Before That, A Disaster Darling ...
In fbb mansions, the man himself took on catering while the Mrs was awaiting, having and recovering from a hip replacement. Rather than her returning to full cook duties, fbb agreed to take on his share. Thus your elderly blogger cooks M, W, F evening meals and Su lunch.
Mrs fbb provides advice, emergency assistance and all victualling duties plus meals Tu, Th and Sa. She is becoming a "dab hand" at spotting short dated bargains at Tesco. Yesterday's was 500 thingys of Meleagris Mince.
So fbb decided to make a Meleagris Pie in similar style to Cottage and Shepherds of that ilk.
The mince, which should have been bubbling away in a cast iron casserole dish, dried out and came close to burning. The debris after fbb's call to International Rescue is pictured below!.jpg)
The lid fell off in the oven and the liquids evaporated while fbb was watching Pointless!
.jpg)
Neither Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, nor Parket her chauffeur ...
... turned up so fbb has to bodge and fudge it.
The fbbs "enjoyed" a slightly singed and rather dry pie, sigh!
Back To More Technology
You would be right. The idea of whizzing tin tray trains along a river of magnets between London nd Birmingham was never a practicality.
But Prof Laithwaite had another jackpot Idea.
Turn the tin tray into a rail and fit the magnets to the carriage.
Above is his assistant placing the rudimentary "car" on the vertical rail, with Eric addressing his audience gleefully. And next we have the "train" whizzing up and down the steep hill!
Subsequently, it was found that the vertical rail was technically impracticable. so the flat (horizontal) rail was used for subsequent demonstrations.
And it was a flat rail which "drove" the very first public Maglev vehicle in the world as it ran between Birmingham International station and Birmingham Airport.
.jpg)
See the flat rail centrally placed below the hovering cabin. fbb rode upon this advance in technology and found it profoundly underwhelming. The only thing you noticed was the silence!
Sadly, when the Maglev needed upgrading and replacing, it was declared that the costs for two highly specialist and unique pods and their track would be far too great. So the airport cabins are now hauled (still automatically) by lengths of string.
The ride is FREE!!!
It still uses the Maglev viaduct and general superstructure.
Apart from industrial use in machines for crash testing bits of car and bits of people (dummies) ...
... Maglev hasn't caught on in the UK.
Eric had another try with hovercraft technology providing the lift and Maglev the propulsion. He wrote a book ...
... and a prototype was built which ran for a whole four miles across Bedfordshire. The plans were for 20 miles but no one would fork out the money!
HTV 31 (whatever happened to the first 30?) now languishes in a field near Bedford where it rots quietly away ignored by everyone except the few remaining enthusiasts.
That great box cross section of concrete track was never viable, surely?
The windows are painted on - it never carried passengers or even a driver for its extensive four mile run. But there are reports that it is being dismantled to see whether it can be up-fettled and made lovely again.
The Government cancelled the project and developed the Advanced Passenger Train instead ...
... and we all know what a huge success that was!
Meanwhile, in the far east ...
... Maglevs of assorted shapes and sizes ...
... are sprouting up all over the orient!
It is still a bit of a niche market - but China's latest effort trumps the lot.
Try to ignore the drivel about the UKs HS2 plans (ignorant press nonsense) and try to ignore the fact that this train is displayed standing on a large cardboard box with no sign of track, but do understand the genuineness of the project.
Will it ever happen?
China is a dictatorship (hence its name, The People's Republic of China!), so it probably will.
Is it commercially viable?
Probably not!
Will we ever see the technology on the UK?
Absolutely not!
But we can dream ...
... and dream some more ...
... and have nightmares!
190 miles an hour? Passengers would surely disintegrate!
Next Whitby blog : Fri 25 July
A ‘field near Bedford’ is actually the Peterborough end of the Nene Valley Railway, quite a long way from Bedford. I’ve seen it.
ReplyDeleteSo have I - it looked very tatty.
ReplyDeleteThe "atomic train" (second from bottom) looks like a "souped-up" version of the GM "Aerotrain" which did (and still does) exist.