Face to Face with Surreality
Early morning (pre-dawn to most of you), on the M1 beyond Leicester, the traffic suddenly starts to back up, and the middle and fast lanes drop back to 50mph. Up ahead are flashing yellow lights crawling along in the slow lane, and the lorries are coming out from behind them into the middle lane, chasing the cars from that lane out into the path of the white vans and super-fast Audis. As I plod slowly(I'm in a diesel) up to the dancing yellow lights I see a smokebox front and chimney, then wheels and cylinders and coupling rods. I am face to face with a railway engine going backwards along the M1.
A little further on is another low-loader, with a railway carriage on it. The steam engine was a 4-6-0, for those that care about such details, and somewhere there must have been yet another low-loader with the tender. I don't know if there were passengers on the coach, or a driver and fireman somewhere for the engine. For all I know they were all sitting in a dozen cars somewhere around the scattered convoy. Perhaps the railways have realised that all the old excuses about the wrong kinds of leaves and the wrong kinds of snow have worn out, and that the real reason for all the delays and slow-running is that they've got the wrong kind of tracks.
Trying to get back to reality for a moment, it is strange that, while we have a railway network that was designed to take steam engines and coaches, we have to move them around on the roads. Not just strange, but totally nonsensical. Why can't we have a joined-up transport system for our country? That's part of the problem, of course, they ripped up and closed down so many miles of track that the railway system no longer joins up with itself anywhere.
Maybe it is more surreal than I thought: the railways are in such a terrible state that railway coaches are going to be put onto low-loaders and driven around the country to try and relieve the bottlenecks. Next time I pass them I shall try waving to see if they've actually got passengers as well.
I would actually like a system where I could get up at 3:30 on a Monday morning, drive my car from my house to somewhere not too far away, where my car and I are loaded onto a wagon, which then sets off up the motorway system. Somewhere near to North Linconshire I could then wake up a few hours later when the wagon stops, start my engine, drive off the wagon and carry on the few short miles to where I work, having slept through all the chaos caused by the large lumbering load getting in the way of smaller lorries and vans and cars. I'd pay for it, if it was cheaper than actually doing the driving myself.
And if they decide to start charging us for using the roads, as somebody is now suggesting they might, is there going to be a charter for us road-users stating that we will have fair access to the roads in return for our payments? Because I for one will not be happy having to pay to crawl along behind obstructions that could, (and should) be on the rails.
I've had my obligatory couple of fines from cameras parked in vans by the road, (one of which was a con, because I was outside the 40mph limit they claimed I was exceeding, and only discovered it after paying up). What I want to see are fines levied on heavy vehicles that slow us down by crawling along at 30mph, or supermarket lorries running slow because (it is alleged), their drivers get a bonus for staying under 50mph on their tacho. If you're goung to charge people for using the roads, you should include the inconvenience factor in the assessment of their use, not just the distance travelled.
A little further on is another low-loader, with a railway carriage on it. The steam engine was a 4-6-0, for those that care about such details, and somewhere there must have been yet another low-loader with the tender. I don't know if there were passengers on the coach, or a driver and fireman somewhere for the engine. For all I know they were all sitting in a dozen cars somewhere around the scattered convoy. Perhaps the railways have realised that all the old excuses about the wrong kinds of leaves and the wrong kinds of snow have worn out, and that the real reason for all the delays and slow-running is that they've got the wrong kind of tracks.
Trying to get back to reality for a moment, it is strange that, while we have a railway network that was designed to take steam engines and coaches, we have to move them around on the roads. Not just strange, but totally nonsensical. Why can't we have a joined-up transport system for our country? That's part of the problem, of course, they ripped up and closed down so many miles of track that the railway system no longer joins up with itself anywhere.
Maybe it is more surreal than I thought: the railways are in such a terrible state that railway coaches are going to be put onto low-loaders and driven around the country to try and relieve the bottlenecks. Next time I pass them I shall try waving to see if they've actually got passengers as well.
I would actually like a system where I could get up at 3:30 on a Monday morning, drive my car from my house to somewhere not too far away, where my car and I are loaded onto a wagon, which then sets off up the motorway system. Somewhere near to North Linconshire I could then wake up a few hours later when the wagon stops, start my engine, drive off the wagon and carry on the few short miles to where I work, having slept through all the chaos caused by the large lumbering load getting in the way of smaller lorries and vans and cars. I'd pay for it, if it was cheaper than actually doing the driving myself.
And if they decide to start charging us for using the roads, as somebody is now suggesting they might, is there going to be a charter for us road-users stating that we will have fair access to the roads in return for our payments? Because I for one will not be happy having to pay to crawl along behind obstructions that could, (and should) be on the rails.
I've had my obligatory couple of fines from cameras parked in vans by the road, (one of which was a con, because I was outside the 40mph limit they claimed I was exceeding, and only discovered it after paying up). What I want to see are fines levied on heavy vehicles that slow us down by crawling along at 30mph, or supermarket lorries running slow because (it is alleged), their drivers get a bonus for staying under 50mph on their tacho. If you're goung to charge people for using the roads, you should include the inconvenience factor in the assessment of their use, not just the distance travelled.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 9:45 pm
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