Scenic Rail In Britain
The Association Of Community Rail Partnerships have put all the scenic rail lines on one web site called Scenic Rail In Britain.
Links to Heritage Line websites are also included.
Lots Of Process And No Substance!
The title of this post has just been used by Gus O’Donnell on BBC1 to describe how the Brexit negotiations will progress.
I think that the election has guaranteed we’ll get a Hard Brexit under World Trade Organisation rules.
Dressing To Win!
I am not being sexist in this post, as I think it applies just as much to men as women.
My late wife, C was always immaculately dressed for her appearances as a barrister in Court. I know too, from a lunch I had with a retired judge, who she regularly appeared in front of, that she would dress appropriately for the case and those in Court.
The judge also said, she made sure she was the centre of attention and as the judge said, she dressed to win.
C was considered by her peers to be a very competent lawyer, but several times she expressed doubts about her skills to me, so I do wonder, if she used clothes to give herself confidence.
I think that both Theresa May and Hillary Clinton don’t dress to win and both of them have lost!
How many times in their campaigns were they seen in plain bog-standard clothes, that made them look ordinary?
I can hear the words of C, in my ears, as she criticises their dress sense.
Incidentally, she always made sure, I was well-turned out!
Where Is The Next Tory Leader?
When Theresa May resigns, as she surely will, if not today, in the next few days, where is the safe pair of hands to sort out the mess that the Brexit Referendum has dumped the country?
- Kenneth Clarke and others of his generation are too old and too pro-Remain.
- Boris Johnson is too volatile.
- Ruth Davidson is not in Parliament.
I suspect many others will pass on the poisoned chalice.
John Major was the surprise to follow Margaret Thatcher and went on to win an election. Is there another like him? I don’t think so!
I Said It Was A Strange Election!
In A Strange Election, I said it was just that. But then, a political journalist friend said to me, that the posters told a different tale South of London, as they did in the capital, before the Brexit Referendum.
Theresa May made the same mistake as Harold Wilson in 1970 and Ted Heath in 1974, when they both called an early election and ended up covered in egg.
She fought a terrible election and certainly made major mistakes.
- In a short campaign, you must get your manifesto right and this allowed the sound-bite of Dementia Tax to take hold.
- The manifesto had little for the average Tory voter.
- She ignored Newton’s Third Law!
- Her circle of advisers was too small and close!
- She ignored the lessons of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
- She came over as cold, with all the charisma of a dead fish.
- There was no infrastructure policy except vague statements in the manifesto.
- There wasn’t much to attract those who voted Brexit, except a stop to immigration.
- Where was the pit-bull to take Corbyn’s fantasy tax and spend policies apart?
- Only Boris Johnson delivered any passion!
But most importantly, where do the Tories stand on Brexit?
The Tories are pfaffing about, like a Personnel Manager, who has just been sent by the Chairman to close a factory they know nothing about, in a strange area of the country.
The Tories were all planning to Remain in the EU, even if they were against it and the surprise result in the Brexit Referendum left the Party up the creek without a paddle.
A Strange Election
In 2015, when you walked through the local area, you saw lots of posters, saying Vote for Me! etc.
Today, I walked to Haggerston station and I saw just three posters; one Liberal, one Green and one for an Independent.
Now that the forecast doesn’t agree with opinion polls in The Times and The Standard, I am led to the conclusion, that much of the data is all over the place.
I have a feeling as with 2015 and the Bexit vote, the pollsters will have to look hard at their methods.
Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran Discuss New Freight Corridor To link India And Europe
The title of this post is the same as that of an article on Global Rail News.
The article doesn’t say much, except that currently it takes between thirty and forty days for freight to get between India and Europe.
The New Silk Road
In How To Move 100,000 Containers A Year Between Germany And China, I talked about a plan by Deutsche Bahn and Georgian Railways to create a New Silk Road. This map shows the route.
Note how the route of the New Silk Road could go South of the Caspian Sea, which means it would pass through Iran.
In the earlier post, I said this about the New Silk Road.
If you read the Wikipedia entry for Georgian Railways, it does list a few problems, but it would appear that the route across Georgia is being upgraded to Standard Gauge all the way from the Turkish border to Almaty in Kazakhstan.
With Germany, Turkey and Europe at the Western end and China at the Eastern end both predominately Standard Gauge, I think that this route will be all the same gauge.
A new route between Azerbaijan and Kazahkstan would avoid using a ferry across the Caspian Sea for the New Silk Road.
Ideally it would be a Standard Gauge Line.
Iran
So will Iranian Railways be able to create a Standard Gauge route to the South of the Caspian Sea?
The good news is as follows.
Iran’s railways are built using Standard Gauge.
Much of the route appears to be already built.
The route could serve Tehran and link it to Tbilisi and Baku, the capitals of Georgia and Axerbaijan.
But the bad news is given in a section in the Wikipedia entry for Iranian Railways called Challenging Construction, where this is said.
The Trans-Iranian railway traverses many mountain ranges, and is full of spirals and 1 in 36 ruling grades. Much of the terrain was unmapped when construction took place, and its geology unknown. Several stretches of line, including tunnels, were built through unsuitable geology, and had to be replaced even before the line opened. Nevertheless, the line was completed ahead of schedule.
In recent years the railways have undergone significant extensions including the 1977 linking to the western railway system at the Turkish border, the 1993 opening of the Bandar Abbas line providing better access to the sea, and the 1996 opening of the Mashad–Sarakhs extension as part of the Silk Road railway to link to the landlocked Central Asian Countries.
Add in the earthquake-prone nature of the area, and it might not be a piece of cake.
Liuk Between Iran And Turkey
There is a section in the Wikipedia entry for Iranian Railways called Link to Turkey, and International Standard Gauge route to Europe, where this is said.
In 1977, the Iranian railways linked to the western railway system at the Turkish border.
The route to the west into Turkey terminates at Van with a 90 km (56 mi) train ferry for both freight wagons and international passenger traffic (baggage car only) across Lake Van, which is at an altitude of 1,650 m (5,413 ft), to Tatvan where it joins the Turkish standard-gauge network.
Looking at the map, it would appear that it could be easier to go between Iran and Turkey via Georgia and Azerbaijan. The rail link to Azerbaijan appears to have seen lots of use between Iran and the formerSoviet Union, but it needs a gauge change on the border.
But driven by the Germans and the Georgians, it would appear that Standard Gauge trains can or will soon be able to go from Turkey to Iran.
Link To Pakistan
There is also a section in the Wikipedia entry for Iranian Railways called Link to Pakistan, where this is said.
The construction of the railway from Bam to Zahedan was completed in early 2009 connecting Tehran to Pakistan border with an opening ceremony on 19 July 2009. However international container traffic commenced operations on 14 August 2009 with transshipment (or transloading) between 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) Indian gauge and 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge wagons in the new Zahedan Exchange Yard on the bypass line. The freight traffic was discontinued however after the initial trial trains and was only revived in 2015.
Iranian Railways have been trying to persuade Pakistan Railways to convert its route to Quetta to standard gauge, in order to facilitate the flow of international traffic to Europe. Pakistan responded in 2006 with a statement that it is to convert its network to standard gauge, and would plan a link with the standard gauge system of China.
A through passenger service is being considered to supplement the occasional Quetta-Zahedan service, itself a poor shadow of the former Pakistan-Iran ‘Taftan Express’.
It’s such a pity, that Indian Railways were not built to Standard Gauge. But then we built Irish Railways to a different gauge too!
Iran’s Leadership
It does appear from the last two sections with their extracts from Wikipedia, that Iran is very much taking the lead in facilitating the movement of freight between Europe and the Indian sub-continent.
Quetta
It looks like if the Iranians have their way, Quetta will be the place, where the changeover takes place between Standard and Indian Gauges. This is the first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia entry for the city.
Quetta is the provincial capital of Balochistan, Pakistan and the ninth-largest city of the country. The city is known as the fruit garden of Pakistan, due to the numerous fruit orchards in and around it, and the large variety of fruits and dry fruits produced there. The immediate area has long been one of pastures and mountains, with varied plants and animals relative to the dry plains to the west. Quetta is at an average elevation of 1,680 meters (5,510 feet) above sea level, making it Pakistan’s only high-altitude major city. The population of the city is estimated to be approximately 1,140,000.
Located in north western Balochistan near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Quetta is a trade and communication centre between the two countries. The city lies on the Bolan Pass route which was once the only gateway from Central Asia to South Asia. Quetta played an important role militarily for the Pakistani Armed Forces in the intermittent Afghanistan conflict.
Placing the main rail gauge change in Quetta, must improve the economic prospects for the area.
The altitude of the city could be a problem, but Wikipedia also says trains are attacked.
Conclusion
This project would appear to be a very feasible way to create a rail route between Europe and India, which from Europe to Quetta will be Standard Gauge and from Quetta Eastwards will be Indian Gauge.
Putin: I Never Have Off-Days, I’m Not A Woman
This is the title of an article in The Times.
Any suggestions, as to who else might say the same thing?
Terror In Tehran
This is the title of a leading article in The imes today.
It is subtitled.
The Isis attack on Iran is part of a desperate endgame that threatens us all
Islamic State are being pushed back and the newspaper thinks that attacks like London, Manchester, Paris and Teheran will increase.
Let’s hope they are wrong. But I suspect they aren’t!
The Sun Does It Again!
You can always rely on The Sun to be funny on Election Day.
They sum him up like this.
- Terrorists’ Friend
- Useless On Brexit
- Destroyer Of Jobs
- Enemy Of Business
- Massive Tax Hikes
- Puppet Of Unions
- Nuclear Surrender
- Ruinous Spending
- Open Immigration
- Marxist Extremist
The front page is very much in the tradition of the notorious It’s The Sun Wot Won It front page of 1992.
Incidentally, if Jeremy Corbyn were to become Prime Minister, he would be only the second one, who’d divorced. The first was the Duke of Grafton in 1769. But the Duke was only divorced once.
The Anonymous Widower 