He started working life down a pit age six, ran half the coalfield by his thirties, and built an entire harbour to spite his rivals. They called him the King of the Coal Trade, and [more…]
For generations, the phrase “grim up north” has lingered in the national imagination — conjuring images of soot-stained skylines, struggling towns, and industries long past their prime. It is a shorthand that flattens the region [more…]
DIP’s nuclear element The vast expense of the nuclear element of the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) – by far its largest commitment – draws us to focus on the following: Dreadnought nuclear deterrent ballistic submarines [more…]
At 21 he was building the locomotives for Brunel’s Great Western Railway. Then he took Brunel’s Great Eastern and used it to lay the first lasting telegraph cable across the Atlantic. This is the man [more…]
The Defence Investment Plan Something jumps from the page (number 21 to be exact) of the recently published, much-delayed and much-anticipated Defence Investment Plan (DIP). It is the sheer cost of what the wallahs at [more…]
Burnham, Starmer, by-elections, defence reviews, World Cups, wars and the cost of living? Meh. Never mind all of that, what’s happening in the realer world of little trains? I have an embarrassing gap on my [more…]
Known for muck and brass, the grim north of England was formerly a hotbed of the Industrial Revolution, rich in sweat, resources, enterprise and plutocrats. Nowadays synonymous with grim decline, my wife and I have [more…]
Before George Stephenson’s name ended up on everything, a colliery manager from Newburn settled the one argument that decided whether railways would ever work. He won it with a hand-cranked cart, two iron engines, and [more…]
Born in the same village as George Stephenson, 5 years earlier. The man who saved the Stockton and Darlington when the engines kept breaking down. The man who built Russia’s first locomotive… and then vanished [more…]
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