Great Western Coffee Shop

10th April 2018 ... http://pewseyvalerailwaysociety.webplus.net/index.html


Public Transport not practical to / from this event.  I have been a couple of times to try the out (their words) and may do so again on Tuesday.   

Interesting evening - visiting my youth, with tales from the history of railway through accidents and improvements made as a results.  From signalling misunderstandings at Norwich Thorpe and Clayton Tunnel and  underpowered locomotives at Armargh and poorly protected engineering works at Staplehurst through to modern accidents such as track failure at Hatfield and an error during signalling upgrades at Clapham Junction.   And lessons learned and systems changed - a run back through my youthful reading, where LTC Rolt's "Red for Danger" was perhaps my most ever re-read book.

Looking at modern conclusions ... where a job would be done in 90 minutes between trains at Staplehurst in Victorian time, it would now require a weekend closure with all the extra health and safety, and where an 8 hour overnight change at Clapham would have been sufficient just 30 years ago, these days you're talking about a closure right over a long holiday weekend.  And some thoughts on "what price a life" - of track workers and of passengers, with pictures of track workers standing in the clearance areas around the point work outside Waterloo and outside King's Cross while trains passed all around them.

From my view point, an interesting event at Pewsey Vale - delighted I went (and, yes, I went with a supply of flyers for the Rail User Group meeting on 11th May, chair announced it for me, came back with one reference copy).  Amazed as ever at the depth of knowledge in the room, and just how far people had driven to get there.   Truly a pan-Wiltshire club, but so different to us at TransWilts looking at current transport and current passengers; a good group to keep informed and up to date about as we wend our parallel ways.

One forgets quite how much H&S has changed even in recent years.

To link with Crossrail the BBC re-broadcast a programme from the late 60s on the building of the Victoria line.  The workers in the tunnels were shirtless wearing jeans and smoking.  No protective gear to be seen.  Modern H&S would have a fit.