He’s been converted tae electric for years but took tae feuchin tae compensate.

His feuchie habit means I hae tae tak a pipe aff him at iviry station.

He disni like it. He misses his lum reekin.

Translate:

feuch: To puff (at a pipe), to smoke.

He’s been converted to electric for years but took to smoking a pipe to compensate.

His smoking habit means I have to take his pipe off him at every station.

He doesn’t like it. He misses his chimney belching smoke.

fjux
The Scottish Word: feuch with its definition and its meaning illustrated and captioned with the word used in context in the Scots language and in English.

Influences.

Ivor the engine sneaked in a bit at the end but it was mostly the Little Red Engine which was illustrated by Lesley Wood in the 1950s.

I liked her simple but interesting design but my obsession with how things work waylay all attempts at simplification. The nuts and bolts creep in even when I’d rather they didn’t.

I was far too young to have seen these versions at the time but I do recollect seeing her Science Fiction covers since I was a SciFi fan in the 60s and onwards.

And I had ambitions even at that early age to be an illustrator and so paid attention to artwork.
Some of Lesley Woods’s covers here:

Electrical Transport.

A Scottish inventor Robert Anderson made a crude electric carriage around 1832/39.

Electric Trains.

The first known electric locomotive was built by Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in 1837. He later built a larger battery powered locomotive, named Galvani, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. It hauled a load of 6 tons at 4 mph.

Custers last stand at The Little Bighorn of the Great Sioux War was in 1876.

Wiring.

DIY nuts and electricians will have noticed that the red and black wiring is from a previous era and is now replaced by brown and blue. And the exposure to touch of the brass wire connectors could be fatal depending on the voltage of the battery.