Redirection done right Seen on a wall in Aups. Quote of the Day ”Fighting fire with fire only gets you ashes.” Abigail van Buren Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news Liam O’Flynn | Limerick’s Lamentation Link This is a very old Irish tune which derives its title from the siege and fall of the city of Limerick to the English forces of Ginkel in 1691, at the end of the Williamite Wars. The tune is sometimes known as “Sarsfield’s Lamentation” from the name of the commander of the Irish forces at Limerick. Seems appropriate to a day spent watching footage of Ukrainians being forced from their homes by Russian shelling.
Patricia Fara's 'HistoryToday' piece badly exaggerates the duration of the dispute over railway gauges. She herself says: 'The 1846 Act decreed that future tracks should all be narrow gauge, but it permitted the broad track ones to remain and – crucially for Brunel – to be extended.' The only new broad gauge lines built after that were contiguous with the existing routes. Making them narrow gauge would have inserted two extra changes of gauge, for example crossing from Plymouth into Cornwall.
She contined, 'Brunel kept building and kept fighting, although by the end of the century he had admitted defeat.' Actually, he died in 1859. From then on, the difference of gauges was a problem for the GWR, which spent 30 years and a lot of money changing its tracks and its trains to standard gauge. It thus fell behind other railways in improving its routes and services for the growing traffic of the 1860s-1880s.
And she fails to make a crucial point about lessons for today, that HS2, by being built to different standards (but not a different gauge) is not properly compatible with the existing network.
As for Queen Victoria, the only reason for going from Portsmouth to Aberdeen via Gloucester could hav ebeen that she wanted to enjoy the scenery: it would have been (and still is today) shorter and quicker to go via London – all on standard gauge. JM
Patricia Fara's 'HistoryToday' piece badly exaggerates the duration of the dispute over railway gauges. She herself says: 'The 1846 Act decreed that future tracks should all be narrow gauge, but it permitted the broad track ones to remain and – crucially for Brunel – to be extended.' The only new broad gauge lines built after that were contiguous with the existing routes. Making them narrow gauge would have inserted two extra changes of gauge, for example crossing from Plymouth into Cornwall.
She contined, 'Brunel kept building and kept fighting, although by the end of the century he had admitted defeat.' Actually, he died in 1859. From then on, the difference of gauges was a problem for the GWR, which spent 30 years and a lot of money changing its tracks and its trains to standard gauge. It thus fell behind other railways in improving its routes and services for the growing traffic of the 1860s-1880s.
And she fails to make a crucial point about lessons for today, that HS2, by being built to different standards (but not a different gauge) is not properly compatible with the existing network.
As for Queen Victoria, the only reason for going from Portsmouth to Aberdeen via Gloucester could hav ebeen that she wanted to enjoy the scenery: it would have been (and still is today) shorter and quicker to go via London – all on standard gauge. JM