Daneway
The railway tunnel at Sapperton is no doubt famous and modern sleek Class 800s IETs from Paddington to Gloucestershire pass through it daily. There’s a much bigger tunnel through the same hills yet its popularity and awareness depends on where one is coming from. Even in the days before the…
Melbury House / Dr. Beeching etc
In this year, the 125th of the Great Central Railway, a particular look is taken at some aspects of the happenings around Marylebone and what they meant for the UK’s transport systems. In the good old days after nationalisation in 1948 the railways continued to grow and everything was looking…
Tis wasn’t Robert Browning’s doing!
It is often claimed Robert Browning came up with the idea the area he lived in should be known as Little Venice. At no time did he ever claim any notion of this nor did he write anything that indicated this should be the case. So who was it responsible…
Thomas Telford in detail (3)
This is the third part of the feature on Thomas Telford’s achievements. The first part of this feature used colour versions of the Rosoman painting located on the left hand side of the work sourced from the Internet with some upscaling involved. Th post depicts the structures on the right…
Thomas Telford in detail (2)
This is the second part of the feature on Thomas Telford’s achievements. Telford was of course one of Britian’s greatest engineers – except he built few railways but mostly roads or canals. Many of his canals in fact supplemented railways built by others. In the first part we looked at…
Thomas Telford in detail
This isn’t some anatomical write-up on the composition of Thomas Telford’s body! Rather its a relatively unknown painting that commemorates his life’s work. There’s barely anything on the internet about this painting thus I deemed it an appropriate move to write a post about that work. How this came about…
Brindley, Wet Earth Colliery, nr Manchester
I am writing this because I have seen two of Martin Zero’s videos on the excellent work by James Brindley, which revolves around the construction undertaken in the 1750s to resolve both flooding issues as well as give an abundant working water supply to the mines around the Irwell Valley…
Whatever happened to Brunel's bridge?
The famous (since 2004) bridge was dismantled and taken to Portsmouth where it currently resides at Fort Cumberland in Eastney. Few know its there. It seems the stored remains are not even labelled as Brunel’s bridge. At the time of its dismantling there was every promise it would be stored…
Coventry Canal #2
The Coventry Canal opened in 1769, that’s 250 years ago. Its architect, James Brindley, worked on the scheme for a few months before being sacked. It must be the only occasion which this most notable engineering genius was told he was no longer wanted. The first part of the canal…
Coventry Canal
The Coventry Canal was one of the country’s earliest waterways to be opened following the success of the Bridgewater Canal. The section from Coventry to Atherstone was opened in 1769, and the rest of the canal followed as time went on eventually bringing it a total of 27 miles to…