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Auden as a boy was muich more interested in machines than in poetry, though I'm not sure how much that comes out - possibly in 'Night Mail'.
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I've got Auden's collected out of the library just now, and I'm looking at 'Night Mail.' It seems remarkably untechnological--so much so that I have to figure out what sort of conveyance is carrying the mail. The picture of a train appears gradually:
I.
This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder,
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily, she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.