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Author Topic: Railway towns  (Read 7726 times)
grahame
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« Reply #15 on: March 10, 2017, 02:34:02 »

Do many in Wedtbury work on the railway then?

From a Railway FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) from Stagecoach
Quote
The UK (United Kingdom) rail industry employs more than 190,000 people, from train drivers and station staff to those responsible for managing and maintaining the network’s 20,000 miles of track.

That's 1 in 315 of the population. Westbury's population around 15,000 (data set about 7 years old, like the Stagecoach quote) which means that if it were at the Bristish average, just under 50 people there would work in the rail industry.  I'm not sure what the numbers actually are, though, nor how much above average a town would need to be if you want to consider it a "railway town". 

Historically, the rail industry employed many more staff.   These days, a service of (say) 8 round trips a day with a journey of 45 minutes each way requires 4 staff members on a  daily basis - double that to 8 to allow 7 day working, holiday, sickness, training, etc.; the number goes up to (say) 12 to 15 by the time you add maintenance staff, cleaners, etc ... and then there's the whole question of track and right of way care which may or may not count "against" the service depending on what else os sharing the track.  A hundred years ago (say) you would have been looking at two trains to operate the service due to additional needs of the locomotive, and slower runs with more intermediate stations, and a third crew member on trains.  Those stations would all have ben staffed ("more heavily staffed" for stations that remain staffed to this day) and a service of the same number of  trains would have required three times the staff at least.  And there were more services about (or, rather, services were spread over more lines, but much more thinly for the most part).  I started to write this paragraph to give voice to there being a difference between current and historic perception of a "railway town" but not sure where it's leading ...

History encourages me to believe that operation railway staff lived within walking distance of their base / depot.  These days, I note significant flows of railway staff travelling to work by train.  And by car too;  until we have a 24 hour railway, the driver and conductor / manager / guard of the first train need to get to it, after all, and buses operate a much more limited day than trains for the most part.  The historic clustering of rail staff into "rail towns" seems to have changed as staff disperse.

Westbury - the example I've chosen to follow up on, dates back to a settlement way before the railway came which was situated some distance from the current station / yards / operating point;it was a target destination of the railway builders - a minor one, but certainly not a spot in the countryside which Swindon was when the railway came.    But over the years, it has looked very much to the railway.   Perhaps the best judgement is not on raw data from the head, but in the heart. If a town considers itself to be a railway town, then it IS one?
« Last Edit: March 10, 2017, 03:11:36 by grahame » Logged

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ellendune
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« Reply #16 on: March 10, 2017, 07:41:35 »

However, I would say that Swindon and Crewe are the 'true' railway towns as prior to the railway they were only very small settlements of no major significance. Derby, York, Darlington have a long history that pre-dates railways.

They talk of the three 'R's of Derby: Railway, Rolls and Royce

That says it really - the railway is important, but not the main thing about the place in the last century.  That said the railway works came before Rolls Royce (and the fact that they ended up in two major railway engineering towns (Derby and Crewe)) perhaps indicates that the railway made Derby into an engineering town.
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« Reply #17 on: March 10, 2017, 08:29:54 »

Derby is a City, less of this "town"!!!!
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ChrisB
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« Reply #18 on: March 10, 2017, 09:00:58 »

It wasn't when the railways came to 'town'! :-)
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ellendune
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« Reply #19 on: March 10, 2017, 09:30:34 »

Derby is a City, less of this "town"!!!!

It wasn't when the railways came to 'town'! :-)

Yes Derby only became a City in 1977 (I was working there at the time, but mostly before it was a City).

So my remarks about its history relate to a time when it was a town. 
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« Reply #20 on: March 10, 2017, 09:48:37 »

...  I started to write this paragraph to give voice to there being a difference between current and historic perception of a "railway town" but not sure where it's leading ...
...
Perhaps it demonstrates that current employment is no longer a definition of a railway (or mining or steel or whatever) town, because few places nowadays have one dominant employer in the way that was typical from the industrial revolution to the 1960s or so. (And IMO (in my opinion) this is a good thing – but that's not really relevant to this thread.)
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Bmblbzzz
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« Reply #21 on: March 29, 2017, 12:48:40 »

Didcot is described as a railway town by the Independent. But then, they've got to describe it as something! (or feel they have).
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Didcot revealed as England's most 'normal' town
Oxfordshire railway town most closely resembled the statistical ‘median’ across the country
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/englands-most-normal-town-didcot-oxfordshire-a7654506.html
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« Reply #22 on: March 29, 2017, 13:08:02 »

Surely Didcot is one of the most boring towns in Britain. I spent 2 hours looking for ANY building of historical interest and significance..(apart from the Railway Centre of course)
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grahame
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« Reply #23 on: March 29, 2017, 13:45:53 »

Surely Didcot is one of the most boring towns in Britain. I spent 2 hours looking for ANY building of historical interest and significance..(apart from the Railway Centre of course)

For next time Listed Buildings in Didcot, South Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire
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didcotdean
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« Reply #24 on: March 29, 2017, 13:56:43 »

Didcot has one of the oldest yew trees in the UK (United Kingdom). OK I can see I am still not exciting you  Grin

The original village part of Didcot is largely unknown to the casual visitor because it sits in between main roads so they never go by or even see glimpses of it. There are several Grade II listed houses from the 16th to 17th centuries. And the old tree.

It isn't that far from the station; cross Station Road, go up Hayden Road by the side of the carpark and turn right into Lydalls Road and keep walking ...

This is one of three conservation areas in Didcot; the second is the group of GWR (Great Western Railway) houses along Station Road, and the third is the core of Northbourne, a late Victorian speculative development built by a farmer literally in his fields just south of the turnpike, which didn't formally become part of Didcot until the 1930s.

It is the community of people living in this last area, with a little of more modern surroundings that has been identified as the most representative of the British public overall.
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grahame
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« Reply #25 on: March 29, 2017, 15:12:55 »

I work from time to time at the main employment area nearby (at Harwell) and take the bus back to Didcot at the end of the day. The bus does a nice big semicircle (or even 3/4 of a circle) around the town.  During that excursion, it creeps through the bus only section near the cinema and if you're lucky stops there for a few minutes for a change of driver.  Then in plods on to the station; as you approach the station you see the Swindon train you were hoping to catch pulling in, and by the time the bus turns right into the bus area and opens his doors, and you rush up onto the platform, you're just in time to see the orange lights go out denying you boarding of the train.   Yes, a most normal town and interchange!

Also from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-39428314:
Quote
Didcot is 'most normal town in England', researchers claim

Top 5 most normal places in England
1. Didcot, Oxfordshire
2. Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire
3. Bath Road, Worcester
4. Southwick, West Sussex
5. East Leake, Nottinghamshire

I might argue with East Leake, which is where my ex originated from. I got to know the place quite well.
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ChrisB
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« Reply #26 on: March 29, 2017, 15:22:51 »

One *road* in Worcester?
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didcotdean
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« Reply #27 on: March 29, 2017, 15:46:26 »

I work from time to time at the main employment area nearby (at Harwell) and take the bus back to Didcot at the end of the day. The bus does a nice big semicircle (or even 3/4 of a circle) around the town.  During that excursion, it creeps through the bus only section near the cinema and if you're lucky stops there for a few minutes for a change of driver. 
It won't be doing that much longer as the top of Station Road at Broadway (*) controversially is in the process of being reopened to (bus) traffic having been totally pedestrianised for round about a decade.

(* - yes Broadway in Didcot was named after the one in New York in the mid 30s. Prior to that no one was sure which bits were called Wantage Road or Harwell Road - it swapped more than once along its length.)
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« Reply #28 on: March 29, 2017, 16:03:47 »

Surely Didcot is one of the most boring towns in Britain. I spent 2 hours looking for ANY building of historical interest and significance..(apart from the Railway Centre of course)
Isn't this a more subjective way of saying the same thing?  Wink Though I'm sure that in practice, like the similarly maligned Milton Keynes (which I'm more familiar with than Didcot), it's actually far more interesting than it appears.
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« Reply #29 on: March 29, 2017, 21:31:07 »

One *road* in Worcester?
Don't knock it - it's where I live.
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