Monday, November 15, 2010

ASEA wooden electric locomotive and Swastika




This electric locomotive, D101 from 1925, is one of the exhibits in the Swedish Railway Museum (Sveriges Järnvägsmuseum) at Gävle. The loco, featuring a wooden body, is still operational.

But what's with that swastika? One must assume it was still being used as an ancient good luck symbol, and had nothing to do with Herr Hitler's use of it. It is a symbol that can still be seen here and there in old unredecorated features of buildings in the west, for example, it is in the entrance floor tiles of Sydney Library in Circular Quay. Nowadays, because of the inevitable Nazi associations in the west, it will only been seen on new objects in the east, such as on the chest of the Big Buddha in Hong Kong.

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