The Helpful Welsh
I sometimes find translations rather amusing.
An Obvious Translation
In this case surely the English translation isn’t needed.
Will We Get HSW Before HS2?
In this post about the BBC’s knocking of HS2, I jokingly referred to the Great Western Main Line as HSW, for High Speed West or High Speed Wales.
But is it that far from the truth?
A high speed railway is defined as one where speeds of 200 kph or 125 mph are possible. The fastest lines run at 320 kph or 200 mph.
So what speed can we expect to see on the Great Western Main Line, after it is fully modernised in 2017?
Currently the fastest trains in the UK are the Class 373 ( 300 kph) used by Eurostar, the Class 390 ( 225 kph) used by Virgin and the InterCity 225 (225 kph) used by East Coast. The latter two trains are restricted to 200 kph, due to signalling restrictions on their lines and because they have to mix it with slower trains.
It is also interesting to note that the Class 395, which bring the high speed Kent commuter services into St. Pancras run at 225 kph.
The new trains for the electrified Great Western Main Line are based on the Class 395 and are called Class 800 and Class 801. These have a design speed of 225 kph, but will be limited to 200 kph on traditional lines.
But Brunel built the Great Western for speed and a lot of the route it is pretty straight and much has four tracks. It is also going to be resignalled to the highest European standards with in-cab signalling. The latter is necessary to go above 200 kph. So it shouldn’t be one of the most difficult tasks to make much of the line capable of 225 kph or even more.
The only real problem on the line is the Severn Tunnel. But as Crossrail has shown, we have some of the best tunnel engineers in the world. So just as the Swiss dealt with their railway bottleneck of the Simplon Tunnel, all we need to do to improve the Severn Tunnel is give the best engineers their head and let them solve the problems, whilst the politicians sit around and watch and wait. After all it’s only a baby compared to the massive twin bores of the Simplon.
As an aside here, I do wonder if one of the most affordable solutions might be to use a modern tunnel boring machine to create a new tunnel alongside the current one.
Conclusion
So I believe that even if it still goes slower on opening, trains to Bristol and Wales will be doing 225 kph before the end of this decade.
If that isn’t a high speed railway like HS1, I don’t know what is?
But whatever we call it, it’ll be here several years before HS2!
I think we need to call for three cheers for Brunel, who got the route right in the first place.
Ivy Bank
I saw this sign in Shanklin and it reminded me of the worst hotel I ever stayed in.
Ivy Bank
It was in Monmouth in Wales and my father used to tell the tale with gusto. My parents, my sister and myself, had arrived late in the afternoon in the town and as ever, my father hadn’t booked a hotel, so he went searching and found this hotel called Ivy Bank. It had an air about it like a house, where someone has just died and everybody except for the maiden aunt has moved out. I can’t remember who slept where, but I can remember going down for breakfast and we sat like dummies waiting for the other guests or some staff to turn up. In the end the lady, turned up dressed like some stereotype out of films where doors creek and virgins scream. But she was carrying an enormous tray covered in every sort of food to make up the largest English or more truthfully Welsh, breakfast I’ve ever seen.
It was good and we ate well, before my father paid for the rooms and food and we left.
It later transpired that my mother hadn’t slept, as she could hear, what she thought were rats running all over the place.
Since that date, I have vowed never to set food in any house, pub, restaurant or hotel called Ivy Bank.
Gareth Bale, Cliff Jones and Taffy O’Callaghan
Tottenham Hotspur have a tradition of Welsh players, who were fast and skilful.
The one, I’ve seen most was Cliff Jones, who was an integral part of the Spurs double side and a few years afterwards. On form he could be brilliant and he could tear defences apart with his speed, in a manner not unlike that of Gareth Bale. What is often forgotten about Cliff Jones, is that on the death of John White and the retirement of Danny Blanchflower, he played much more as a midfield playmaker, rather than an outright winger. In some ways, isn’t this how another Welsh footballer;Ryan Giggs’s career has progressed at Manchester United?
I’ve put Taffy O’Callaghan in this post, as my father felt he was an amazing footballer from before the Second World War. He was supposed to be fast and my father told me that the team of those days was nicknamed the ‘greyhounds’, which is confirmed in Wikipedia. My father always said, he’d never seen anybody hit a football so hard. And they weren’t the lightweight balls of today!
We all know that Gareth Bale is good, but I won’t compare him directly, with his two predecessors. Although, it is informative to read Cliff Jones thoughts on Gareth Bale in this report on the BBC. In the article Cliff Jones doesn’t say that Real Madrid and others courted him continuously in the 1960s, but he stayed at Tottenham.
Perhaps being Welsh, he preferred the green grass at home?
There is also this article on Gareth Bale in the Guardian, which has this priceless quote from Blanchflower about yet another Welsh football legend; John Charles.
Everything he does is automatic. When he moves into position for a goal chance it is instinctive. Watch me and you’ll see I am seconds late, but all my thinking has to be done in my head. My feet do not do my thinking for me as they do for him.
The article says this could be applied to Gareth Bale. But then Blanchflower knew his football, both on and off the field. He was a unique talent himself!
Otters Will Be Otters
This story from the Metro, shows how we should co-operate a bit more, where wildlife are concerned. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
When Brian Dodson set up a carp fishery from scratch he had no idea the business would be quickly ruined – by otters.
The 60-year-old discovered the carnivores had eaten his entire £250,000 stock after a river haven for the animals was built nearby.
He is now seeking £2.5million from the Environment Agency, which he claims failed to tell him about the scheme and prevented him building protective fencing.
Surely there should have been a middle way.
But then as the story says otters are carnivores and will get their food no matter what. There was a story a couple of years ago, where otters were taking koi carp out of a pond in a suburban garden in Birmingham. No-one knew that there were otters in the nearby canal.
I’m reminded of the tale I heard when I shared the driver’s cab in a High Speed Diesel Train from Edinburgh to Inverness.
The owner of an hotel close to the line, built a lake, which he stocked with fish for his guests. But just down the road was Loch Garten, where ospreys have made a home. And as ospreys are wont to do, they found the hotel lake and decided it was a good place for dinner.
The hotel owner cut back on his fishing, but apparently, he now promotes the lake as a place to watch ospreys feed.
A Welsh Take On Horseburgers
This article in the Mirror talks about and links to a video that has gone viral. It concerns a pantomime horse suffering from grief over the loss of its parents in a Tesco store in West Wales.
Cornwall Wins More Gold Medals Than Australia
The Aussie press is having a go at their athletes for failing to turn silver into gold, but what has happened to Australian sport? When I was growing up, Wimbledon was almost a suburb of Sydney or Brisbane, with win after win by a never-ending stream of players. Then more recently, the cricketers were invincible. So why has this happened?
I’ve just done a bit of research on London’s Olympic medallists and have found that one of the UK’s least populous counties, Cornwall, has won two gold medals; Helen Glover and Ben Ainslie, to Australia’s one.
Perhaps our athletes are doing better as they get a post box painted gold in their honour, in their home town. It costs us nothing, as we get bankers to do as a tax allowable expense.
And if that wasn’t enough shame, Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire have also got more gold medals than Australia. My adopted county, Suffolk may not get a gold medal. But here’s hoping!
I Called It Right
I know a few Koreans and so I went with them to see them play at Wembley tonight against Gabon. We were a bit higher up in Club West.
Korea v Gabon at Wembley
The view was a bit better, than for the game last night.
It wasn’t an exciting game and the goalless draw was about fair. But it meant that Korea came second in their group.
When Great Britain won, it meant that the tickets, I’d bought on spec to see the quarter-final in Cardiff won’t have to be sold on.
I just felt the two teams might meet there. And I was right!
So it’ll be off on a High Speed Diesel Train on Saturday. What better way is there to travel to see your team?
Welsh Policemen On The Streets of London
I took this picture this morning at the Angel
Welsh Policemen On The Streets of London
It shows two Carmarthen policemen on duty.
In some ways, it’s an appropriate area, as the statue of Hugh Myddelton, the Welshman, who four hundred years ago, built the New River to give London its first fresh water is at Islington Green, a hundred metres or so away.
Team GB Chooses Fire
Team GB has announced two captains for the Olympics; Ryan Giggs and Dai Greene.
Both are Welsh and hopefully they’ll be able to put some fire into the teams. Admittedly, the football team has a strong Welsh presence with five members, including two of the three overage members of the team.
The only problem, I can see is it makes it even more urgent to find somewhere to park the dragon.
The Anonymous Widower 