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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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 Posted -
11/01/2009
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06:04
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New Year, new topic. If you want to see the old one do a forum search for same title but 2008.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Bradders
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Posted - 29/01/2011 : 22:34
I read your post with interest Frank...I am a little at a loss to understand what travelling "from one end of China to the other , to see what makes them tick", and a very strange reference to the Huntsville telephone directory , has to do with the issues being debated here.........
By the way , it might have escaped your notice , but Tory Governments get thrown out too !....
Can you explain how that could possibly happen ?
BRADDERS BLUESINGER  |
HerbSG
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 00:42
Come on Brad, Frank was replyinjg to posts but obviously over your head. Do you have any knowledge based opinions of your own or do you simply get your kicks by constantly firing barbs at Frank.
HERB
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Bradders
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 01:35
Herb .. That's a fair question .
I get no kicks whatsoever from "firing barbs" ....I just wish the person in question would put his brain into gear, before having the timerity to enter into arguements which are , as you put it "obviously over his head"........
I have knowledge based opinions , and they are being adjusted every day by what I learn from places like this....and I enjoy the learning .......
Edited by - Bradders on 30/01/2011 01:36:55 AM
BRADDERS BLUESINGER |
HerbSG
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 05:51
Well Brad be happy to learn, weed out what you consider the chaff, digest the rest and forget the barbs and words like "idiots". Oh, and let's hear some of those knowledge based opinions, maybe we can all learn, if we hear them we will at least be able to comment on them, rather than simply reacting to your barbs.
HERB
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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 06:16
No, Frank you're wrong, Catty has just supported what I said. Of course Ernie would be dissappointed if he saw what had been done with his legacy, so would the 1945 voters (by the way, their descendants are still alive and well) but it wouldn't be Ernie they were after it would be the politicians who have modified his legacy to the point where laissez-faire policies are in the ascendant again. Ernie Bevin was far from being a 'good laugh'.
Frank wriggle how you may, you tried to suggest that BR had as bad a safety record as the private railway companies. That was what had to be corrected.
Of course British Steel made mistakes, I never said they didn't. My point was that it was central control, whether in wartime requisition or full nationalisation that forced them to rationalise. You are arguing that the old structure was better than BS. Again you're wrong.
As to Labour not being fit to run the economy, again you miss the point. No government of whatever political party is fit to do it. That's why they all fail eventually. The Frankworld Myth that Tories are the only ones who understand money is promulgated by the top 5% who control 90% of the capital because they want their stooges in power, the ones they finance, because one of the basic principles of the right wing is to support the status quo, steady as she goes and don't alter the balance of wealth and power. That's why they are called conservative. Think back and realise that it's the economy that sinks every government. The only good thing that New Labour did was to immediately give the Bank of England independence and this has worked well, Mervyn King has the power to talk sense now but not the influence to put his beliefs into effect. Look who pointed out the uncomfortable fact that over the last six years real incomes have fallen faster that at any time since the crisis of the 1920s. Funnily enough that was caused by the pursuit of sound money on the back of a crippled economy. Work it out for yourself.
When Margaret Thatcher was levered into power by the Tory Grandees in 1979 I think that like me, a lot of people were surprised that the most reactionary party had elected a woman as leader. A friend of mine inthe corridors of power told me that they wanted someone as leader who was inexperienced and could be 'guided' and subsequent events seem to bear this theory out. In the early days it worked but of course backfired on them when she got delusions of grandeur (remember "we are a grandmother"?) The Grandees were backed by a powerful group of capitalists who had read Friedman, embraced the Chicago School of Economics and wanted full-blown laissez-faire monetarism. The first measure passed by the Thatcher administration was to remove all controls on the export of capital, essential if the money was to be invested on world markets. From there on it was pure monetarism all the way and was one of the major factors in allowing the distorted banking system we still have today. Note how the bankers defend it, why do you think they are doing that? Think Major and Lamont trying to defend enormous panic interest rate increases. Were they demonstrating ability to run the economy?
I'm not too sure where you are going in your world travels. Your reference to the enclave at Huntsville supports what I said, the Germans were streets ahead of the rest of the world in nuclear fission, missile design, propellants and chemical warfare. That's why the US hunted the key scientists down and exported them home as virtual prisoners. Think Manhattan Project, Rocket propelled fighters, Agent Orange and nerve gas which lead to incredibly dangerous agricultural pesticides since banned. This wasn't the only reason for lots of German names in the telephone books. Look at New Ulm in Minnesota which took in more German POWs than any other American town, in that case because the indigenous population was largely supportive of anything Germany did, they were mainly German immigrants from the inter-war problems that Hitler 'solved'. They even have a bigger version of Herrmansdenkmal than the original in the Teutoberg forest.
One of the reasons for the inter war chaos in Germany which drove them to migrate was the purely monetarist Versailles Settlement. See Keynes on 'The Economic Consequences of Versailles' and ask yourself why after WW2 the US took a diametrically opposite course and subsidised Germany and the shattered industries of war-torn Europe. Pure Keynes, get them back into the trading system as soon as possible instead of crippling them as a punishment.This worked where monetarist principles had failed.
As for your foray into China, it looks as though you are trying to evade being called a dinosaur. I call you that because you are a living example of a breed of blinkered thinking that deserves to be extinct, nothing to do with travel.
Your total rejection of Harold Macmillan as a moderate thinker and a democratic socialist at heart is a case in point. You should read 'The Middle Way' and reflect on it. No reasonable observer can miss the eminent common sense in his views, the problem was that nobody wanted to hear him once war intervened a year after the book was published and politics took a different course. (The way we financed and ran the war was Keynsian deficit financing and central control, in your terms, nationalisation.) Remember that Harold was seen as a young upstart by the Tory establishment then. In order to gain power he had to trim his sails to gain control of the party, a great shame which he realised after he retired to the Lords. That's why he spoke against "selling off the family silver" and attempted to influence Thatcher in 1980.
This is more than 'opnion' Frank, it's carefully assessed evidence based on study and presented as a coherent point of view. I am afraid our minds work in different ways.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 07:06
Just seen Herb's post and I agree. If conducted with politeness it's called debate.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
Bradders
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 10:01
I would ask readers to take a close look at my post (29/01 2011 22:34:33)
The points I raised were as follows :-
Travel doesn't automatically make one wise
The Huntsville telephone directory is irrelevant .
All governments fail eventually.
(Stanley did exactly the same....)
If by using few words , my posts seem barbed , then so be it ........tough!
Edited by - Bradders on 30/01/2011 10:51:25 PM
BRADDERS BLUESINGER |
handlamp
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Posted - 30/01/2011 : 16:48
Dearest Frank = can't let you get away with your statement that BR was just as bad for accidents. It depends how they were caused, to allow trains to hurtle about at line speed with no AWS would never have happened under BR nor would many of the recent accidents due to condition of the track and pointwork.
Ted |
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart
36804 Posts
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 04:49
Well done Ted. Remember the days when hundreds of platelayers set off each day, rain or shine, to inspect their length and what they reported was taken seriously, they knew the track like the back of their hands.The gangers and managers upstream had risen through the system and knew exactly what the reports meant and what the priority was. That's one of the main resources that was blown away when BR was broken up. It never showed up on the account sheets, it was there, part of the structure and intangible. Nevertheless it was one of best resources you can have if you're running a railway. The politicians who had never worked in the industry and the economic 'experts' knew nothing about it or the family tradition and when the point was raised dismissed it as 'nostalgic'. nonsense.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk |
catgate
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 09:12
What happened to the lengthmen ?
Every silver lining has a cloud.
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frankwilk
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 14:05
You failed to understand I was agreeing with Stanley, Huntsville is the Rocket Capital of the USA and if you look in the telephone book for Huntsville you will see it is full of German Names,been there done that.
See that's what travel does for you, the other thing is it opens you up to other cultures, nowt like doing a night shift with 100 Chinese Engineers to get a feeling for How They Feel !!!
If Dinosaur fits for me I fail to see a word for you, oh yes I do it's Ostrich you know Head in the Sand and all that, whilst the World revolves and passes you by.
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
frankwilk
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 14:12
Just some of the Rail Disasters in the UK under BR
50 or more killed [edit] 20 to 49 killed- Hither Green rail crash, 5 November 1967; 49 killed, 78 injured
- Moorgate Underground rail crash, 28 February 1975; 43 killed, 74 injured
- Bourne End rail crash, 30 September 1945; 43 killed, 64 injured
- Castlecary rail accident, 10 December 1937; 35 killed, 179 injured
- Clapham Junction rail crash, 12 December 1988; 35 killed, 100+ injured
- Shipton-on-Cherwell train crash, 24 December 1874; 34 killed, 69 injured
- Abergele train disaster, 20 August 1868; 33 killed, 1+ injured
- South Croydon rail crash, 24 October 1947; 32 killed, 183 injured
- Ladbroke Grove rail crash, 5 October 1999; 31 killed, 400 injured
- Goswick rail crash, 26 October 1947; 28 killed, 65 injured
- Salisbury rail crash, 30 June 1906; 28 killed (24 passengers, 4 crew)
- Norton Fitzwarren rail crash (1940), 4 November 1940; 27 killed
- Darlington rail crash, 27 June 1928; 25 killed
- Hexthorpe rail accident, 16 September 1887, 25 killed
- Thorpe rail accident, 10 September 1874; 25 killed, 100+ injured
- Winsford rail crash (1948), 17 April 1948; 24 killed
- Penistone (Bullhouse Bridge) rail accident, 16 July 1884; 24 killed
- Eccles rail crash (1941), 30 December 1941; 23 killed
- Clayton Tunnel rail crash, 25 August 1861; 23 killed, 176 injured
- Elliot Junction rail accident 28 December 1906; 22 killed
- Lichfield rail crash, 1 January 1946; 20 killed, 21 injured
Frank Wilkinson Once Navy Always Navy |
handlamp
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 15:59
Stanley, I understand that most of the `road lookers' work previously done by platelayers, is now done by high tech track inspection apparatus. You're right though in that nothing can replace the local knowledge inbuilt in the old system.
Frank, BR wasn't there until 1948. There will always be accidents but those caused by slack working and cutting corners, which the 1997 privatisation seemed to encourage, can be avoided. At the time I left in 1983 we had probably attained the safest and most efficient system in railway history which the Tories threw away by their rushed and ill thought out scheme.
Ted |
Another
Traycle Mine Overseer
6250 Posts
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 16:09
Good points Ted. By my reckoning Frank's examples of major disasters under BR reduces to 5 and the number before nationalisation and after privatisation is 21. Nolic
" I'm a self made man who worships his creator"  |
Bradders
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Posted - 31/01/2011 : 16:26
Frank ....I'm sorry but I still don't understand why you mentioned Huntsville ...I have been back to the middle of January on this topic and can't see any mention of Germans , never mind Rockets etc..(but maybe I missed it , and I'll hold my hand up if I did ).
You have ignored my comment about Governments failing , I notice .
We'll have to agree to differ on the travel issue , I'm afraid .....and it's not me that keeps calling you a Dinosaur, either.
(I mentioned Torywilkus Rex , but once !)
BRADDERS BLUESINGER |
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SPEAKER'S CORNER 2012
