This is the age

Of the ironic way. Le chemin de fer, el ferrocarril, die Eisenbahn. Damn it, we invented it and gave it to the world. I alluded in my last posting to the Thomas the Tank Engine character, can’t quite remember his name (no, not Ringo), whose repetitive strain as regards HS2 is that he’s right and everyone else has got it wrong. Recently he’s been televised, uttering his habitual spiel, on Nottingham station, while it was closed for 5 weeks for infrastructural improvements.  It’s a location highly appropriate, symbolic even, for Thomas the Tank, for this precise spot illustrates so well the historical failures of railway planning.

Right at the start of the Age of Steam, Nottingham decided that it didn’t want anything to do with the new-fangled railway, so Derby got it instead, with good connections and lots of railway-related employment that have lasted down the years and done that city proud. Having missed the – er – train, Nottingham’s wise elders belatedly allowed their city to be connected via a spur to the Midland Railway, which in turn became part of the London Midland division of British Railways, and was subsequently branded the Midland Mainline – all three affiliations commanding respect, loyalty, and a degree of affection. Latterly this route has been operated by East Midlands Trains.

Post-Beeching, Nottingham abandoned its larger and centrally located station, Victoria - a vast cathedral-like, cavernous place, on the former Great Central line - in favour of the Midland, draughtily inconvenient on the dodgy southern periphery of the central area and permanently infused with the ambient whiff of decomposing mailbags (perhaps the 5 week closure has allowed them to be located). Of course it’s true that Derby, Crewe and Birmingham would have been awkward to reach from Victoria, and that the glories of dear old St Pancras itself may have been imperilled by such a loss of traffic if Nottingham Midland had closed. Victoria, however, had the potential for fast services to Sheffield and Leeds, and to Leicester and London. That is, to the centres of those cities, not to “hubs” quite near them. In short, and not to put too fine a point on it, the obvious route for HS2’s proposed north easterly extensions was there, built, ready, waiting for someone with some imagination.

The old Great Central out of Marylebone, the last UK main line to be built before the Eurostar link, was well engineered for high speeds and smooth running. It traversed the centres of Leicester and Nottingham via magnificent viaducts and tunnels. Since the line closed in the Sixties much of this infrastructure has been done away with, vandalised, and the right of way built over.

In Nottingham, lines 2 and 3 of the NET tram network are currently under construction, part of the route being along the old Great Central axis. Other than those who stand to benefit financially, directly, most local people appear lukewarm about these developments in a city already blessed with good bus services that could be improved still further at relatively little extra cost. At present, the construction work is causing considerable road traffic disruption. Naturally, there was a business case for the tram project, with suitably impressive figures – investment, jobs – dreamed up accordingly. The benefits to public transport were apparently incidental, an irrelevance, as were the environmental objections. It was very obviously all about money and politics. Ah yes, a business case. Sound familiar?

Thus it was especially amusing to see Thomas the Tank on the telly, puffing away “I know I’m right, I know I’m right” upon a dreary platform at Nottingham station, a platform which was spanned by a sturdy girder bridge until it was thoughtfully demolished a few years ago. This was the bridge that carried the Great Central from London into Nottingham Victoria and beyond. It’s now being rebuilt as the Karlsruhe Friendship Bridge, since Nottingham is twinned with Karlsruhe (along with Minsk and Harare, both exemplar cities for the democratic process). The KFB will take the unasked-for tram extension, the very system that so effectively helps to block the sensible route for HS2 up to Sheffield and Leeds. I’m glad that Thomas, or whatever his real name is, came to see it. I’m not sure exactly what the bridge is made of, but in certain lights it looks kind of irony.