea. More sophisticated valve gears gave more subtle control of pressure, steam could be superheated to get more pressure out of it; more yards could be added to the labyrinth of copper firetubes inside the boiler to give a bigger heating area, and therefore more heat and steam. But it was the way it all worked together that mattered, in the poettry of great engines, their appearance, speed and mystique.02br
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00One of the attractions of steam engines mentioned in the first paragraph is 02br
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01li- 00their connection with a previous period of history02li
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01li- 00the speed at which they were capable of traveling02li
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01li- 00the fact that they needed people to make sure they ran properly02li
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01li- 00the smell of the waste that they produce®02li
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00The author says that it would be wrong to criticize steam engines for 02br
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01li- 00the way they changed people'slives02li
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01li- 00damaging the environment®02li
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01li- 00being less useful than cars02li
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01li- 00the amount of noise they made02li
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00The author thinks that drivers spoke of steam engines as individuals because02br
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01li- 00some of them seemed to have human characteristics02li
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01li- 00it was possible to see their function from their appearance02li
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01li- 00they were not wholly manufactured by machines®02li
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01li- 00not all of them were constructed on the same principle02li
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00What aspect of steam engines does the writer emphasize?02br
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01li- 00how much they depended on the skill of the engineman02li
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01li- 00how much they were capable of transporting®02li
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01li- 00that there were relatively few disasters involving them02li
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01li- 00that they were much more complicated than they looked02li
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00What does the author emphasize about steam engines in the passage as a whole?02br
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01li- 00how much they developed over the years02li
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01li- 00how much they differed from other machines02li
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01li- 00how much beauty he find in them®02li
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01li- 00how much they remind him of his boyhood02li
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00I would like to invite your opinion.02br
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00thanks0-